HD-DVD deserved to die.

[ldgibson76]

Yeah, much love to you also, my Brutha!

Peace out!

[Rich-n-Texas]

Get a room you two.

[pixelthis]

I purchased a new Sharp 46" AQUOS TV and a Toshiba $400 (then) HD-DVD player last July. I got a decent "deal" by purchasing the two together, and subsequent sales also provided additional price concessions. (Ultimately, the combination wound up costing me $1,900 - not too shabby!) I chose the HD-DVD player over BluRay at the time solely based on the enormous price differential.

Well, now that almost a year has passed, and the HD-DVD format is offically dead, it's most unusual to come across a new HD disc. I rented "Stardust" from netflix just recently, and to my surprise, received an HD disc. My profile at netflix indicates a preference for HD discs, and I guess they still had some of these sitting around. Like others here at AR, I received the now famous email from netflix announcing that they would no longer be carrying any HD discs.

I had forgotten how annoying it was to try to watch an HD disc. Normally, you simply insert the disc, close the drawer, and go through the various selections on the disc's menu that you want to watch. Not so with an HD disc: for starters, the display says "Loading" for almost a full minute! Given the fact that any $70 DVD player loads infinitely faster, the first thing I thought, last July when this happened, was that the player was faulty.

Ultimately, the disc loads, and the playback begins. I was hoping to notice a substantially more detailed and clear image than that which I've been used to from watching regular DVD's now for many months. That proved simply not to be so. There was nothing whatsoever about the image of the film "Stardust" to indicate in any way at all that it was an HD disc.

My wife and I have been watching the DVD set of Showtime's "The Tudors," and when placing the disc with the last episode of the first season into the player, I was surprised to see that the image of that "ordinary" DVD was at least the equal of that of the HD disc.

Certainly, the "upscaling" properties of this player are to be commended. The improved clarity and detail of even some very old DVD's is very, very impressive. I have a DVD of the 1965 George STeven's film, "The Greatest Story Ever Told," on which the opening credits were almost impossible to read on anything I ever played the disc on. With the Toshiba's upscaling, those credits, while not "clear as a bell," are, at least, quite legible, which is something I could never say before. Nevertheless, the playback of those discs for which the player was desgined provides little perceivable difference. Additionally, not all HD discs would even play.

I had many problems with the "deluxe" set of "Blade Runner," which includes several dsics, not all HD, and various versions of the film. The "Final Cut" is only in HD, and on many occasions, it simply wouldn't even start. On another, it played for about an hour, and then stopped, resulting in a prompt that said, "Cannot play disc" on the screen. Ultimately, it did play, and the image was very impressive. Still, it wasn't worth the headaches.

No wonder the format died. It deserved it.

Welcome to the wonderfull world of Toshiba , one of the most mediocre companies
IN THE WORLD.
I have never had a tish product that worked halfway right, most failed completely.
AS for "upconversion", well your DVD pic might look good, the pic on my SAMSUNG UPCONVERTER looks great also, but upconverting isnt the reason.
You don't get any increased resolution from upconverting, you get the higher rate(1080i,etc) but its impossible to get increased res from a video source without an expensive
scaler. Most likely the output rate (1080i) is moe compatible with your TV's deinterlacer.
Whatever reason I am glad it works for you, enjoy it while you can, because
being TOSHIBA it most likely has the lifespan of a fruitfly.

[pixelthis]

Oddly enough, one could say the exact same thing about your original post.

You're taking one experience from one buggy HD-DVD player and assuming that all HD-DVD players work as badly as yours. Then when you were told how to fix it (firmware update) you moaned about not having internet connectivity. Move the player. Buy a 50' cat5 cable. The update only takes a few minutes.

And on top of all that...my $49 Xbox HD-DVD player has none of those problems

YEP, the only "problem" it has is that no new movies are being made for it.
Its future status as a doorstop is assured.

[pixelthis]

Just playing I've been reading too many pixel posts
Sorry about your player. Time to invest in Blu-ray

You're name is appropriate, you are an "amateur"

[N. Abstentia]

YEP, the only "problem" it has is that no new movies are being made for it.
Its future status as a doorstop is assured.

Not as long as I've got DVD's to be upcoverted, and all my HD-DVD's that will never be released on Blu-Ray!

[Mr Peabody]

To be fair Pix your Samsung DVD player which says it upconverts is NO comparison to the Silicon Optix chip. This does an amazing job on DVD playback. That's why no one uses it any more. The BDA probably is paying major dollars to keep it off the market or since there are over 300 members, and they are the ones who build BR and DVD players, they just agreed not to use them any more. I am not a BR basher, I own one and would like to see it reach it's potential but on the other hand I hate how the CE companies have to play dirty to try to force the public to buy products. If BR was all that and a bag of chips they wouldn't mind if a player did good upconverting of DVD. I also hate when Sir T and others talk out of both sides of their mouth one side saying "oh, BR would be too expensive and can only do one job, yatta yatta" to defend what can't be defended, while the other side boasts the attributes of machines that play DVD/CD/SACD/sometimes even DVD-A all in one unit, but that's alright, that can be done, yet the new super format handed down by the gods of CE, Blu-ray, can't seem to do both Blu-ray and decent DVD playback. They can, and it wouldn't be that expensive, they just don't want to do it because they are afraid it will prove what most "Average Joes" already think, "there's not enough difference to justify the price of a player and replacing my DVD titles". If there can be a Blu-ray player at $300.00 that looks nearly as good playing a Blu-ray movie as the $599.00 or $999.00 unit then by god I want the more expensive unit to play my damn DVD's and do it good. It don't cost 2 to 3 times more for a BR unit to include a few more audio features. For the most part the CE companies win all the time because most consumers never seem to wise up, or just don't care and that leaves the rest of us in the minority. So my issue becomes do I just give up on a hobby that I enjoy and would have very little impact to change how the industry operates, or do I just suck it up and roll with things the best I can. He pauses to take a deep breath and decides his chest feels a bit lighter now. Have a good day everyone!

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Not as long as I've got DVD's to be upcoverted, and all my HD-DVD's that will never be released on Blu-Ray!

The window of which a movie released on HD DVD and not bluray is closing fast. As far as I know Universal is going to release the movies already released to HD DVD fast and in a hurry. They will be also releasing their bluray movies day and date with the DVD. I am going to be review V for Vendetta this weekend. We have already gotten some Paramount titles, so it won't be all that long before everthing released to HD DVD will be on bluray as well.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

To be fair Pix your Samsung DVD player which says it upconverts is NO comparison to the Silicon Optix chip. This does an amazing job on DVD playback. That's why no one uses it any more. The BDA probably is paying major dollars to keep it off the market or since there are over 300 members, and they are the ones who build BR and DVD players, they just agreed not to use them any more.

Mr. P,
Really, give me a break on the conspiracy theories. The BDA does not have money to support keeping anything off the market, and they cannot do such a thing for fear of anti-trust issues. The Silicon Optix chip is VERY expensive, while the cost of players is being pushed downward. When the price of something is being pushed downward, you have to think of cost cutting options that do not harm the CORE format that you are supporting. The SO chip is one of those parts. Samsung didn't make any money selling the 1200 with the chips. The price became so discounted when they released the 1400, that samsung began to lose money on the player. CE manufacturers have figured out that a bluray player will not be able to keep up with DVD players with this chip in performance, so its best just to make good bluray players with DVD playback, than trying to optimize for both. The SO chips do not get discounted, so it is difficult to deploy them in players

I am not a BR basher, I own one and would like to see it reach it's potential but on the other hand I hate how the CE companies have to play dirty to try to force the public to buy products. If BR was all that and a bag of chips they wouldn't mind if a player did good upconverting of DVD.

Step out of your little world for a second. The loudest cries about bluray are for its prices. It currently takes SEVEN memory chips, and back and front end LSI's to just do bluray playback. Just this alone keeps cost up until the chips are made in quantities that support a price drop(we are not there yet). So where does a manufacturer look for cost savings? They look at the amount of parts going into a player, their costs, and begin getting rid of the high cost parts in favor of value oriented parts with excellent performance. The look at the manufacturering process itself to see if there is any savings there. First, out go the non essential to bluray high cost parts. The Silicon Optix chips, Reon upscaling chips, both high cost chips are the first to go. These are not necessary for bluray playback(and these are bluray players), and there are cheaper alternatives that can be used. They may not be as good as the Reon and the SO chips, but they are sufficient for the task. Keep in mind, the price guys are yelling louder than the "I want better upscaling" guys.

I also hate when Sir T and others talk out of both sides of their mouth one side saying "oh, BR would be too expensive and can only do one job, yatta yatta" to defend what can't be defended, while the other side boasts the attributes of machines that play DVD/CD/SACD/sometimes even DVD-A all in one unit, but that's alright, that can be done, yet the new super format handed down by the gods of CE, Blu-ray, can't seem to do both Blu-ray and decent DVD playback.

