Bill, thank you for the TiVo Rewards Referral.

TiVo’s Chief Marketing Officer, Clent Richardson, will be the keynote speaker at The Liquid Brand Summit 2008 on February 26th. The Liquid Brand Summit is a one day event for technology brand and marketing executives, and will be held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Palo Alto, CA. Registration for the event is now open.

Their press release:
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As I posted on Monday, the PlayStation3 did indeed receive firmware update 2.10 on Tuesday. Among other things, this gives the PS3 Blu-ray Profile 1.1 support - the main feature of which is PIP support. (The PS3 is expected to be upgraded to Profile 2.0 aka BD-Live in 2008. It has the required hardware.) While there are not yet any commercial available Profile 1.1 titles to try, Blu-ray.com received a screener copy of Resident Evil: Extinction, one of the first titles that will have Profile 1.1 content, and put it through its paces. The Profile 1.1 features worked perfectly on the PS3, providing interactive commentary tracks during playback of the film. And, despite the FUD from some HD DVD fans, the Profile 1.1 disc worked just fine in a 1.0 player (the Panasonic DMP-BD10), and the 1.1 content was simply not presented to the viewer as an option at all. Just as it is supposed to work - backwards compatibility. Checkout the Blu-ray.com article for screencaps of their testing.

Adweek has an interesting article on the high-stakes war of words being waged between the Blu-ray and HD DVD camps. Both sides are stepping up their marketing efforts, and increasing their marketing spend, to win more converts to their formats.

“It’s now a real format war,” said Steve Martin, president of WPP Group’s SicolaMartin, Austin, Texas, the agency that handled the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) trade group—backed by Hitachi, LG Electronics, Matsushita Electric (Panasonic), Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and Thomson—until last summer when the BDA jumped to movie-advertising specialty shop Trailer Park, Hollywood, Calif., signaling the marketing emphasis to come. “My feeling is that the power of the studios is so strong in the Blu-ray camp … it may be the decisive factor,” Martin said. “In any case, I would expect a significant increase in marketing. [HD-DVD promoter] Toshiba won’t go down without a fight. Once you’re all-in, you have to go all the way.”

First it was Panasonic, then it was Sony, and now VUDU is using an HDTV bundle promotion to promote their products. Purchase a 42″ or larger 1080p Sharp AQUOS LCD HDTV through VUDU’s website by January 5, 2008 and receive a free VUDU box ($399 MSRP) and a $50 movie credit. They’re offering 42″, 46″, 52″ and 65″ models, with prices ranging from $1,799.00 (42″) to $7,999.00 (65″).

They dropped a press release about the promotion:
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Buy.com is having a sale on Sony Blu-ray titles. 32 titles to choose from, 21 for $16 and 11 for $22.

Scott and Dave, thank you for the TiVo Rewards Referrals.

Amazon is selling select Lionsgate Blu-ray titles for just $13.95. OK, it is very select, just six titles: Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Stargate, Total Recall, The Punisher, Stir of Echoes, and The Devil’s Rejects. Via Blu-ray.com.

Archos has released an update for their 605 WiFi and 705 WiFi Portable Media Players that will allow them to sync content from the Dish Network VIP622 and VIP722 DVRs. This continues a long term working relationship between Archos and Dish Network, which started back in 2005 when they Dish Network released their ‘PocketDISH’ PMPs, which were produced by Archos. They dropped a press release (PDF) about the update, and plans to show it off at CES. The press release says this plug-in is available today - but I don’t see it on the Archos website. Via EngadgetHD.

Anthony, thank you for the TiVo Rewards Referral.