Alba has denied that it has plans to launch a Blu-ray player in 2008. Renowned for churning out a lot of very cheap home entertainment hardware, Alba was reported to have sealed a deal with a Taiwanese manufacturer to ship in 4,000 BD players a month.
We spoke to John Edwards, Alba's director of communications, this morning, and he said that the story is without foundation.
"We have no idea where this story originated from. It was first reported in a Chinese newspaper and from there it's been picked up by various websites. But it's absolutely nothing to do with us, and to be frank, we're too busy to follow up on it. It's just completely untrue," he told us.
Alba not launching BD player
Chinese paper Commercial Times originally said that Alba had ordered a batch of ODM players. Which means it would buy in the players, stick its own badge on them, and then send them off to retailers. But Edwards says this story was - like many things - made in China, and there is no truth to it.
We asked him about Alba's future plans regarding Blu-ray and HD DVD and he was decidedly coy in his response.
"We are obviously reviewing all our options regarding Blu-ray. But we're not going to reveal our plans at the moment," he said.
