With Blu-ray player prices dropping as the holiday season approaches, it is great to see new players joining the market.  Insignia is the latest Blu-ray Profile 2.0 player to come to the market.  Best Buy has listed this player at $250, and is already backordered online by one to two weeks.  However, a recent trip to Best Buy shows that they are still on the shelves.

Other World Computing (OWC®) has announced its new line of OWC Mercury Pro™ Blu-ray "Quad Interface" external drive solutions. The first Blu-ray external drives on the market offering a "Quad Interface" of FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0, and eSATA, the OWC Mercury Pro drives feature 4X Blu-ray disc write speed for burning up to 1 gigabyte of data per minute; a data transfer rate up to 150MB per second; Plug and Play connection flexibility; and the convenience of compatibility with both Windows and Macintosh systems.

An update to the PS3 system software was released on October 15, 2008. If you update your PS3 system, the system software version will be 2.50 and the following features will be updated. In order to download PS3 system software version 2.50, you will need a minimum 140Mb of free space on either the PS3 Hard Disk Drive (System Update) or on removable storage media (PC Update).

Amex Digital releases a portable Blu-ray Burner for Macs.  Sleek and slim, this device has massive potential for Mac-lovers out there.  Naturally, it will also burn all DVD formatted discs.  The best part is that it retails for on $289.  That is a drop in the bucket compared to what it costs to buy a Mac system.  An Intel Core Dou processor is required.  And don't worry PC users out there, the portable drive also supports Windows XP and Vista platforms.

BluFocus, the first and only Blu-ray Solutions Provider specializing in advanced Interactive Quality Assurance and Management, announced that it will offer a suite of quality management and control services for the studio post-production and home entertainment industries, including Blu-ray Java (BD-J) Application, Title and THX Certification. BluFocus has teamed with THX to serve as a premiere testing facility to ensure THX quality standards are achieved for new THX Certified Blu-ray titles.