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Welcome to our Blu-ray and HD-DVD coverage of Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) 2006, the world's largest electronics and IT show, which was held from September 1-6, 2006 in Berlin, Germany. We were of course there sweeping the trade show floors for everything related to Blu-ray and HD-DVD to bring you all the latest developments.

Welcome to IFA 2006 held at Messe Berlin from September 1st to September 6th, 2006		Over 225,000 people visited IFA 2006	Over 1,000 exhibitors were at the show

The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) as usual had a joint booth where member companies displayed their upcoming Blu-ray players, recorders, drives, movies, media, and software. The biggest news from the BDA was their plans to expand Blu-ray beyond the US and begin rolling out Blu-ray in Europe and other territories this fall. There was also a myriad of other announcements by movie studios and members companies about upcoming Blu-ray products and movie releases, including the first wave of releases from 20th Century Fox, and TDK's development of a recordable 200GB Blu-ray Disc prototype.

Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) booth at IFA 2006 with Blu-ray players, recorders, drives, movies, media and software
Blu-ray media	Dell and Sonic	Samsung, Pioneer, Panasonic, Philips, Sony	TDK, Panasonic, Sharp, Hitachi, LG
Philips, Sony, Nero, CyberLink, HP		TDK video about Durabis2	DTS-HD demo

We were also on the lookout for any unannounced movies that might be coming soon to Blu-ray. The following lists include movies that we haven't seen announced anywhere yet, where either covers/packaging was shown at IFA or where the movies were featured in movie trailers as "Coming Soon to Blu-ray". Of course this doesn't mean that these titles will be released anytime soon, but some might still find the information interesting.

Philips had an entire hall to themselves and like several other companies they had quite a large section dedicated to Blu-ray Disc. They showed off a wide range of Blu-ray products, including their upcoming Blu-ray player, Blu-ray TripleWriter, as well as Media Center PCs with Blu-ray drives. The BDP9000 Blu-ray player, which supports 1080p output via HDMI as well as upconversion of DVDs to 1080i/1080p, is currently scheduled for US release in October and will be available in Europe in early 2007. The Blu-ray TripleWriter SPD7000 drive, which can record and playback all optical storage formats including Blu-ray, DVD and CD, will be available in the US and Europe in September. The Philips Showline Media Center MCP9480i, which features triple recording (BD/DVD/CD), a 320GB hard drive, 1GB RAM and a keyboard, will be released in Europe (UK, Germany, Holland and Belgium) in December for about €2,300.

Philips' exhibition	Philips' Blu-ray section at IFA		BD Media Center demonstration
Philips' Cineos-brand BDP9000 Blu-ray player			Backside of BDP9000
Philips' Showline Media Center MCP9480i			MCP9480i with front open
Philips' Blu-ray TripleWriter SPD7000 in silver and black			SPD7000 box

Panasonic, which had their own hall at IFA 2005, didn't even have a booth this year, but they were still displaying some of their upcoming Blu-ray products in the joint BDA booth. The DMP-BD10 Blu-ray player, which features 1080p output via HDMI as well as upconversion of DVDs to 1080i/1080p, had a slightly different look from what we've seen before which should be close to the final design. The player is scheduled for release in September in the US and sometime this Autumn in Europe. Panasonic also displayed three Blu-ray drives, a half-height Blu-ray drive (SW-5582), a slim slot Blu-ray drive (UJ-215) and a slim tray Blu-ray Drive (UJ-210). All of the Blu-ray drives support reading and writing of Blu-ray Discs and are fully backwards-compatible with DVDs and CDs.

Panasonic's upcoming DMP-DB10 Blu-ray player			BD drives, slim tray half height, slim slot

Pioneer once again showed their upcoming BDP-HD1 Blu-ray player, playing Blu-ray movies and displaying information about Blu-ray and the BDA. Like most other companies with Blu-ray players, they also had a designated "Studio" with their own HD home theater setup to showcase Blu-ray.

