Since Sony, et al.'s hammered out the Blu-ray Disc spec, there's been speculation, theorization, and discussion of an 8-layer 200GB disc. Sony even supposedly had some working 200GB BRD demos way back in 2004. Well, now those mammoth coasters are in the works over at TDK, who apparently hope to commercialize the first presumably quad-layered dual-sided discs (or possibly octo-layered single-sided discs -- yeah, right). They're not giving it up as to when these discs could come out or how much they'll cost, but right now we're more worried about just getting our hands on some players, you know?

[Via TechDigest]

Looks like href="http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/23/toshiba-will-delay-hd-dvd-players-until-theres-some-content/">Toshiba
isn’t the only company with last-minute jitters about the market for next-gen optical disc players. Samsung has now href="http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/29/samsung-blu-ray-player-delayed-until-june/">confirmed rumors that the
company’s BD-P1000, its first consumer Blu-ray disc player, will be delayed from its original ship date of May 23 to
sometime in late June. According to Samsung, the $999 player is being delayed due to "testing" needs, though
we certainly can’t rule out the possibility that at least one of the "tests" the company is planning will be
a check of the amount of BD href="http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/23/toshiba-will-delay-hd-dvd-players-until-theres-some-content/">media in the
marketplace by the launch date. Samsung still says its player will be the first Blu-ray unit to hit the US market,
though Sony’s
BDP-S1 is currently scheduled for a July ship, so Samsung had better hope the tests are finished on time.
/>[Thanks, Jim]

It's been a while since we heard about Pioneer's "world's smallest" 50-inch 1080p plasma at CEATAC 2005 (which was knocked down a couple of months later by Fujitsu & Hitachi's 42-inch 1080p plasma), but they may yet be the first company to actually get theirs on the market. Pioneer's launching their PDP-5000EX 1080p Pure Vision Black 1080p set in June with component, composite, HDMI, and HDCP DVI inputs. Of course there's no telling what it's going to set you back, but they just better hope Fujitsu & Hitachi don't swoop in for the kill and release theirs first.

[Via NewLaunches]

Another
day, another Sharp Aquos gets announced — today it’s the
LC-20AX6, a simple livin’ 20-inch LCD HDTV featuring a 1,366 x 768 panel with a brightness of 500cd/m2, 1,200:1
contrast ratio, 8ms pixel response, integrated digital and analog tuners, and VGA, composite, and S-Video ins, among
others (sorry, no DVI / HDMI listed). No figure for a price tag on this thing (or if we’ll see it in the States), but
it sounds like a decent smallish mid-range set for broke city dwellers such as ourselves.