Pioneer has given the public a look at its latest Blu-ray burner drive. Unveiled in Japan the BDR-S03J is able to burn at 8x speed and can handle both single and double layer BD media. Set to ship out in the Japan come January expect to see this baby doing the rounds on Western shores sometime throughout 09.

Slipped onto 2009’s slate, Warner has announced the vanilla release of John Grisham adaptations, The Pelican Brief and A Time To Kill. Managing to cram such weighty plot matter onto separately stocked BD-25s, both releases come with their respective trailers and will be treated to a VC-1 transfer and 5.1 Dolby TrueHD soundtracks.

The festive line-up for BBC HD has been announced with the corporation including a number of blockbuster family films during their Christmas schedule, such as Wallace And Gromit In The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, Toy Story 2. The Chronicles Of Narnia - The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe and Pirates Of The Caribbean - Dead Man’s Chest. Other animated titles include Shrek The Halls, and the new Wallace and Gromit short - A Matter Of Loaf And Death. Other films and programmes to appear on the channel are listed below:

Starter For Ten
Casanova
Brothers Grimm
Doctor Who at the Proms
The 39 Steps
Lark Rise To Candleford
Gavin and Stacey Christmas special
Lead Balloon
The Royle Family Christmas special
After You’ve Gone Christmas special
Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special
80 Days Revisited
Jools Holland’s Hootenanny

 

In a bold move Sony has set its sights on China and began Blu-ray distribution in the country. In an apparent move to tackle piracy in the nation head on, Sony Pictures has made thirty titles available coinciding with the release of its BDP-S350 Blu-ray Disc.

With both Warner and Disney in talks with Chinese distributors, this move is bound to strike a fatal blow to Toshiba’s CH-DVD format whilst boosting the worldwide appeal of Blu-ray.

The Jason Bourne trilogy is hitting Blu-ray in January courtesy of Universal. The Bourne Collection hits the US on January 27, featuring The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum on individual dual-layered discs with DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtracks, and extras including Universal’s ‘U-Control’ PiP track, BD Live, making-of featurettes, deleted scenes, commentaries and more.