Asus was largely responsible for the explosion of the netbook market, with their Eee PC line. The Eee PC was one of the most popular, and best selling, netbook lines. So it probably shouldn’t be a big surprise that the Eee Pad Transformer is doing well in the tablet market. It has a solid combination of features, on par with the other leading Android tablets (same screen size & resolution, same CPU, same OS) and arguably better HW specs than the iPad 2, a relatively low price – lower than the other Android tablets and the iPad 2, and great flexibility with the available keyboard dock – which basically makes it a netbook, something Asus knows how to do well.

Asustek’s tablet shipments are expected to grow further in the third quarter, the sources said. The company has requested its touch panel providers supply a monthly target of 400,000-500,000 units during the quarter, the sources noted.

Asus has apparently set an even loftier stretch goal of shipping 4-4.5 million tablets in the second half of the year, based on reported contract orders.

As you’re probably sick of hearing me say by now, I’m kind of stuck in an indecision loop between buying the Transformer or the Toshiba Thrive. They both have features the other does not that I find appealing.

Via PC World.

And now DIGITIMES is reporting that China Hualu Panasonic AVC Networks, a joint venture between China-based China Hualu Group and Panasonic, has launched three Blu-ray player models for the domestic Chinese market. The three models are the BDP0801, BDP0810 and BDP0821, with retail prices of 1,999 yuan (US$292), 2,299 yuan and 2,499 yuan respectively. The BDP0801 is an entry-level BonusView/Profile 1.1 model, as is the BDP0810. The BDP0821 is a full-featured BD-Live/Profile 2.0 player.

The article says the CBHD camp still plans to launch players around the end of the year. But seeing as the article is from 12/29 they don’t have much time left to pull that off. And, of course, no western studios have pledged to support CBHD even if it does launch.

Picked up from Blu-ray.com.

Now DIGITIMES has spotted the disc being exhibited at the IT Month fair currently taking place in Taipei, Taiwan. As before it is a 16-layer read-only disc, 25GB per layer just like Blu-ray. And they’re working on a 500GB, 20-layer version, with a 1TB target by 2013. The current version is targeted for 2008-2010, with rewritable discs in 2010-2012.

Spotted via Gizmodo.

Of course, the BDA hasn’t just been standing by while this happens, shortly after CH-DVD was announced the BDA announced that they too were considering the Chinese codecs. And taking it a step further, unlike CBHD, which is a ghetto standard restricted only to China, the BDA is considering adding the codecs to the global Blu-ray specification.

And, despite predictions from HD DVD fans that it would ‘never happen’, the BDA has approved several Chinese CE vendors to produce Blu-ray players. And even more players have been announced recently at SinoCES. With most of their major CE vendors cranking out Blu-ray players for the growing global market player availability will rise, while unit costs fall. With a limited domestic market, CBHD will have a hard time competing with the falling BD player costs.

DIGITIMES cites lower costs as the main advantage for CBHD over BD. An existing DVD line can be converted to press CBHD for around USD$800,000, while establishing a new BD line costs around USD$3,000,000. And the licenses required to produce a CBHD player are around USD$8.10, reportedly much less than the equivalent BD licenses. However, a BD production line can take orders for export discs as well, making it easier to keep the line busy – and making money. A CBHD line is only good for domestic disc pressing. And the licensing costs for BD are expected to drop sharply in the coming years. Plus a production line can be shared between domestic and export players, spreading the non-licensing overhead costs over a larger production base.

If the BDA can complete the China-ized version of the BD specification to receive Chinese governmental approval for the format, it should easily squeeze CBHD out of the market just as it did to HD DVD.

Picked up via EngadgetHD.