Sony and YouTube = Friendship

An interesting tid bit of news was revealed in a CNET podcast claiming that Sony Pictures is considering to stream some of its full length content on YouTube. If this deal comes to fruition it would definitely bring some competition to site like Hulu. YouTube attracts millions of people daily and mostly features short videos, so streaming full length content would definitely be a huge indication that YouTube is ready to play big!

Seeing Sony being proactive in digital media distribution and its free of charge availability is a step ahead in my opinion.  More interestingly since YouTube is owned by Google, we see a good trend of their partnership, recently reported Sony Reader to be open to Google’s library and now video distribution through YouTube would open lots of possibilities, for example to be added in Bravia widgets and the upcoming Walkman X series will definitely be of good use since it supports YouTube.

Read more about the deal here.

Sony Set To Offer 6x 50gb Dual Layer Blank Blu-ray Media

If you currently own a Blu-ray burner (for PC, exotic Sony Japan BD DVR, etc), then you’re finding that these blank  25/50gb Blu-rays are costing anywhere from $25-50+ USD for a single disc, and perhaps less in bulk. SonyStyle USA currently only offers a 1-2x blank Blu-ray disc in the aforementioned sizes, but it looks like Sony Japan has taken the wraps off a single-sided 6x speed 50gb dual layer disc for video, and another seperate for data. The only other companies making 6x recordable Blu-ray discs that we can spot at the moment is TDK and Panasonic, so perhaps this is an indication that many more companies will be at this speed soon as well and more burners out there will support it.

The BNR2VBPJ6 and BNR2DBPJ6 discs will sell on April 20th (my birthday) in Japan for a suggested retail of 1,700Y ($16USD), but store prices should be a bit less. No word on availability elsewhere.

Here are the wrappers:

Update on VAIO P Refresh

Remember our post on VAIO P update? Well, here are some more deets and hopefully less confusing info. The new and refreshed in specs VAIO P will be in 600 series range and the 700 series will follow up later in the year. Sony has a special model numbering designated to a region where a product is released; therefore the breakdown goes like this:

Latin America gets the P610T refresh in the same color spectrum it was originally released: Green, Black (letter Q P610T/Q), Red and White.

Brazil get the P630A with the same color variation as mentioned above.

USA/Canada will be boasting the following models:

Non-SSD (Solid State Drive): VGN-P630A (same colors), VGN-P650T/Q

SSD Models: VGN-P688E (same colors), VGN-P698E/Q in Black and VGN-P698E/R in Red as well as high end models VGN-P699E/Q and P699E/R

All in all, VAIO P is here to stay at least for the summer/fall seasons. Sorry about no info on the specifications, stay tuned though! Like I said before, more to come!

Exclusive Vaio C Series Owner Made Crocodile Style

Sony Japan has updated their C series of laptops with a strange new design – crocodile skin laptops – certainly something we’ve never seen before. This is another attempt by Sony to cater to the stylish folk out there who want their laptop to match their style. The new CS series are available now for pre-order and this exclusive Vaio Owner Made edition will be available in brown, red, and pink. Sony reproduced the crocodile effect by creating a real bumps and irregularities of textured pattern using plastic. At first, we nearly thought that it was real leather from the pictures.

The official model numbers are VGN-CS92DS, VGN-CS92JS, and VGN-CS92XS – should be available on April 18th only in Japan for 104,800Y ($1,024).

What do you think about this design?

Sony Building Celebrates A Century Of Carnations In Japan

Here are three thousand carnations displayed at Sony building in early April in Tokyo, Japan. Carnation production in Japan started in 1909 when a florist brought seeds back from United States; Sony and Japanese around the country are celebrating a century of carnations. For the most part, carnations express love, fascination, and distinction, though there are many variations dependent on color. Light red carnations represent admiration, while dark red denote deep love and affection. White carnations indicate pure love and good luck, while striped symbolise a regret that a love cannot be shared. Pink carnations have the most symbolic and historical significance. According to a Christian legend, carnations first appeared on Earth as Jesus carried the Cross. The Virgin Mary shed tears at Jesus’ plight, and carnations sprang up from where her tears fell. Thus the pink carnation became the symbol of a mother’s undying love.

Watching A Movie At An AMC Theater? It’ll Be A Sony.

Sony says it has signed a $315 million deal to install its digital projectors in all AMC Entertainment theaters. The contract will close the gap between Sony and Texas Instruments in the digital projector market. Texas Instruments has equipped 5,476 screens in North American theaters with its digital light processing projectors. The deal with AMC will increase Sony’s presence to about 5,000 screens. The Sony projectors will be installed beginning in the second quarter this year and continue through 2012.

Frank Rash, an AMC senior vice president, said AMC settled on Sony’s 4K technology because “digital cinema gives us a huge opportunity to do 3-D, live broadcasts and playback of live events.”

Rick Clancy, Senior VP of Corporate Communications at Sony, has further analysis of this Sony/AMC endeavor.