You may get tired of my telling you the truth, but you are the lone baby crying about something that has nothing to do with bluray playback. There is some very important detail you are leaving out of your *****ing. SACD and DVD-A along with CD, Dts and DD are all single chip designs for DVD. They have had years of R&D to get to this point. They are not firmware upgradeable, not as powerful, and are alot lower in cost based on efficiencies based in manufacture. The maximum data rate a video chip has to support on DVD is 8.0mbps. The maxiumum data rate for bluray video is 48mbps. The maximum audio data rate that has to be supported by DVD is 2mbps, and for DVD-A, CD, and SACD playback is just a little more than that. Audio on bluray has to support up to 24.5mbps playback for audio only playback. Now, even the most uneducated person in the world realizes the chipsets for bluray would have to be WAY more powerful, and therefore cost WAY more in price. Think about it for a minute instead of making these crazy outrageous comments without context. When the high quality DVD scaling chips are incorporated into a bluray player, either the player loses money(as in the case of the XA-2, and the Samsung 1200), or is heavily discounted to move the player. At the price points these players cost, they don't sell, or they have to be discounted to move them. Either way the manufacturer loses money, and even you can't like losing money when you do not have to.

They can, and it wouldn't be that expensive, they just don't want to do it because they are afraid it will prove what most "Average Joes" already think, "there's not enough difference to justify the price of a player and replacing my DVD titles".

You do not know the exact cost to do this do you? So this assumption is ill informed because of lack of information. Bluray players are not DVD players. When you think they are, you are already wrong as two left shoes. You have no idea of the complexity of there manufacture. If it was like a DVD player, they would have player volume in terms of manufacturing already tackled. They don't, because bluray players are much more complex to put together than a DVD player. Bluray does not have the benefit of cheaper chip costs(Panasonic just annouced a single chip solution for bluray today, and they still have to be manufactured), the benefit of economy of scale, or the benefit of ten years to get manufacturing efficiencies. If the average joe cannot see the difference between DVD and bluray, then they should just stick with DVD. Bluray does not have to have 100% market coverage to be successful.

If there can be a Blu-ray player at $300.00 that looks nearly as good playing a Blu-ray movie as the $599.00 or $999.00 unit then by god I want the more expensive unit to play my damn DVD's and do it good.

Unfortunately you are swimming against a huge tide on this one. The majority of folks want the $300 bluray player even if it is not the best at DVD playback. Aside from you, I have not seen anyone complaining about DVD upscaling in bluray players. Maybe because they are too busy playing BR movies in them.

It don't cost 2 to 3 times more for a BR unit to include a few more audio features. For the most part the CE companies win all the time because most consumers never seem to wise up, or just don't care and that leaves the rest of us in the minority. So my issue becomes do I just give up on a hobby that I enjoy and would have very little impact to change how the industry operates, or do I just suck it up and roll with things the best I can. He pauses to take a deep breath and decides his chest feels a bit lighter now. Have a good day everyone!

Audio does not require as much processing power as video does. Its not even close. So no, it would not cost 2-3 times more to include a few more audio features. Good upscaling video chips are not in the same ballpark as even audio chips for bluray.

[pixelthis]

Not as long as I've got DVD's to be upcoverted, and all my HD-DVD's that will never be released on Blu-Ray!

Hate to tell ya, but everything (save for some Japanese porn) is gonna be released
on Blu, if it hasnt already.
Enjoy your doorstop

[pixelthis]

To be fair Pix your Samsung DVD player which says it upconverts is NO comparison to the Silicon Optix chip. This does an amazing job on DVD playback. That's why no one uses it any more. The BDA probably is paying major dollars to keep it off the market or since there are over 300 members, and they are the ones who build BR and DVD players, they just agreed not to use them any more. I am not a BR basher, I own one and would like to see it reach it's potential but on the other hand I hate how the CE companies have to play dirty to try to force the public to buy products. If BR was all that and a bag of chips they wouldn't mind if a player did good upconverting of DVD. I also hate when Sir T and others talk out of both sides of their mouth one side saying "oh, BR would be too expensive and can only do one job, yatta yatta" to defend what can't be defended, while the other side boasts the attributes of machines that play DVD/CD/SACD/sometimes even DVD-A all in one unit, but that's alright, that can be done, yet the new super format handed down by the gods of CE, Blu-ray, can't seem to do both Blu-ray and decent DVD playback. They can, and it wouldn't be that expensive, they just don't want to do it because they are afraid it will prove what most "Average Joes" already think, "there's not enough difference to justify the price of a player and replacing my DVD titles". If there can be a Blu-ray player at $300.00 that looks nearly as good playing a Blu-ray movie as the $599.00 or $999.00 unit then by god I want the more expensive unit to play my damn DVD's and do it good. It don't cost 2 to 3 times more for a BR unit to include a few more audio features. For the most part the CE companies win all the time because most consumers never seem to wise up, or just don't care and that leaves the rest of us in the minority. So my issue becomes do I just give up on a hobby that I enjoy and would have very little impact to change how the industry operates, or do I just suck it up and roll with things the best I can. He pauses to take a deep breath and decides his chest feels a bit lighter now. Have a good day everyone!

You couldnt even play CD on the first gen Blu players, if I remember correctly.
What I would like to see is SACD capability at least, this wouldnt cost much.
But good scalers are expensive, and even the best DVD pic, after watching Blu and HD for awhile, gets looking quite pedestrian.
BUT I do agree that the DVD playback on a Blu, at least the Sony version, stinks.
Watching a DVD playing on one I WAS AMAZED AT THE MEDIOCRE PIC.
I was thinking of buying one before I found out the price had shot back up.
So My advice to you is to head to Walfart, get a cheap HDMI DVD player, and hook it into your system.
Maybe you could get the "disc explorer " from Sony, put 400 DVDS in one place,
solve storage and playback issues in one step.

[Mr Peabody]

Mr. P,
Really, give me a break on the conspiracy theories. The BDA does not have money to support keeping anything off the market, and they cannot do such a thing for fear of anti-trust issues. The Silicon Optix chip is VERY expensive, while the cost of players is being pushed downward. When the price of something is being pushed downward, you have to think of cost cutting options that do not harm the CORE format that you are supporting. The SO chip is one of those parts. Samsung didn't make any money selling the 1200 with the chips. The price became so discounted when they released the 1400, that samsung began to lose money on the player. CE manufacturers have figured out that a bluray player will not be able to keep up with DVD players with this chip in performance, so its best just to make good bluray players with DVD playback, than trying to optimize for both. The SO chips do not get discounted, so it is difficult to deploy them in players

* Conspiracy? Please, the BDA has all the money they need to do, anything, and the lack of morality shown in the roll out of HDMI and Blu-ray alone was enough to convince anyone the CE companies are among the sleesiest in any racket. You explained why a $300.00 BR player may not have a Silicon Optix chip but at $600.00 and up I think there's room in the margin to drop one in. You don't know what SAmsung's profit or loss was and the 1200 wasn't ever discounted that much. I went on Amazon just a couple months ago and they were still in the high $400.00's for new. If you expect me to believe Samsung lost one dollar on the 1200 I'd have to see it in writing from a creditable source, not just something you are spouting off and expecting us to believe because you are an "inside man". How can you say a BR player can't keep up with DVD player in DVD playback, that's dumb even for you. The 1200 was reviewed as one of the best DVD players you can buy.

Step out of your little world for a second. The loudest cries about bluray are for its prices. It currently takes SEVEN memory chips, and back and front end LSI's to just do bluray playback. Just this alone keeps cost up until the chips are made in quantities that support a price drop(we are not there yet). So where does a manufacturer look for cost savings? They look at the amount of parts going into a player, their costs, and begin getting rid of the high cost parts in favor of value oriented parts with excellent performance. The look at the manufacturering process itself to see if there is any savings there. First, out go the non essential to bluray high cost parts. The Silicon Optix chips, Reon upscaling chips, both high cost chips are the first to go. These are not necessary for bluray playback(and these are bluray players), and there are cheaper alternatives that can be used. They may not be as good as the Reon and the SO chips, but they are sufficient for the task. Keep in mind, the price guys are yelling louder than the "I want better upscaling" guys.

** Again, that's a good excuse why the $300.00 machines may not be able to do decent SD playback, so what's the money going for the the average priced player at $600.00? What's Sony and Pioneer putting into the $999.00 players? Is aluminum gone up that much that the cost difference is for the fancy front panel. Neither of those high dollar BR players did acceptable SD playback either. This is a short coming that you and the industry need to accept needs to be addressed. And, you already admitted that it's not the cost difference of doing Tru-HD or DTS-MA. So somebody had better be showing us why a player can be had $300.00 and others $600.00 or $1k, or the prices, will, go into the toilet.

You may get tired of my telling you the truth, but you are the lone baby crying about something that has nothing to do with bluray playback. There is some very important detail you are leaving out of your *****ing. SACD and DVD-A along with CD, Dts and DD are all single chip designs for DVD. They have had years of R&D to get to this point. They are not firmware upgradeable, not as powerful, and are alot lower in cost based on efficiencies based in manufacture. The maximum data rate a video chip has to support on DVD is 8.0mbps. The maxiumum data rate for bluray video is 48mbps. The maximum audio data rate that has to be supported by DVD is 2mbps, and for DVD-A, CD, and SACD playback is just a little more than that. Audio on bluray has to support up to 24.5mbps playback for audio only playback. Now, even the most uneducated person in the world realizes the chipsets for bluray would have to be WAY more powerful, and therefore cost WAY more in price. Think about it for a minute instead of making these crazy outrageous comments without context. When the high quality DVD scaling chips are incorporated into a bluray player, either the player loses money(as in the case of the XA-2, and the Samsung 1200), or is heavily discounted to move the player. At the price points these players cost, they don't sell, or they have to be discounted to move them. Either way the manufacturer loses money, and even you can't like losing money when you do not have to.

