Matsushita Electric Industrial is launching four new Blu-ray recorders in Japan on November 1, under their Panasonic brand, they announced at the CEATEC show in Japan. Matsushita is the world’s largest consumer electronics maker. They also plan to offer three DVD recorders which can record HD content onto standard DVDs. (Most likely the ‘BD9′ format which is part of the Blu-ray spec – which is basically Blu-ray codecs, et al, on DVD9 media aka a dual-layer DVD-R/RW.) The Blu-ray recorders will include hard drives, the largest, with a 1TB drive, selling for the equivalent of roughly $2,600. The top end DVD recorder with HD support (not to be confused with HD DVD) will have a 500GB drive and will sell for roughly $1,125.

Also at CEATEC, Matsushita executive Kazuhiro Tsuga said that Blu-ray manufacturers will be cutting prices and going on a ‘promotional binge’ this holiday season. He said that by the end of the Christmas season, or the end of the first quarter, the will be on the wall for the format way and the war may only last another year.

“The BD (Blu-ray disc) companies will try to do our best to promote Blu-ray,” he said. “The studios want us to put money in to promote it.”

He added: “By the end of the year, you will see good products with very good promotion.”

Back in June I told you about the promotional offer wherein you could get five free movies with the purchase of specific models of Blu-ray player. Well, that offer expired on September 30 – yesterday. In what should be of no surprise to anyone, today there is a new Five Free Blu-ray Movies offer which runs from October 1, 2007 through January 31, 2008. As before, the offer is at BluRaySavings.com.

You can select five films from a list of 18, in five groups (you can only pick one per group). Some of the titles carried over from the first promotion, but many are new:

Eligible players are:
PlayStation3: CECHA01, CECHE01/98137, CECHG01
Sony Electronics: BDP-S300/301, BDP-S1, BDP-S2000ES, HES-V1000, BDP-S500
Samsung: BD-P1200, BD-P1400, BDP1400C, BD-P2400
Panasonic: DMP-BD10K, DMP-BD10AK, DMP-BD30K
Pioneer: BDP-94HD, BDP-95FD
Philips: BDP9000/37

Interestingly, on the PlayStation3, those are the 60GB and 80GB models – and an as-of-yet unannounced model. There are many rumors swirling that a $399 40GB PS3 will be announced on October 12th as Sony has called a press conference for that day with the promise of a big announcement.

If you submitted the previous offer, you can check on the status of your claim at this site. Thanks to Blu-ray.com.

In other Blu-ray news, in their September 27, 2007 newsletter (PDF) the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) claims that Blu-ray is establishing itself in Europe even more rapidly than predicted. They claim that BD movie sales across Europe are moving ahead of HD DVD sales, and in the UK BD is outselling HD DVD by a margin of 4 to 1 – even better than the 2 to 1 margin in the US.

Also picked up from Blu-ray.com.