Pioneer's exhibition	BDP-HD1 playing BD movie trailers and BDA info		Pioneer's home studio demonstration
Pioneer's Elite-brand BDP-HD1 Blu-ray player			BDP-HD1 from behind

Samsung also had a large Blu-ray section which was split into different areas, including a Blu-ray Vision Zone where they were playing Blu-ray movies and showing HD vs SD comparisons, a Blu-ray Technology Zone showing the internals of the Blu-ray products, and a popular Blu-ray Home Theater where they were showing Blu-ray movies and offering presentations of the Blu-ray format. They once again showed their BD-P1000 Blu-ray player, which already is out in the US and which will be released in Europe in October. The player will soon get a firmware update to fix the problem with the faulty setting for the noise filter reduction circuit that has generated some negative reviews because of the softness of the picture. The firmware update will also enable the player to play Java-enabled bonus features. Samsung also showed their SH-B022 Blu-ray writer, which supports reading and writing of Blu-ray Discs, DVDs and CDs.

Samsung's exhibition	HD versus SD comparison	Blu-ray technology demonstration	Blu-ray home theater
Blu-ray home theater presentation
Samsung's BD-P1000 Blu-ray player			Samsung's SH-B022 Blu-ray writer

Sony showed a wide range of Blu-ray related products, including a Blu-ray player, Blu-ray writer, as well as a VAIO notebook with a Blu-ray drive. The BDP-S1 Blu-ray player, which supports 1080p output via HDMI as well as upconversion of DVDs to 1080i/1080p, is currently scheduled for US release in October. The BWU-100A Blu-ray writer, which reads and writes Blu-ray Discs as well as DVDs and CDs is already available for about $750. Sony also showed their PlayStation 3 (PS3) game console, which drew a lot of attention as usual and with over one million consoles pre-sold the demand is not an issue. Unfortunately the supply is, which is why the PS3 recently was delayed in Europe until early 2007. The US and Japan will still get their PS3s in November, but with less PS3s than originally planned because of problems ramping up production of some key components. However, there should still be twice as many PS3s available for launch compared to when the Xbox 360 launched back in 2005. According to the Sony representative at IFA they had a "problem" with some people coming to IFA with their PS3 pre-order receipts and demanding to get a PS3 ;-)

BDP-S1 playing movie trailers	Sony VAIO VGN-AR21S notebook		Sony's BWU-100A Blu-ray writer
PS3 demo, currently showing "Resistance Fall of Man"		PlayStation 3	PS3 supported formats

Sharp had a lot of Blu-ray stuff on display including two Blu-ray players and a complete HD Home Studio System with Blu-ray functionality. The DV-BP1 Blu-ray player, which has been upgraded to support 1080p output via HDMI and upconversion of DVDs to 1080i/1080p, had a completely new design from the one we saw earlier this year at CES 2006. What surprised us more though was that we found another mysterious Blu-ray player that looked very slick in another section of their hall. The player doesn't appear to have a model number yet and when we asked a Sharp representative about the player they weren't able to provide us with any more information other than that it was a prototype for a newer model. Sharp also had a "BD Cinema" room where they were demonstrating playback of Blu-ray movies using the BD-MPC10, a complete HD Home Theater System with Blu-ray functionality and a new Time Domain Speaker Technology which produces coherent and low distortion sound waves that result in true, crystal-clear sound. The retail price for the BD-MPC10 will be about €2,999 in Europe, which will include the special tower speakers. The Sharp representative couldn't give us an exact launch date for the system, but hinted at Q1-Q2 2007.

Sharp's exhibition	Sharp's AQUOS-brand DV-BP1 Blu-ray player
BD versus SD demonstration		BD Cinema demonstration
Sharp's HD Home Studio System BD-MPC10			BD-MPC10 from the back
Sharp's prototype AQUOS-brand Blu-ray player, no model number yet

LG, which previously has shown both a Blu-ray player (BD199) and a HD-DVD player (HD199) only displayed their Blu-ray player this year. When we last saw the Blu-ray player at CES 2006 the player was called BD199, but it now appears to have been changed to BD100.

LG's exhibition	"X-Men 2" interactivity demonstration	LG's BD100 Blu-ray player

Hitachi displayed their prototype Blu-ray recorder (000BD) playing movie trailers for upcoming Blu-ray movies. When asked about their plans for the recorder the Hitachi representative informed us that it was unlikely to be commercialized in this form, but that they planned to introduce other Blu-ray products sometime next year. They had Ice Age 2 playing on a desktop computer using their GBW-H10N Blu-ray drive, which supports reading and writing of Blu-ray Discs, DVDs and CDs. They were also displaying various Blu-ray media under their Maxell-brand.