Yatta yatta yatta, a lot of hot air about nothing. So what you basically said is all these CE companies that produce units that cost above Joe 6-packs comfort level are a waste of time and the CE companies lose money doing it> That's obscerd, these companies don't lose money and they wouldn't build an expensive machine if they didn't expect sell it. BR was selling just fine when the cheapest player was $599.00 and holding their own against $199.00 HD-DVD players. So now that they have won, what's the rush to put out BS machines. Reviews are readily available that show the inadequate SD playback of most any BR player on the market today from bottom to top. It's greed and the lack of competition and the fact that they can BS the product now. If you want to sell a BR player then you stop making it to where I can walk into Wal-Mart and buy Underdog on DVD for $14.95 and the Blu-ray version $10.00 more. That's just an example, most every BR title is at least $10.00 more than DVD. I'm talking new releases, not the DVD's being dumped.

You do not know the exact cost to do this do you? So this assumption is ill informed because of lack of information. Bluray players are not DVD players. When you think they are, you are already wrong as two left shoes.

** The same can be said for you.

You have no idea of the complexity of there manufacture. If it was like a DVD player, they would have player volume in terms of manufacturing already tackled. They don't, because bluray players are much more complex to put together than a DVD player. Bluray does not have the benefit of cheaper chip costs(Panasonic just annouced a single chip solution for bluray today, and they still have to be manufactured), the benefit of economy of scale, or the benefit of ten years to get manufacturing efficiencies. If the average joe cannot see the difference between DVD and bluray, then they should just stick with DVD. Bluray does not have to have 100% market coverage to be successful.

** OK, stop talking crap here. Blu-ray is not anything special to manufacture than any other new product that corporate America has been doing since the dawn of time.

Unfortunately you are swimming against a huge tide on this one. The majority of folks want the $300 bluray player even if it is not the best at DVD playback. Aside from you, I have not seen anyone complaining about DVD upscaling in bluray players. Maybe because they are too busy playing BR movies in them.

** Like I mentioned it is well documented the piss poor DVD playback in almost every BR player review that one can read, maybe not everyone is as vocal as I am but I have to believe that if anyone takes the time to read the review that the negative SD playback comments would have some impact. And, you seem to be just focused on the $300.00 unit which your arguments may have some merit but for the more expensive units like $600.00 and up, they have no excuse and neither do you. You are an outright idiot if you think Samsung put a $600.00 msrp on the 1200 and put it on the market to lose money.

Audio does not require as much processing power as video does. Its not even close. So no, it would not cost 2-3 times more to include a few more audio features. Good upscaling video chips are not in the same ballpark as even audio chips for bluray.

Thank you for actually admitting the truth for a change. So here's the real question why can I buy a $300.00 unit that performs as well as a $900.00 BR unit in HD playback and they both suck at SD playback? If this keeps up I can understand why the CE companies expect to have to discount and dump the $900.00 units.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Thank you for actually admitting the truth for a change. So here's the real question why can I buy a $300.00 unit that performs as well as a $900.00 BR unit in HD playback and they both suck at SD playback? If this keeps up I can understand why the CE companies expect to have to discount and dump the $900.00 units.

Perhaps the $300 unit does not have the same feature set as the $900 unit. Perhaps the $300 unit uses different parts with a cheaper price, less costly DAC, lower quality processing circuits, or is position for a different type of consumer than the $900.

* Conspiracy? Please, the BDA has all the money they need to do, anything, and the lack of morality shown in the roll out of HDMI and Blu-ray alone was enough to convince anyone the CE companies are among the sleesiest in any racket. You explained why a $300.00 BR player may not have a Silicon Optix chip but at $600.00 and up I think there's room in the margin to drop one in. You don't know what SAmsung's profit or loss was and the 1200 wasn't ever discounted that much. I went on Amazon just a couple months ago and they were still in the high $400.00's for new. If you expect me to believe Samsung lost one dollar on the 1200 I'd have to see it in writing from a creditable source, not just something you are spouting off and expecting us to believe because you are an "inside man". How can you say a BR player can't keep up with DVD player in DVD playback, that's dumb even for you. The 1200 was reviewed as one of the best DVD players you can buy.

You really need to stop wining about this. There is no way the BDA could get away with this, you are just crying wolf on this one, or just plain crying whatever. Antitrust folks from all over the world would be all over them. We are talking bluray players here, not a DVD players. It is not the duty or the interest of any manufacturer to support DVD past backwards compatibility. The Samsung BD-1200 street priced at $800, and now its down to $400 because it was not selling that well at the $800 price, and Samsung has lost money on this player why do you think they discontinued it after only six months on the market? You do not prematurely abandon your money maker do you? Why in the hell do you think no other player has included the Silicon Optix processing in it? AX-2 had the Reon chip, it also didn't sell well, why do you think no other HD DVD player had it inside? For the same damn reason, it cost too much, raises the price of the players without actually making the player a better BLURAY player. So the 1200 had good video processing, it could not either decode or pass Dts MA lossless or DTHD. The next generation player came without the fancy DVD processor but it does pass both Dts MA lossless and DTHD. All one has to do is look at NDP and you can see rather plainly the BDP-1000 was outselling the 1200 quite easily. and the BD-P2400 which was also supposed to have the Silicon Optix chip was never released! Folks want features that enhance BLURAY, not DVD. They want internal or bitstreaming of the advanced audio codecs, NOT the HQV chip! Looking backwards while walking forwards is not what one would like to find themselves doing

** Again, that's a good excuse why the $300.00 machines may not be able to do decent SD playback, so what's the money going for the the average priced player at $600.00? What's Sony and Pioneer putting into the $999.00 players? Is aluminum gone up that much that the cost difference is for the fancy front panel. Neither of those high dollar BR players did acceptable SD playback either. This is a short coming that you and the industry need to accept needs to be addressed. And, you already admitted that it's not the cost difference of doing Tru-HD or DTS-MA. So somebody had better be showing us why a player can be had $300.00 and others $600.00 or $1k, or the prices, will, go into the toilet.

Supporting the DVD format with expensive chips is NOT what a bluray manufacturers should be doing and this is something only you are crying about. Nobody else is asking for this, its just you whining all by yourself. . Keeping prices reasonable, and creating cost savings through volume and manufacturing process IS what they should be doing. What do you get for the higher priced bluray players? You get better audio DAC's, better video chips for BLURAY playback, slots for memory sticks etc, internal decoding and bitstreaming of both advance audio codecs, Bonus view, and PIP. I do not think any manufacturer at this point is interested in putting a expensive DVD video processor into their players at any cost point, because it does nothing to enhance the BLURAY experience. If you are so interested in getting better DVD playback, get a Oppo. Trying getting out of the *****ing mode, and get into a problem solving mode. The manufacturers of bluray products are not going to support DVD playback with expensive chips, get that through you thick head, stop whining and get over it

Yatta yatta yatta, a lot of hot air about nothing. So what you basically said is all these CE companies that produce units that cost above Joe 6-packs comfort level are a waste of time and the CE companies lose money doing it> That's obscerd, these companies don't lose money and they wouldn't build an expensive machine if they didn't expect sell it.

It would help if you keep your words out of my mouth. What I said was there was a larger market for more reasonbly priced players than for more expensive players. You your fat head man, a manufacturer builds ALL products with a mind that they will sell. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it does not. You say these companies don't lose money? That is obsurd. Toshiba lost almost a billion dollars on HD DVD

http://gizmodo.com/367377/toshiba-ta...turns-a-profit

BR was selling just fine when the cheapest player was $599.00 and holding their own against $199.00 HD-DVD players. So now that they have won, what's the rush to put out BS machines. Reviews are readily available that show the inadequate SD playback of most any BR player on the market today from bottom to top. It's greed and the lack of competition and the fact that they can BS the product now.

Bluray players are selling better now that the average price is about $599.00, five times better last time I looked. Reviews also show that all BLURAY players playback BLURAY movies just fine, it is not a requirement that BLURAY players playback DVD with expensive processing. Just because you do not like how they playback DVD does not mean manufacturers all of a sudden should include chips that actually increase the price on all players.

If you want to sell a BR player then you stop making it to where I can walk into Wal-Mart and buy Underdog on DVD for $14.95 and the Blu-ray version $10.00 more. That's just an example, most every BR title is at least $10.00 more than DVD. I'm talking new releases, not the DVD's being dumped.

You really like looking at arguements in a vaccum don't cha? DVD is ten freakin years old, of course it is going to be cheaper, anyone who would think any different is kinda...well dumb. Authoring on DVD is ALOT cheaper than bluray, 10 years of practice makes a huge difference. No BD-Java, no 2k scanning, no additional replication charges, no high bitrate audio(which means a soundtrack can just be dumped without any remastering), is essentially on compression autopilot(single pass), simplistic menu system, sure DVD is cheaper. Bluray requires at least 2k scanning($), authoring a more complex menu system($) cost more to replicate(which requires new replication lines)($), audio has to be monitored(not required with DVD) and then encoded($), requires BD java($) AACS and BD+liscensing fees($), and most films have to be remastered because the masters for DVD would not be adequate for Bluray($) needs dual pass compression($). When you are not staring at a blank wall looking for answer, it should be perfectly clear why Bluray disc cost more than DVD. I cannot believe that you would bring this up as a issue since you are willing to pay more for a player with fancy DVD processing

So lets get this straight, you are willing to pay a higher premium for a BLURAY player with HQV processing, but you complain about disc prices. The model of consistancy!

