Walmart has just rolled back the price of the Magnavox NB530MGX Blu-ray player from $168 to a mere $98. Of course you won’t be getting BD-Live or any of the newest features found on other players but for the price it’s hard to complain. A good deal if you’re looking to add it as a second Blu-ray player or even first. It’s a permanent price roll back so pick one up while you can.

[Format War Central]

OPPO BDP-83 Blu-ray

After a long wait OPPO is now shipping their BDP-83 Blu-ray player for $500. Early reviews have been favorable for the player that includes features found in high-end Blu-ray players. The BDP-83 supports multiple optical disc formats including SACD, DVD-Audio, DVD Up-Conversion, MKV, HDCD, and more in addition to Blu-Ray support, making it a universal player. The BDP-83 can be bought from online retailers or directly from Oppo beginning July 6.

[HighDefDigest]

Netflix and Sony announced a deal earlier today that will bring streaming to Sony Bravia Internet enabled HDTVs. This will allow Sony Bravia owners to access Netflix library of over 12,000 streaming titles. What was not announced however were any plans to bring Netflix streaming to the Playstation 3. This leaves PS3 owners guessing when if ever they will enjoy the same luxuries that Xbox 360 owners have been enjoying over the past few months. Let’s cross our fingers and keep enjoying those Blu-ray movies in the meantime.

[Netflix]

Not to be outdone by other manufacturers, Asus is set to release one the best looking Blu-ray drives available. According to Asus, the SBC 041S-U drive’s “elegant stand design and high glossy appearance represents its high feel of science and technology”. Asus will also provide an app for the adjustment of the blue X’s brightness seen on the side, allowing for different levels depending on read and write levels. Sleek design aside, the blu-ray drive will feature a Blu-ray disc read speed of 4.8, 8x DVD burning, and 24x CD burning all in portable USB 2.0 form factor. It will be Windows compatible with no OS X support. A release date and price has not yet be set.

[SlashGear]

With only 7 Blu-ray titles being released this week, viewers might be better off heading to theaters. The only new release includes 12 Roundsstarring John Cena. Notable catalog titles include Do The Right Thing and Street Fighter: The Legend Of Chun-Li.

Here’s the full list:

• 12 Rounds (Fox)
• Do The Right Thing (Universal)
• Flawless (Magnolia)
• Two Lovers (Magnolia)
• Street Fighter: The Legend Of Chun-Li
• Home Front (Cinevolve)
• Tokyo! (Liberation)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has just hit theaters and Michael Bay shares some of the details for its future release.  Most interesting is that it will include ‘IMAX skew’ footage that will change the aspect ratio similar to what The Dark Knight blu-ray had. “We’re going to do a special IMAX SKU,” said Bay, “where it’ll open up for those scenes. You can see top to bottom.” It’s going to include “lot’s of stuff” and be done by “Ridley’s Scott’s DVD guy”, Charlie de Lauzirika.

[iFilm]

It’s been less than a month since Pioneer announced their 16-layer 400GB Blu-ray disc and now they’ve announced that a 500GB Blu-ray disc is feasible. Research by a team of engineers at Pioneer HQ, Tokyo has found this 20-layer Blu-ray disc is possible by applying proprietary technology to the layers of the optical discs. The only thing we need to know if these will play in current Blu-ray players and drives. Pioneer previously mentioned that some kind of modification might be necessary but so we’ll keep our fingers and see what happens.

[Pioneer]

Panasonic will release the LF-BD371JD SATA Blu-ray Burner this September 13th. This internal drive burns Blu-ray discs at the speed of 8x and features an 8MB buffer. The LF-BD371JD will also support formats DVD-RAM (5x), DVD-R (16x), DVD-R DL (8x), DVD-RW (6x), CD-R (48x), CD-RW(24x). The cost will be $386.

[AkihabaraNews]

NEC announced today the EMMA 3PF chip, which is the first large-scale integration (LSI) chip that contains all the major functions of Blu-ray including Profile 2.0, analog-to-digital conversion, HDMI output, and sound encoding/decoding. The EMMA 3PF also features a multicore CPU which allows for improved startup times and operation speeds. Most importantly, the chip will significantly reduce the physical size of Blu-ray players as well as reduce the overall cost. The chip will start shipping in September so expect players that use it to begin appearing in the near future.

[Gizmodo]

Although we’re not getting as many releases as last week, we do get quite a good variety of new releases. Brand new releases include Nim’s Island and for music fans, Korn: Live at Montreux. BBC is releasing their delayed documentary, The BBC High Definition Natural History Collection. The most notable catalog release is Starship Troopers available as separate purchases for the first and third film or packaged all together in the Starship Troopers Trilogy.

Here’s the full list:

• The BBC High Definition Natural History Collection (Planet Earth / Wild China / Galapagos / Ganges)
• The Counterfeiters
• Epic Conditions: The Weather Channel
• Korn: Live at Montreux
• Lonesome Dove
• Nim’s Island
• Robin Hood – Season One
• Starship Troopers
• Starship Troopers 1-3
• Starship Troopers 3: Marauder
• Wild China