Sony Insider exclusively covered a live, 3D (RealD) theater experience of the 2009 BCS College Football Championship earlier this year. It is a very interesting read and exposes the good, bad, and the ugly of a live 3D experience in its infancy.

Sony And Daktronics Pitch Ultimate HD Experience At Cincinnati Reds Great American Ball Park

The Cincinnati Reds have chosen Daktronics and Sony Electronics to upgrade the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati with a state-of-the-art, integrated display system featuring Daktronics HD-X light emitting diode (LED) technology and Sony high-definition video production technology. The new system includes a large high-definition LED video display and other LED displays from Daktronics, which are installed and will be operational prior to the start of the 2009 Major League Baseball season.

“We are extremely excited to announce the new system delivered by Daktronics and Sony,” said Jennifer Berger, Senior Director of Entertainment, Events and Productions for the Cincinnati Reds. “Working together with these two industry leaders, we’ve put together a system that will provide a great game day experience. Our fans will certainly appreciate the high-definition quality of the images and information we present on the main board and all the other displays within the ballpark. This system will be among the most sophisticated in the sports world.”

Each of the ballpark’s 64 luxury suites will feature a 46-inch Sony BRAVIA LCD television connected to a computer running Sony’s StadiumView application. The software allows guests to select multiple HD feeds from many different camera angles from around the ballpark. The club also redesigned its scoreboard control room.

In addition to the main HD-X video board measuring approximately 138 feet wide and 39 feet high, two other Daktronics displays are positioned behind left field. A full-color digital display is installed as part of the left field fence, measuring 153 feet wide, and will provide statistics, out-of-town game information, and additional graphics and animation. A digital ribbon board is installed on the left field fascia of the second deck of seating.
Other Daktronics displays include digital ribbon boards along the first and third base lines with a total combined length of nearly 630 linear feet.

Daktronics and Sony Electronics have begun a relationship that will provide a “best of breed” approach to integrated video, display and scoring systems. Daktronics provides industry-leading scoreboards, LED video, fascia and marquee signage, and Sony provides industry-leading high-definition broadcast and production equipment and LCD displays.

“Our work with the Reds is a model for our future stadium and sports venue deals,” said Steve Stubelt, Director of Sony’s Solutions Group. “Teaming with Daktronics adds a critical component of a sports venue system and allows us to give customers a one-stop shopping experience.”

Playstation 3 Firmware 2.7 Update Released

Sony has added some interesting new features with the PS3 firmware update v2.70 – currently available now – that will continue to enhance your connected experience on the PS3. The 2.70 update brings a new Text Chat feature that enables you to communicate online with your PlayStation Network friends. Now, you’ll be able to chat with up to 15 online friends using the Wireless Keypad, on-screen keyboard, or other compatible keyboard peripherals. Not only can you chat with your friends instantly, but you can also access Text Chat while playing PS3 games and even participate in up to three chat rooms at once.

In addition to Text Chat, Sony added a few more enhancements:

Friends list on the XMB (XrossMediaBar)

• Sort your friends via their online status
• Attach larger files to the messages you send to your friends (file size will increase from 1MB to 3MB)

Video delivery service on PlayStation Store

• Video files you’ve purchased from the PlayStation Store can be backed up to an external storage device and then restored to PS3’s internal hard drive for playback – so you can clear up space on your hard drive and then restore the video anytime in the future
• Videos you’ve purchased for PSP (PlayStation Portable) system can now be transferred to PS3 for playback

Sony Developing Ghostbusters 3 and Men in Black 3

Entertainment Weekly posted an interesting article recently about resurrecting two very popular movie franchises. Men in Black 3 and Ghostbusters 3 is currently under development, according to Sony distribution president Rory Bruer at the ShoWest convention in Las Vegas. It is expected that the full cast of Ghostbusters will return, including Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, and Dan Aykroyd – as mentors to a new group of Ghostbusters. The Ghostbusters 3 story will be wrriten by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg.

Also, apparently screenwriters are being sought for Men in Black 3, and it is unclear as to if Will Smith will return to the franchise to round out the trilogy.

Sony Insider On TV (M.Net – Canada)

Did you know Sony Insider content has been featured on a television show? I’ve known about this for a while but kept forgetting to share it with everyone. During CES 2009, our coverage of Sony’s booth was the best of the best. The most interesting thing we found at Sony’s CES area was their Flexible OLED displays and concept videos, which we captured on video and shared with the world. The Flex OLED content was so popular that we received an e-mail from Gina Desjardins, a co-host on the TV show M.Net on MusiquePlus TV (mnet.musiqueplus.com), a popular technology/video games show from Quebec, Canada. They were doing a CES wrap-up and showed off our capture of Sony’s Flex OLED Walkman – in French.

Fast forward to about 2:20 in the video to see our video. Anyone know what they are saying?

We noticed some extra traffic from Canada when this aired, which we are very thankful for. Did you find us from the M.Net CES story?