Hitachi's exhibition	Playback of Hitachi's Blu-ray recorder	Hitachi-LG's GBW-H10N Blu-ray rewriter
Hitachi's prototype BD/HDD recorder			Maxell's BD media 25GB/50GB BD-R/BD-RE

Lite-On, which we haven't seen any Blu-ray products from before, showed their upcoming internal/external Blu-ray writers as well as their Blu-ray player. The internal LX-2B1S Blu-ray writer is scheduled for release in October and will sell for about €799 and the external LX-2B1U Blu-ray writer will be released a couple of months later (November-December) and will sell for about €999. The BDP-X1 Blu-ray player will be released sometime in the middle of 2007 and the price will be set depending on the market.

Lite-On's booth left view	Lite-On's BDP-X1 Blu-ray player
Lite-On's booth right view	Lite-On's external LX-2B1U Blu-ray writer
LX-2B1U and LX-2B1S	Lite-On's internal LX-2B1S Blu-ray writer

Dell showed a desktop computer (XPS 700) and notebook (XPS M1710) featuring Blu-ray drives from Philips and Panasonic. They were using PowerDVD BD to show movie trailers and demonstrate the interactive features of Blu-ray.

Dell's section at the BDA booth		"X-Men 2" interactivity demonstration using PowerDVD BD

AMEX is a Hong Kong based company which showed their upcoming M505-BDR Media Center PC with Blu-ray playback and recording functionality. The M505-BDR will feature an Intel Pentium 3.0GHz 64bit dual core processor, 1TB HDD, 2GB RAM, 10/100 Base-T LAN 802.11bg Wi-Fi Compliant, HDMI-out and HD-audio. It supports playback of all BD/DVD/CD formats as well as recording of Blu-ray Discs and DVDs. While they couldn't give us an exact launch date as they're still looking for distributors, the price is expected to be around $2,000.

AMEX booth	AMEX M505-BDR Media Center PC

Misubishi didn't have any of their own Blu-ray products on display this year, but they did have a really nice home theater setup in a dark room where they were demonstrating their latest 1080p projector, the HC5000. The really nice Japanese technician gave us a quick private show of his equipment. He was using Sharp's Blu-ray recorder (because it has an HDMI-output) to play Blu-ray movies on the HC5000. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take any photos, but the image quality was incredible. With a retail price of €3,990, this projector might not appeal to the average consumer, but we think it's a really good price for this kind of projector.

While there was no HD-DVD Promotion Group booth at this years IFA, Toshiba did their best to make up for it by showing a wide range of HD-DVD related products in their own booth, including two HD-DVD players, multiple HD-DVD drives, as well as some of their Qosmio laptops featuring HD-DVD drives. The HD-E1 HD-DVD player, which corresponds to the upcoming HD-A2 but for the European market, was plentiful on display in various locations throughout the booth. The HD-XE1 HD-DVD player on the other hand, which corresponds to the upcoming HD-XA2, was nowhere to be found but we did manage to locate a prototype HD-XA2 HD-DVD player. The HD-E1 and HD-XE1 will be launched in Europe in November and will retail for €599 and €999, respectively. On display were also several HD-DVD drives (half-height, slim slot, slim tray), as well as some Toshiba Qosmio laptops with internal HD-DVD drives. We also happened to run into Toshiba's RD-A1 HD-DVD recorder (which only is released in Japan) being used by another company to demonstrate their HD products, so we took a few photos of it.

Toshiba's booth	HD-DVD presentation	HD-DVD movies
Toshiba laptops with HD-DVD drives			HD-DVD drives
Toshiba's HD-E1 HD-DVD player			HD-DVD media
Toshiba's prototype HD-XA2 HD-DVD player			HD-XA2 from the back
Toshiba's VARDIA-brand RD-A1 HD-DVD recorder			RD-A1 from behind

Lite-On, with the exception of Toshiba, was the only company we found showing a HD-DVD player at IFA this year. While we weren't able to get any details about the pricing for the HDP-Z1 HD-DVD player they said they expect to release the player sometime next year.

Lite-On's booth	Lite-On's HDP-Z1 HD-DVD player

That's the end of yet another IFA report, we hope you found it interesting. As usual we'd like to thank all of the companies and exhibitors at IFA that allowed us to take photos of their products and answered all of our questions. To discuss the new Blu-ray players, recorders, writers, drives, movies and media, check out the Blu-ray Forum.

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