[emaidel]

Following the advice of some here on this thread, I wrote to Toshiba who, very nicely, sent me a free DVD to load into my player with the "latest upgrades." The process took over 25 minutes (though it certainly was easy enough), and afterwards, I popped in a few HD discs, as well as a couple of ordinary DVD's. THe difference? Frankly, nothing that I can tell.

I have a DVD of the Matthew Bourne production, "The Car Man," which, while not the sharpest image of all, has a spectacularly good sounding soundtrack. It still sounds spectacularly good. I loaded the previously troublesome HD disc of "Blade Runner," and while it still took forever to start with the word "loading" appearing in the machine's window for a very long time, the picture quality was excellent, as was the sound. But it looked good and sounded good before also. And a very old DVD of the terrific Ken Russell film "Tommy" still looks and sounds pretty good as well..

So, I guess I'll have to still fool around with a bunch of other discs to see just what this upgrade actually did. The single sheet of literature supplied with it only states it's the "latest" upgrade, but says nothing about what that upgrade actually is. At least it didn't cost me anything...

[Mr Peabody]

[QUOTE=Sir Terrence the Terrible]Perhaps the $300 unit does not have the same feature set as the $900 unit. Perhaps the $300 unit uses different parts with a cheaper price, less costly DAC, lower quality processing circuits, or is position for a different type of consumer than the $900.

** Perhaps, perhaps not.

You really need to stop wining about this. There is no way the BDA could get away with this, you are just crying wolf on this one, or just plain crying whatever. Antitrust folks from all over the world would be all over them. We are talking bluray players here, not a DVD players. It is not the duty or the interest of any manufacturer to support DVD past backwards compatibility. The Samsung BD-1200 street priced at $800, and now its down to $400 because it was not selling that well at the $800 price, and Samsung has lost money on this player why do you think they discontinued it after only six months on the market? You do not prematurely abandon your money maker do you? Why in the hell do you think no other player has included the Silicon Optix processing in it? AX-2 had the Reon chip, it also didn't sell well, why do you think no other HD DVD player had it inside? For the same damn reason, it cost too much, raises the price of the players without actually making the player a better BLURAY player. So the 1200 had good video processing, it could not either decode or pass Dts MA lossless or DTHD. The next generation player came without the fancy DVD processor but it does pass both Dts MA lossless and DTHD. All one has to do is look at NDP and you can see rather plainly the BDP-1000 was outselling the 1200 quite easily. and the BD-P2400 which was also supposed to have the Silicon Optix chip was never released! Folks want features that enhance BLURAY, not DVD. They want internal or bitstreaming of the advanced audio codecs, NOT the HQV chip! Looking backwards while walking forwards is not what one would like to find themselves doing

The BD-P1000 was more expensive than the 1200, so what's your point. The 1200 got a bad rap because Samsung had glitches with java, not anything to do with the Silicon Optix chip. BDA don't use SO because it's too good, it don't have anything to do with the price of the machine.

Supporting the DVD format with expensive chips is NOT what a bluray manufacturers should be doing and this is something only you are crying about. Nobody else is asking for this, its just you whining all by yourself. . Keeping prices reasonable, and creating cost savings through volume and manufacturing process IS what they should be doing. What do you get for the higher priced bluray players? You get better audio DAC's, better video chips for BLURAY playback, slots for memory sticks etc, internal decoding and bitstreaming of both advance audio codecs, Bonus view, and PIP. I do not think any manufacturer at this point is interested in putting a expensive DVD video processor into their players at any cost point, because it does nothing to enhance the BLURAY experience. If you are so interested in getting better DVD playback, get a Oppo. Trying getting out of the *****ing mode, and get into a problem solving mode. The manufacturers of bluray products are not going to support DVD playback with expensive chips, get that through you thick head, stop whining and get over it

Ooooo, I've always wanted to watch a movie inside a movie, like PIP is a feature the public was asking for. You and the BDA are so full of it. If they aren't going to do DVD properly then don't offer it at all.

WARNING - deversion and irrelevant statement used here >It would help if you keep your words out of my mouth. What I said was there was a larger market for more reasonbly priced players than for more expensive players. You your fat head man, a manufacturer builds ALL products with a mind that they will sell. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it does not. You say these companies don't lose money? That is obsurd. Toshiba lost almost a billion dollars on HD DVD

http://gizmodo.com/367377/toshiba-ta...turns-a-profit

** I might have to start calling you Sir Pix, that's one of his tactics. No one was talking HD-DVD. The 1200's sales had nothing what so ever to do with the Optix chip, if anything, that probably saved it from losing money. The 1500 is $399.00. I'd say it wouldn't cost that much more to use the SO chip to make a unit slightly higher than that. I don't need convincing the BDA won't do it, I'm sure they won't. It has nothing to do with cost though as you claim. It has to do with screwing the public and lining their pockets with cash. You also don't have to convince me of their incompetence, I'm TOTALLY convinced of that. Anyone who buys a HDMI cable should also be fully aware.

Bluray players are selling better now that the average price is about $599.00, five times better last time I looked. Reviews also show that all BLURAY players playback BLURAY movies just fine, it is not a requirement that BLURAY players playback DVD with expensive processing. Just because you do not like how they playback DVD does not mean manufacturers all of a sudden should include chips that actually increase the price on all players.

If a better chip was used on ONE model in a line how does that increase the price on "all" players? Again, you are talking crap and more than exaggerating here.

You really like looking at arguements in a vaccum don't cha? DVD is ten freakin years old, of course it is going to be cheaper, anyone who would think any different is kinda...well dumb. Authoring on DVD is ALOT cheaper than bluray, 10 years of practice makes a huge difference. No BD-Java, no 2k scanning, no additional replication charges, no high bitrate audio(which means a soundtrack can just be dumped without any remastering), is essentially on compression autopilot(single pass), simplistic menu system, sure DVD is cheaper. Bluray requires at least 2k scanning($), authoring a more complex menu system($) cost more to replicate(which requires new replication lines)($), audio has to be monitored(not required with DVD) and then encoded($), requires BD java($) AACS and BD+liscensing fees($), and most films have to be remastered because the masters for DVD would not be adequate for Bluray($) needs dual pass compression($). When you are not staring at a blank wall looking for answer, it should be perfectly clear why Bluray disc cost more than DVD. I cannot believe that you would bring this up as a issue since you are willing to pay more for a player with fancy DVD processing

** A lot of hot air to throw up a smoke screen for an excuse. Whether DVD or BR, a soundtrack has to be mastered and produced. The payroll is the same. Each format may use different equipment.

So lets get this straight, you are willing to pay a higher premium for a BLURAY player with HQV processing, but you complain about disc prices. The model of consistancy

** You got it sport, I consider the cost of the machine a start up cost if you will but there aren't really that many good movies coming out these days and I have to draw the line some where, $20.00 is about it. I have a better than average expense in a turntable but I'm not buying $30.00 and up virgin vinyl either. If I was independently wealthy then maybe cost wouldn't be a concern but for now it is. I doubt if you actually pay for any of your movies so you really are out of touch with what end users feel. Actually by the actions shown so far the entire BDA is pretty much out of touch with the end users. PIP, give me a break.... They all might as well pay Sony a royalty and build PS3 clones. What ever happened to just watching a movie? I sure as hell don't want to stop in every scene to choose which direction the movie goes either. This is all stuff invented by the BDA to say Blu-ray is different and offers more. Talking about paying for something no one wants.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

** Perhaps, perhaps not.

What the hell ever

The BD-P1000 was more expensive than the 1200, so what's your point. The 1200 got a bad rap because Samsung had glitches with java, not anything to do with the Silicon Optix chip. BDA don't use SO because it's too good, it don't have anything to do with the price of the machine.

You do not know what you are talking about(which is usual for you). When the 1200 came to market the 1000 was already being heavily discounted, so it price was lower than that of the 1200. Secondly, the price of the 1200 remained high while the 1000 price continued dropping, hence they were outselling the 1200. In order to move the 1200, Samsung had to take a loss on each player, a loss they would not have to take if the player didn't have the SO chip(a cheaper chip would have saved about $200 off of the players price from the onset). This was the same case for XA-2 HD DVD which also had the SO chipset. Toshiba didn't want to discount it because of the cost of the SO chip, so they sat on shelves. Meanwhile the players that didn't have the chipset sold well, hence why the A-35 didn't have it. The had to exclude it to keep the cost of its players down. The bull**** about it being too good is coming from your pea head. Its inclusion doesn't have sh!t to do with bluray playback, and quite frankly nobody but you seems to care about it. Let's face it, next to nobody was using java on their disc when the 1200 was introduced. They only found problems with java after the 1200 came to market, but it was already being outsold by the 1000, and just about every other player on the market as well. I know you are not blind, but haven't you noticed that no other player has the chip inside of it? That is because it does nothing to enhance the bluray playback, and that is what bluray players are for, bluray playback. Its ability to playback DVD's is just another selling point, but that is not the emphasis of any bluray player.

Ooooo, I've always wanted to watch a movie inside a movie, like PIP is a feature the public was asking for. You and the BDA are so full of it. If they aren't going to do DVD properly then don't offer it at all.

