Man, is it sharp on the cutting edge of home theater technology. In the process of installing Blu-ray and HD DVD players into systems throughout the new AVRev.com reference theater, as well in many of our reviewers’ homes, logistical problems abound. HD DVD’s two-minute load times were the first and the worst of the issues but are seemingly mitigated by a 45-minute “firmware” update that can be burned onto a DVD and ripped onto the player. Still, load times are painfully slow compared to those of a $55 DVD player from Costco.

Philips Electronics has announced the upcoming release of their BDP9000 Blu-ray Player as well as their all-in-one PCWriter (TripleWriter SPD7000). Both pieces of Blu-ray equipment are scheduled for a third quarter 2006 release. Philips’ Blu-ray player will provide HDMI output, supporting the highest 1080p resolution. The player will also support DVD upscaling to 1080i through the component video output.

Pioneer joins the line of Blu-ray delays by announcing the delay of their player, the BDP-HD1. Pioneer states that the delay is due to “production issues”, but no further details on those issues were available.

Rumors were circling earlier today that Samsung’s BD-P1000 Blu-ray was joining the list of recent Blu-ray delay announcements. We are happy to report that Samsung has confirmed that the player’s June 25th release date is still on schedule in the US.

With HD DVD making more and more advances can Blu-ray technology survive another delay in the launch of it’s hardware? Sony has announced the delay of its BDP-S1 Blu-ray player, marking another setback in the eagerly awaited Blu-ray launch. The on sale date for Sony’s Blu-ray player, as stated on sonystyle.com is “on or around August 15th, 2006”. The previous release date was set for sometime in July. The July release was already a delay from the June 30th date.