In a move that isn't much of a surprise, retailer Target is quietly increasing shelf space allocated for Blu Ray discs.

Target announced in July that they would sell Blu Ray players, but not carry rival HD DVD hardware this holiday season. At the time of the announcement they also made it clear that they would continue to offer their customers movies in both formats. The change in shelf space dedicated to Blu Ray makes sense given their holiday alliance with Sony to exclusively carry Blu Ray hardware. Blu Ray has steadily gained marketshare in 2007, spearheaded by Playstation 3 videogame console sales. HD DVD claims the lead over Blu Ray in installed standalone players, and since Paramount announced exclusive HD DVD support, HD DVD sales have been creeping back upwards. Nielsen sales ratio of discs sold since inception stands at 61% Blu Ray 39% HD DVD as of September 9.

The holiday season is overwhelmingly important for both sides, as we wait to see if Toshiba can capitalize on it's current momentum, or if Sony will grind HD DVD down with it's sheer numbers and retail shelf space advantage.

Swedish component maker Primare showed two new home theater products last week at CEDIA that somehow slipped through the cracks.

The Primare SPA22 is an integrated AV amp, combining both preamp and amplifier sections and eschewing AM/FM tuners. The 5.1 channel SPA22 has a class D amplifier section, and is rated at 100 watts per channel. Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio decoding are expected to be features by the time the unit ships in December. The unit is an HDMI 1.3 compliant device, and accepts input from three HDMI components, with only one output. The unit is expected to fall somewhere in the $5000-6000 range.

The Primare SP32 is a traditional pre/pro, no amplifier section like the SPA22. The SP32 adds balanced outputs and "upgraded parts". As to what "upgraded parts" refers to, details are sparse at this time, but perhaps the amp-less SP32 will offer an upgrade in DAC quality. The SP32 also offers 3 in-1 out HDMI 1.3 switching. The SP32 is expected to sell for around the same price as the SPA22 when it ships this December.

Toshiba released firmware version 2.5 for their second generation (HD-A2, HD-A20 and HD-XA2) HD DVD players today.

The new firmware enables 1080p24 output. All HD DVD discs are encoded at 1080p24, but until now they converted to television-friendly 60 Hz. With more and more televisions and projectors supporting the native film framerate of 24 Hz, Toshiba has finally addressed one of the complaints of HD DVD users who wanted to utilize this output mode.

Owners of the above models can download the firmware via the player's ethernet connection, or can download an .iso file here to burn on cd and install via that method.

In an article published today by TWICE, President of Warner Bros. Home Video Ron Sanders stated that Warner has enjoyed strong sales on both formats and would continue to support both.

In the interview, Sanders stated that Warner's TotalHD format, which combines Blu Ray and HD DVD on one disc, was on hold. Sanders said that talks are still ongoing with retailers, but with Warner being the only studio supporting TotalHD one would have to speculate that Warner might not want to drive a disc format that no one else adopts, much less give up the profit margin that would be lost on the expensive to produce TotalHD discs. He did say that he liked the idea of combo players, but expressed concerns that they were at the wrong price point for mass adoption. Sanders did hint that fourth quarter sales will influence whether Warner accepts financial incentives from one side or the other to commit to exclusivity, or remain neutral.

Colorado based brick and mortar AV retailer Listen Up has posted an interview with Denon's Jeff Talmadge, Director of Product Development and Systems Integration.

In the interview Talmadge discusses the forthcoming Denon Blu Ray players, and states that Denon is committed to supporting both Blu Ray and HD DVD, and that a combo player ranks very highly on their list of priorities. However, of particular interest is when Talmadge lets it slip that Profile 1.1 Blu Ray discs may not play properly in Profile 1.0 players. All players and discs starting October 2007 will adhere to Blu Ray Profile 1.1.

To date all Blu Ray players are Profile 1.0, and unlike HD DVD, not all Blu Ray players are equipped with ethernet for firmware updates. If the hundreds of thousands of Blu Ray players now installed are unable to properly play discs that are manufactured after October this is a big deal. Three words: Class action lawsuit.

While it's been public knowledge that Profile 1.0 players would be unable to utilize Blu Ray's BD-J interactive features once they are implemented, if Talmadge is correct the troubled format may have even bigger problems ahead of it.

OLED is one of the display technologies that we'll be talking about for some time, as it's been touted as one of the technologies that will supplant current display technologies.

OLED stands for organic light emitting diode. The benefits of OLED over LCD are that OLED requires no backlight, requires far less power than LCD or plasma to function and costs significantly less to produce. OLED also enjoys a very fast response time, about 0.01 ms or less. OLED is essentially printed on a polymer carrier, and because OLED requires no backlight the resulting display is very thin. This makes OLED especially suited for smaller displays where space is limited. With OLED, Dick Tracy-esque wristwatches with color televisions embedded in them are possible. The reason OLED has not taken the market by storm so far is that OLED has a relatively short life span. Manufacturers have been working to replace the chemical component of OLED with a phosphorescent one, in order to create a display that has a life span on par with technologies currently in the market.

Sony has announced their first OLED display, an 11 inch model, for sale in Japan this December. Hopefully it won't be long before OLED displays are available in home theater-friendly sizes.