Perhaps you need to get your head out of your a$$ and get around more. The public has been asking for profile 1.1 and 2.0 players since bluray's introduction. Now you may not care for PIP, but that doesn't mean your desires rule supreme. Why in the hell do you think that BDA mandated that ALL bluray players be at least profile 1.1 after October 2007? Its called public outcry, something they are not doing about DVD playback. Public out cry is why there is why all players now have high resolution bitstreaming, and internal decoding on the upcoming players. Public out cry is why newer players are substantially cheaper and better performing than the first generation. NOBODY IS CRYING AND *****ING ABOUT DVD PLAYBACK EXCEPT YOU!

If you want a good upscaling DVD player, then get a good upscaling DVD player, but it is not the job of a bluray player to playback DVD using expensive chipsets if the cost of the player is an issue, and quite frankly it is when you are listening to the public. You may not care about cost, but quite a few do. Others may not care about perfect DVD playback in bluray players but you do. It is the simple equation of listening to the larger audience, the thousands that want cheaper players, or the one that doesn't care about price, but wants state of the art DVD playback. I am listening to the thousands, and the one is pissing in the wind as far as I am concerned

** I might have to start calling you Sir Pix, that's one of his tactics.

You are too old to be playing silly little kids games. Adults do not run around calling each other childish names.

No one was talking HD-DVD.

You have heard of parallels haven't you? Well maybe not

The 1200's sales had nothing what so ever to do with the Optix chip, if anything, that probably saved it from losing money.

This is a guess, but a terribly uneducated one. If the chip saved it from losing money, why didn't they include it in the next models? Why did they discontinue a model that made them money? Why did NDP sales figues for players show that Samsung barely sold any 1200's, and was being outsold buy cheaper players? The player lost money because they had to be discounted so they could move inventory. SO chips are not discounted, so if you are going to keep player prices down, you have to exclude the chip.

The 1500 is $399.00. I'd say it wouldn't cost that much more to use the SO chip to make a unit slightly higher than that. I don't need convincing the BDA won't do it, I'm sure they won't. It has nothing to do with cost though as you claim. It has to do with screwing the public and lining their pockets with cash. You also don't have to convince me of their incompetence, I'm TOTALLY convinced of that. Anyone who buys a HDMI cable should also be fully aware.

A) You do not know how much the chip costs, so your comment about it wouldn't cost more to include it is ignorant as hell. B) its not just the cost of the chip, but it is the seperate video path that has to be created as well to handle the processing of the chip, and get the best out of it. More money. Its not the BDA that decides what is included in each player, its the manufacturers of the players. From what we have been hearing from the manufacturers over at bluray.com, they don't include it because it is more important from a consumers perspective to keep cost down, and produce high quality value priced players that enhance the bluray experience, not the DVD experience. That is for Oppo to handle. We are told you cannot make a bluray player that will sell if your goal is to try and compete with the Oppo's on DVD playback. Apparently they know more than you do about how to manufacturer a player since I do not see you offering a player for sale, or even know how to make one When you start to manufacturer a player, then come back and talk to me about costs. Until you do or have, you are shooting blanks when talking about how much a player cost, and how much it cost to add a state of the art chipset inside. Its not pretty to squawk in ignorance. Get educated about how much it cost to make a player before you spout off sh!t you know nothing about.

I should also call you Mr Pixelbody. Nobody mention HDMI That is a different issue altogether

Everyone wants to make money right? Do(or did) you go to work for free? No. Did you work for the same wage your entire life? No. Didn't you want to make more money for your work as you grew more knowledgeable? I would think so. So manufacturers have a right to want to make a profit right? Or are you under the same belief as pixy that players should be given away for free? If I was a manufacturer, I would want to make as large a profit from each player as I could. Its how you fund R&D, and give a ROI to those that fund you, you know, the shareholders.

If a better chip was used on ONE model in a line how does that increase the price on "all" players? Again, you are talking crap and more than exaggerating here.

Come on Peabody, read it again. I said if we start including SO chipset in all players, the price for all players goes up. Jeeze, turn off the emotion, turn on the brain.

** A lot of hot air to throw up a smoke screen for an excuse. Whether DVD or BR, a soundtrack has to be mastered and produced. The payroll is the same. Each format may use different equipment.

It takes hot air to penetrate a thick skull. I said monitored, not mastered. Secondly the same soundtrack that is mastered for DVD cannot be used with bluray. Bluray uses lossless exclusively, so a soundtrack destined for DVD cannot be reused for bluray. Its a seperate mastering process for each. Thirdly, DVD uses lossy encoding which can hide all kinds of audio warts(like mispans, bad recording practices, syncing etc), so it does not need to be monitored before mastering. With Bluray using lossless, all of the warts are easily heard, hence why they have to be monitored and clean up before mastering. I should know this because this is what I do for a living. Do you do this as well?

** You got it sport,

Great, but alot more folks do not share your opinion, and they are winning and you are whining.

I consider the cost of the machine a start up cost if you will but there aren't really that many good movies coming out these days and I have to draw the line some where, $20.00 is about it.

You are entitled to your opinion. But do not be upset if I don't run my business based on it. You jumped into bluray much too early if you are complaining about disc prices. Disc prices remained around $40 two to three years after DVD was introduced. Prices for bluray discs are already around $20 on Amazon. And that is two years after format introduction. You talk about blowin smoke, or in your case smokin blow

I have a better than average expense in a turntable but I'm not buying $30.00 and up virgin vinyl either. If I was independently wealthy then maybe cost wouldn't be a concern but for now it is.

The model of consistancy. Will pay extra for a player with a SO chip that does not add even a line of extra information, but won't pay for a disc with 6 times the resolution of the previous format. No wonder you are *****ing so much, your thought process isn't even consistant.

I doubt if you actually pay for any of your movies so you really are out of touch with what end users feel.

Don't give me this out of touch bull peabody. I buy all of my discs just like you do. The only ones I haven't purchased are movies I review. I have not reviewed 350+ movies. The difference between you and I is I know what it takes to make a disc. I know the cost of authoring, liscensing fees, replication fees, programming fees, restoration fees, final mastering, and shipping. You apparently do not, so just who is out of touch here?

Actually by the actions shown so far the entire BDA is pretty much out of touch with the end users. PIP, give me a break.... They all might as well pay Sony a royalty and build PS3 clones.

If manufacturers attempted to do your asinine suggestion, the players prices would all be about $1000 or more, and the Cell chip inside(which is even more expensive than the SO chip by a long shot) would be under used to the hilt. This is a stupid suggestion out of desperation to make a point.

You profess to know the actions of every person interested in bluray players? Perhaps you should change your name to God! That pretty arrogant do cha think? I would say, that you know less that I about this. You sit here at audioreview day in, day out. I visit bluray.com(everyday), AVS, Hometheaterforum.com, The hometheatershack, and several other AV websites weekly. People want profile 1.1 and 2.0 players, not enhanced DVD playback. Folks want high resolution bitstreaming, and they want lower player prices. You should get around more. Staying here all the time is making you increasing ignorant about what other besides your own selfish self desire.

What ever happened to just watching a movie? I sure as hell don't want to stop in every scene to choose which direction the movie goes either. This is all stuff invented by the BDA to say Blu-ray is different and offers more. Talking about paying for something no one wants.

It may not be what you want, but you cannot say what everyone else wants, cause you don't know. PIP was not invented by the BDA(surely you must know this) PIP was part of the specifications of the DVD format. They just didn't have a large enough pipeline to make it happen. PIP was also apart of the HD DVD spec(surely you must known this, you seem to know everything). So to say that the BDA just invented this, shows that you do not know your a$$ from a hole in the ground.

People wanted PIP, they got it. They wanted bitstreaming of the advance codecs, they got it. They wanted the ability to download extra content, they got it. They wanted 24fps playback for films, they got it. What they do not seem interested in is paying for a chipset to enhance DVD playback, that's why there is none(duh!). You seem to be out of touch with other bluray player owners, and the bluray world as a whole.

Much of your crying and whining is steeped out of your own ignorance. You do not seem to know(or care to know) about how much things cost. You seem to believe that everything should be as cheap as the DVD is, when almost everything that goes into a bluray player is completely new. You cannot build bluray players on DVD's existing lines, you have to build new manufacturing plants. You cannot use chipsets that are included in DVD players, they are not powerful enough. Bluray disc cannot be replicated on existing DVD replication lines, the pit depth is too different. DVD used simplistic menu systems, BR disc require java, which means hiring programmers. Hometheater mixes were a rarity on DVD, but have become commonplace on Bluray because of bluray's resolution increase. Authoring kits cost more on bluray than DVD. Everything associated with bluray has had to be built from the ground up. This cost bucks. We are living in a world were everyone wants everything for nothing. That is not real, and HD DVD has proven this.

You are swimming against the tide on this one, so you might as well dry your eyes up, and move on to the next topic. Call the manufacturers greedy(the BDA has nothing to do with player manufacturering), call everyone greedy, out of touch, or any other name in the book. Manufacturers(unless they are trying to diffentiate their products from lower cost ones) are not going to add expensive processors that have nothing to do with Bluray movie watching to their players. The public wants CHEAPER PLAYERS, not more expensive ones. Now Oppo may come out with a Bluray player that does great upconversion, but it probably will not be with the SO chip, as they are using DCDi chipsets which are MUCH cheaper than SO chips(that I know for sure). Sony, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, Funai, Denon(neither of their players use SO chips either) and the other bluray player manufacturers are focused on creating good Bluray players that enhance the Bluray experience. You want good DVD playback, go to Oppo.

It is hard to walk forward while looking backwards. Likewise it is hard to look backwards while walking forward.

[Mr Peabody]

What the hell ever

You do not know what you are talking about(which is usual for you). When the 1200 came to market the 10`00 was already being heavily discounted, so it price was lower than that of the 1200. Secondly, the price of the 1200 remained high while the 1000 price continued dropping, hence they were outselling the 1200. In order to move the 1200, Samsung had to take a loss on each player, a loss they would not have to take if the player didn't have the SO chip(a cheaper chip would have saved about $200 off of the players price from the onset). This was the same case for XA-2 HD DVD which also had the SO chipset. Toshiba didn't want to discount it because of the cost of the SO chip, so they sat on shelves. Meanwhile the players that didn't have the chipset sold well, hence why the A-35 didn't have it. The had to exclude it to keep the cost of its players down. The bull**** about it being too good is coming from your pea head. Its inclusion doesn't have sh!t to do with bluray playback, and quite frankly nobody but you seems to care about it. Let's face it, next to nobody was using java on their disc when the 1200 was introduced. They only found problems with java after the 1200 came to market, but it was already being outsold by the 1000, and just about every other player on the market as well. I know you are not blind, but haven't you noticed that no other player has the chip inside of it? That is because it does nothing to enhance the bluray playback, and that is what bluray players are for, bluray playback. Its ability to playback DVD's is just another selling point, but that is not the emphasis of any bluray player.

** You sound like a broken record. You have nothing to support your claim the 1200 lost any money. The SO chip don't cost $200.00 either, did you pull that from your butt? The Realta chip is fairly expensive but to keep cost down and be competitive SO made the Reon which is the chip in the 1200. PQ is very good but the programmability is left out in order to cost less. Of course, I noticed it wasn't in any other machines, that's why I bought a 2nd 1200 and having this debate in the first place. From articles and posts on other boards I get a since that I am not the only one interested in BR players doing decent DVD playback. You are just spouting off the latest propaganda given to you by your employer, the daily hack memo.

Perhaps you need to get your head out of your a$$ and get around more. The public has been asking for profile 1.1 and 2.0 players since bluray's introduction. Now you may not care for PIP, but that doesn't mean your desires rule supreme. Why in the hell do you think that BDA mandated that ALL bluray players be at least profile 1.1 after October 2007? * GOOD QUESTION* Its called public outcry, something they are not doing about DVD playback. Public out cry is why there is why all players now have high resolution bitstreaming, and internal decoding on the upcoming players. Public out cry is why newer players are substantially cheaper and better performing than the first generation. NOBODY IS CRYING AND *****ING ABOUT DVD PLAYBACK EXCEPT YOU!

** Did you actually write this again or just copy from you prior posts? If you have said all you have to say, then we are done.

If you want a good upscaling DVD player, then get a good upscaling DVD player, but it is not the job of a bluray player to playback DVD using expensive chipsets if the cost of the player is an issue, and quite frankly it is when you are listening to the public. You may not care about cost, but quite a few do. Others may not care about perfect DVD playback in bluray players but you do. It is the simple equation of listening to the larger audience, the thousands that want cheaper players, or the one that doesn't care about price, but wants state of the art DVD playback. I am listening to the thousands, and the one is pissing in the wind as far as I am concerned

** So how are those thousands speaking to you? I've heard of imaginary friends but summoning them by the thousands is truely amazing. I believe you can get medication for that if it becomes a problem. It already has you out of touch with reality.

You are too old to be playing silly little kids games. Adults do not run around calling each other childish names.

** Good advice coming from you, perhaps you should read your prior posts.

You have heard of parallels haven't you? Well maybe not
This is a guess, but a terribly uneducated one. If the chip saved it from losing money, why didn't they include it in the next models? Why did they discontinue a model that made them money? Why did NDP sales figues for players show that Samsung barely sold any 1200's, and was being outsold buy cheaper players? The player lost money because they had to be discounted so they could move inventory. SO chips are not discounted, so if you are going to keep player prices down, you have to exclude the chip.

** Not necessarily. This can't be the only option.

A) You do not know how much the chip costs, so your comment about it wouldn't cost more to include it is ignorant as hell. B) its not just the cost of the chip, but it is the seperate video path that has to be created as well to handle the processing of the chip, and get the best out of it. More money. Its not the BDA that decides what is included in each player, its the manufacturers of the players.

** Huh, gee, I thought the BDA, was made up of the manufacturers. Now the BDA is some separate secret entity. This is why I can't believe anything you say. Your just a lot of hot air and you think the more you blow everyone will just start marching right behind you.

From what we have been hearing from the manufacturers over at bluray.com, they don't include it because it is more important from a consumers perspective to keep cost down, and produce high quality value priced players that enhance the bluray experience, not the DVD experience. That is for Oppo to handle. We are told you cannot make a bluray player that will sell if your goal is to try and compete with the Oppo's on DVD playback. Apparently they know more than you do about how to manufacturer a player since I do not see you offering a player for sale, or even know how to make one When you start to manufacturer a player, then come back and talk to me about costs.

** So you have a player on the market? Talking about childish. A BR player would not have to compete with Oppo, they are apples and oranges. Remember one plays BR and one don't. It's not a big deal to offer a reasonable DVD picture or just don't do it at all.

Until you do or have, you are shooting blanks when talking about how much a player cost, and how much it cost to add a state of the art chipset inside. Its not pretty to squawk in ignorance. Get educated about how much it cost to make a player before you spout off sh!t you know nothing about.

** Being a corporate hack don't make you a manufacturing cost specialist either. I'm sure Sony hires janitors too but because they are paid by Sony don't give them any more info than you have.

I should also call you Mr Pixelbody. Nobody mention HDMI That is a different issue altogether

** Oh yeah, it's different, we are forced to use it on BR and every component it would connect too. I think they are related. Definitely, more so than you saying the 1200 lost money because HD-DVD players did. Dude, you are grasping at straws.

Everyone wants to make money right? Do(or did) you go to work for free? No. Did you work for the same wage your entire life? No. Didn't you want to make more money for your work as you grew more knowledgeable? I would think so. So manufacturers have a right to want to make a profit right? Or are you under the same belief as pixy that players should be given away for free? If I was a manufacturer, I would want to make as large a profit from each player as I could. Its how you fund R&D, and give a ROI to those that fund you, you know, the shareholders.

Making money is a relative term. What the HDMI LLC, and BDA do, and they are related because most, if not all, of HDMI LLC is in the BDA, are more related to terms like extortion, usery, racketeering and fraud.

It takes hot air to penetrate a thick skull. I said monitored, not mastered. Secondly the same soundtrack that is mastered for DVD cannot be used with bluray. Bluray uses lossless exclusively, so a soundtrack destined for DVD cannot be reused for bluray. Its a seperate mastering process for each. Thirdly, DVD uses lossy encoding which can hide all kinds of audio warts(like mispans, bad recording practices, syncing etc), so it does not need to be monitored before mastering. With Bluray using lossless, all of the warts are easily heard, hence why they have to be monitored and clean up before mastering. I should know this because this is what I do for a living. Do you do this as well?

**Your point, everything has a manufacturing process from LP's to CD's to DVd's to BR. Because you can show a difference don't mean jack. First adoptors have always paid higher prices in the beginning and then cost levels out. Wake up CEO parrot, Blu-ray isn't that unique from any other product being manufactured or going through it's infancy in the market place. I'm sure you've had these feelings before if you've been there long enough to work on other projects. Don't beat your chest too hard.

Great, but alot more folks do not share your opinion, and they are winning and you are whining.
You are entitled to your opinion. But do not be upset if I don't run my business based on it. You jumped into bluray much too early if you are complaining about disc prices. Disc prices remained around $40 two to three years after DVD was introduced. Prices for bluray discs are already around $20 on Amazon. And that is two years after format introduction. You talk about blowin smoke, or in your case smokin blow
The model of consistancy. Will pay extra for a player with a SO chip that does not add even a line of extra information, but won't pay for a disc with 6 times the resolution of the previous format. No wonder you are *****ing so much, your thought process isn't even consistant.

Don't give me this out of touch bull peabody. I buy all of my discs just like you do. The only ones I haven't purchased are movies I review. I have not reviewed 350+ movies. The difference between you and I is I know what it takes to make a disc. I know the cost of authoring, liscensing fees, replication fees, programming fees, restoration fees, final mastering, and shipping. You apparently do not, so just who is out of touch here?

If manufacturers attempted to do your asinine suggestion, the players prices would all be about $1000 or more, and the Cell chip inside(which is even more expensive than the SO chip by a long shot) would be under used to the hilt. This is a stupid suggestion out of desperation to make a point.

** false statement based on only your say so

You profess to know the actions of every person interested in bluray players? Perhaps you should change your name to God! That pretty arrogant do cha think? I would say, that you know less that I about this. You sit here at audioreview day in, day out. I visit bluray.com(everyday), AVS, Hometheaterforum.com, The hometheatershack, and several other AV websites weekly. People want profile 1.1 and 2.0 players, not enhanced DVD playback. Folks want high resolution bitstreaming, and they want lower player prices. You should get around more. Staying here all the time is making you increasing ignorant about what other besides your own selfish self desire.

** Wow, you are really getting desparate. That was a totally irrelevant statement. You have no idea where I go or what input I get. If people really wanted that mess on DVD players manufacturers would have found a way to make it happen. You sound like you are switched to repeat. BTW I'm sure all the guys here appreciate the complement. I'm glad I have you here to look after me because I didn't even notice everyone else's ignorance rubbing off. I also like you trying to turn the table, I didn't claim to know what everyone wants, that's your claim, Mr. thousands of people speak to me. Watch waving your banner around you could poke some one in the eye.

It may not be what you want, but you cannot say what everyone else wants, cause you don't know. PIP was not invented by the BDA(surely you must know this) PIP was part of the specifications of the DVD format. They just didn't have a large enough pipeline to make it happen. PIP was also apart of the HD DVD spec(surely you must known this, you seem to know everything). So to say that the BDA just invented this, shows that you do not know your a$$ from a hole in the ground.

I believe the a$$ is one I occasionally have to wipe, and for you, it would be the one you want everyone to kiss. I got ahead of myself earlier, allow me to reiterate, if the people had an out cry for PIP on DVD it would have happened. It's stupid on a movie format. If you took a poll I bet most care less about the special features in a disc. DVD's have had some movies where you could choose the ending, I bet the number could be counted on one hand, if this was popular, it would have been on nearly all big title movies.

People wanted PIP, they got it. They wanted bitstreaming of the advance codecs, they got it. They wanted the ability to download extra content, they got it. They wanted 24fps playback for films, they got it. What they do not seem interested in is paying for a chipset to enhance DVD playback, that's why there is none(duh!). You seem to be out of touch with other bluray player owners, and the bluray world as a whole.

** That's nonsense. People on the street don't even know what HDTV is let alone your laundry list of useless features. People didn't want this. Either you are just plain making this up or you have been brain washed. 24 fps, give me a break, you poll a million people and I bet less than 1% even is aware of what it is. And you expect me to believe everyone is beating down Sony's door for it. It makes a lot of sense to take away the one thing consumers can use, decent DVD playback, and give them a bunch of crap they will not use, don't care about and don't even understand. The majority of people, including most on this board, don't even have the displays to take advantage of these features. But hey, that's another reason to upgrade, and upgrade means more money in the pockets of the CE companies. And, no matter what term you use, CE, BDA, HDMI LLC, they are all one in the same, a bunch of crooks.

WARNING - another irrelevant statement used as a deversion.> Much of your crying and whining is steeped out of your own ignorance. You do not seem to know(or care to know) about how much things cost. You seem to believe that everything should be as cheap as the DVD is, when almost everything that goes into a bluray player is completely new. You cannot build bluray players on DVD's existing lines, you have to build new manufacturing plants. You cannot use chipsets that are included in DVD players, they are not powerful enough. Bluray disc cannot be replicated on existing DVD replication lines, the pit depth is too different. DVD used simplistic menu systems, BR disc require java, which means hiring programmers. Hometheater mixes were a rarity on DVD, but have become commonplace on Bluray because of bluray's resolution increase. Authoring kits cost more on bluray than DVD. Everything associated with bluray has had to be built from the ground up. This cost bucks. We are living in a world were everyone wants everything for nothing. That is not real, and HD DVD has proven this.

** It may not be real to you but it's human nature and it's been here since the dawn of time and Blu-ray ain't going to change it now. I realize you are portraying Blu-ray as the greatest thing since Moses parting the Red Sea but reality is BR is just another product.

You are swimming against the tide on this one, so you might as well dry your eyes up, and move on to the next topic. Call the manufacturers greedy(the BDA has nothing to do with player manufacturering), call everyone greedy, out of touch, or any other name in the book. Manufacturers(unless they are trying to diffentiate their products from lower cost ones) are not going to add expensive processors that have nothing to do with Bluray movie watching to their players. The public wants CHEAPER PLAYERS, not more expensive ones. Now Oppo may come out with a Bluray player that does great upconversion, but it probably will not be with the SO chip, as they are using DCDi chipsets which are MUCH cheaper than SO chips(that I know for sure). Sony, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, Funai, Denon(neither of their players use SO chips either) and the other bluray player manufacturers are focused on creating good Bluray players that enhance the Bluray experience. You want good DVD playback, go to Oppo.

** I can't believe you said the BDA has nothing to do with BR manufacturing, you've totally lost it, who is the BDA? Who are the members? Shows what you know, D&M is using SO chips. The Denon and Marantz BR players use the Realta. The price of these units they, should, have everything there is to offer.

It is hard to walk forward while looking backwards. Likewise it is hard to look backwards while walking forward.

** I'll trust you on that one, it sounds like you speak from experience.

[audio amateur]

Perhaps all this would be easier and less time consuming on the phone?

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

** I'll trust you on that one, it sounds like you speak from experience.

Yes, I am watching you struggle at it right here. That is all the experience one needs to know how dumb it is.

You sound like a broken record. You have nothing to support your claim the 1200 lost any money. The SO chip don't cost $200.00 either, did you pull that from your butt? The Realta chip is fairly expensive but to keep cost down and be competitive SO made the Reon which is the chip in the 1200. PQ is very good but the programmability is left out in order to cost less. Of course, I noticed it wasn't in any other machines, that's why I bought a 2nd 1200 and having this debate in the first place. From articles and posts on other boards I get a since that I am not the only one interested in BR players doing decent DVD playback. You are just spouting off the latest propaganda given to you by your employer, the daily hack memo

I sound like a broken record, you a b!tchy little broad. Peabody, I have more information about bluray players than you can shake you thick head at. When you count the chipset, the extra video path for seperate DVD playback, the more powerful pre and post processing chips associated with running the Reon, creating the manufacturing line to accomodate the different design, and marketing cost associated with adding the chipset it adds considerably to the cost of the player. The $200 is a ballpark figure and not an actual figure. All one has to do is use their brain here. A 1200 came out with a $800 price tag. The 1400, $500. Internally the 1200 and 1400 are identical except the 1400 has the chipset that allows for bitstreaming, and the 1200 has the SO chip and more powerful associated video chips. That is a three hundred dollar difference. Kjack who is a bluray.com insider confirmed to us that samsung was losing money on the 1200, hence why it was only produced for 6 months. Had Samsung used the same chipset found in the 1400 they would not have lost a dime on the player. Since Kjack knows the cost of the chip, and how it is implemented in the player, I prefer his word over yours since you do not actually know anything about the cost of chipsets, or how they have to be implemented. His words; The 1200 used the Reon, which require a more powerful pre processing chip(Broadcom BCM7411) which is also not cheap. Reon requires more bits and a higher transmission rate so it used 12bit 216mhz DAC's, so its not just the Reon chip, but all of the associated other parts and the seperate DVD processing pathway that drive up the cost of the player. To compare with the 1400, it used a single pathway for both bluray and DVD video playback, and a single Sigma chip, with cheaper 10bit 108mhz DAC.

The company I work for doesn't make players, so they cannot feed me anything. Once again, do not make assumptions that you cannot support. Just throwing sh!t out there makes you look kinda stupid.

** Did you actually write this again or just copy from you prior posts? If you have said all you have to say, then we are done

If you had read it the first time and got it instead doing all of this crying, I wouldn't have to say it again. We can be done when you stop crying. Apparently its going to take a while.

** So how are those thousands speaking to you? I've heard of imaginary friends but summoning them by the thousands is truely amazing. I believe you can get medication for that if it becomes a problem. It already has you out of touch with reality.

So another old man going back into the egg with kiddy insults. Are you and pixie twin brothers? I never said I spoke to thousands, all one has to do is go on the various sites and READ what people want, and even Ray Charles can see there are more requests for bitstreaming and internal decoding of the audio codecs, and there is one lonely little man(acting like a woman I might add) crying for better DVD playback. One can see that more people want cheaper players than more expensive ones. And then there is you, one person saying I want a more expensive player with expensive chipset for DVD playback. You are swimming against the tide old dude, you are the only person I have seen crying about DVD playback in a BLURAY player. So I suppose you want your toaster to make eggs!

** Good advice coming from you, perhaps you should read your prior posts.

Here is some more advice. Stop crying like a girl.

** Not necessarily. This can't be the only option.

It is the only option. Including the Reon requires that more powerful pre and post processing chips and a dedicated path. Eleminate that, and you can keep the players cost down. The 1400 is proof positive of that. Of course all of the crying keeps you from thinking.

** Huh, gee, I thought the BDA, was made up of the manufacturers. Now the BDA is some separate secret entity. This is why I can't believe anything you say. Your just a lot of hot air and you think the more you blow everyone will just start marching right behind you.

Let me spell this out for you since you canot seem to figure this out on your own. The BDA decides the direction the BLURAY format takes as a whole. Each manufacturer decides what to put in their players. The BDA does not decide what goes into each manufacturer players, and a single manufacturer does not decide the direction of the format. Got that?
I have no interest in anyone marching behind me, you are just mad because you are not getting what you want. Babies do that.

** So you have a player on the market? Talking about childish. A BR player would not have to compete with Oppo, they are apples and oranges. Remember one plays BR and one don't. It's not a big deal to offer a reasonable DVD picture or just don't do it at all.

Remember grandpa, I am not the one whining here, you are. I am not the one complaining about DVD playback in a BLURAY player, you are. The DVD upscaling from my PS3 is great. The PQ of DVD in bluray players is reasonable, you can watch it can't you? It does not look like the PQ from a DVD player with the Reon chip, but that Reon chip is not adding any additional resolution to the picture, it just makes it cleaner. Backwards compatibility is a huge selling point for a bluray player. But it is not the players main function, and it is stupid to spend money on something that is not apart of its main function.

** Being a corporate hack don't make you a manufacturing cost specialist either. I'm sure Sony hires janitors too but because they are paid by Sony don't give them any more info than you have

Being a cry baby is not going to get you better DVD playback either. I do not need to be a cost specialist, I have access to one. He can tell me all I need to know about the cost of parts, implementation, and how the players are built. I am sure Sony hires janitors as well, but I don't work for Sony, and I am not a janitor.

[/quote]** Oh yeah, it's different, we are forced to use it on BR and every component it would connect too. I think they are related. Definitely, more so than you saying the 1200 lost money because HD-DVD players did. Dude, you are grasping at straws[/quote]

Just to show the value of your uneducated thoughts. Upconverting DVD players have HDMI outputs. Are they related? HD DVD players had HDMI outputs, are they related? Televisions have HDMI inputs, are they related? The studios wanted HDMI, not the manufacturers, and not the BDA. The BDA is only complying with the wishes of the studios.

I am going to try and make this as easy as I can, but based on my experience with you on this thread, I still think you are not going to get it. The XA-2 had the reon processor, so did the 1200. The XA-2 had the Broadcom 7411 processor, so did the 1200. The XA-2 had 12bit 216mhz DAC's, so did the 1200. The XA-2 was priced at $799, and so was the 1200 when it hit the streets. The XA-2 didn't sell that well, but its lower priced siblings did. The same with the 1200. It didn't sell well but the discounted and lower priced 1000 did and so did other cheaper bluray players. The player that followed the XA-2 did not contain the Reon chip, and the player that followed the 1200 didn't either. According to Kjack(who should know this, his company supplies the chipset for both formats) at $799 they were making a VERY small profit from the players. When they had to discount both players to move inventory, both companies lost money on these players, and they were discontinued. Both companies used cheaper chipsets in the next generation players. According to Kjack(who should know this) if both companies used a cheaper chipset, and a single pipeline for both bluray(and HD DVD) and DVD signals, they could have priced both players at least $300 cheaper, and still made a profit on each player(much like bluray players now). The grand experiment of using high end DVD video processing circuits in BLURAY players is a failure. Bluray players are for bluray discs, and DVD playback adds value to that player. It would be smart to use higher quality(and priced) chipset to enhance bluray playback(whether audio or video). It is stupid to invest in expensive chipsets for non bluray enhancing playback. Your crying is not going to change this.

Making money is a relative term. What the HDMI LLC, and BDA do, and they are related because most, if not all, of HDMI LLC is in the BDA, are more related to terms like extortion, usery, racketeering and fraud.

I do not see either the HDMI LLC or the BDA in court for any of the charges you mentioned. More conspiracy theories? I know this might be difficult for the pea brain in peabody's head to grasp around. HDMI LLC only handles matters of HDMI, not bluray. The BDA handles things to do with the bluray format not HDMI. They are not related, and the stupidity of your comment is profound. HDMI inputs and outputs are found on upscaling DVD players produced by members of the BDA, AND non members as well. It was the studios that requested more secure means of transfering information from the disc to the players to the television, not the BDA, and not the manufacturers. It was up to the manufacturers(with the tools they currently had) to come up with the connection and transfer protocol. The goal of HDMI LLC is to manage HDMI, the goal of the BDA is to manage Bluray. The two are not intertwined, the two do not do the same thing, even if the companies that are apart of both organizations are the same. So how do you spin your arguement when you understand that alot of the same members in the DVD forum are also in the BDA as well?

**Your point, everything has a manufacturing process from LP's to CD's to DVd's to BR. Because you can show a difference don't mean jack. First adoptors have always paid higher prices in the beginning and then cost levels out. Wake up CEO parrot, Blu-ray isn't that unique from any other product being manufactured or going through it's infancy in the market place. I'm sure you've had these feelings before if you've been there long enough to work on other projects. Don't beat your chest too hard.

Ahhh, trying to dismiss things now. You should wake up peahead, were has your stupid a$$ been for the last two years. There was a format war idiot, a format war where prices were pushed down far faster than any of those other technologies you mentioned. Sony's first generation players were $799. Their second generation was $399. The first DVD players were over a $1000, the second generation $800, and the third generation players were around $500. DVD had three to four years of around or above $500 pricing. Bluray a little less than a year. Thanks to Toshiba everyone expect player prices at $200-300 NOW. The fact that you do not know this shows that you are commenting, and making assumptions that are profoundly uneducated, and shows that you really have not been paying any attention to the events of the last two years on this subject.

** false statement based on only your say so

Prove its false, or shut the hell up. Its just that simple. The Cell processor cost more than all of the seven processor in a typical standalone bluray player, and some. Its a large and complex processor, and they cost more to manufacture The Cell processor is in the PS3 because it plays games and movies, something that NONE of the standalones have to do. The real power of the Cell processor comes from gaming, not bluray playback. It cruises playing back a bluray movie and processing lossless audio, but it has to work a little for processing video and audio in gaming, especially games in 1080p. It would be stupid(much like your statement to include it in all players) to put a expensive processor who's power would be largely unused in all bluray players. It is a unnecessary expense, and there are cheaper alternatives. Folks who understand the Cell chip know this, the ignorant folks assume everything.

Wow, you are really getting desparate. That was a totally irrelevant statement. You have no idea where I go or what input I get. If people really wanted that mess on DVD players manufacturers would have found a way to make it happen. You sound like you are switched to repeat. BTW I'm sure all the guys here appreciate the complement. I'm glad I have you here to look after me because I didn't even notice everyone else's ignorance rubbing off. I also like you trying to turn the table, I didn't claim to know what everyone wants, that's your claim, Mr. thousands of people speak to me. Watch waving your banner around you could poke some one in the eye.

As ignorant as your statements have been on bluray, you have not been anywhere but here. Anyone who surfs other AV websites can plainly see that folks want cheaper prices, and enhancements related to BLURAY playback. I have not seen a groundswell of complaints about a BLURAY players DVD playback except from your whining butt. All one has to do is travel and read peabody, that is it. You start seeing trends. When is this titles coming? When are the sub $300 players coming? Where are the profile 2.0 players coming? Does this bitstream, how much is it? What I do not read is when are they coming out with more expensive bluray players that have the reon chips inside? They were out there, didn't sell well, and were eventually discontinued in favor of lower cost options.

** That's nonsense. People on the street don't even know what HDTV is let alone your laundry list of useless features. People didn't want this. Either you are just plain making this up or you have been brain washed. 24 fps, give me a break, you poll a million people and I bet less than 1% even is aware of what it is. And you expect me to believe everyone is beating down Sony's door for it. It makes a lot of sense to take away the one thing consumers can use, decent DVD playback, and give them a bunch of crap they will not use, don't care about and don't even understand. The majority of people, including most on this board, don't even have the displays to take advantage of these features. But hey, that's another reason to upgrade, and upgrade means more money in the pockets of the CE companies. And, no matter what term you use, CE, BDA, HDMI LLC, they are all one in the same, a bunch of crooks.

First peahead, the people that bought into bluray early had HDTV, or why would they buy a player(duh!). Early adopters know far more about the bluray format than joe six pack. If you did this poll amoung early adopter(not ignorant folks much like yourself) they would know far more about 24fps, bitstreaming, PIP and everything else bluray related than the general public. Early adopters to bluray were not buying players for their DVD playback, they were buying them to play BLURAY movies. You seem to think your way of thinking is the only way. Now you see it ain't. Bitstreaming of the latest codecs is completely unnecessary. You actually lose the audio in the extra's doing it without gaining any fidelity in the audio. Why are we seeing it in players and decoders in receivers, because there was a demand for it, people were asking for it. They got it. You have it in your head that all early adopters are as dumb as you are about this technology. It ain't so peabody, alot of folks know alot more about this technology than you do, and are asking for different things than you are as a result.

The early adopter is not just some person on the street.

I am not going to respond to anymore of your conspiracy claims. You sound like a paranoid old man hiding in his closet because the entire world is full of evil crooks and corporations all out to steal your money. Your stupid a$$ has the option of either purchasing a player, or not. You chose to ignorantly, and now you are all mad at the world for the stupid decision you made. You do not go to a Chinese Restaurant for a good burger. You do not make eggs in the toaster, freeze things in the oven, chop with a fork, or clean your mouth with a plate. You also cannot expect state of the art DVD playback from a BLURAY player, so stop all of the whining and complaining and move on. If you do not like your BLURAY players DVD playback, take the damn thing back to the store and get a Oppo with the money you get back. Whining, pissing and crapping all over yourself is not going to change a damn thing.

[Mr Peabody]

Yes, I am watching you struggle at it right here. That is all the experience one needs to know how dumb I am..

I sound like a broken record, you a b!tchy little broa Peabody, I have more information about bluray players than you can shake you thick head at. When you count the chipset, the extra video path for seperate DVD playback, the more powerful pre and post processing chips associated with running the Reon, creating the manufacturing line to accomodate the different design, and marketing cost associated with adding the chipset it adds considerably to the cost of the player. The $200 is a ballpark figure and not an actual figure. All one has to do is use their brain here. A 1200 came out with a $800 price tag. The 1400, $500. Internally the 1200 and 1400 are identical except the 1400 has the chipset that allows for bitstreaming, and the 1200 has the SO chip and more powerful associated video chips. That is a three hundred dollar difference. Kjack who is a bluray.com insider confirmed to us that samsung was losing money on the 1200, hence why it was only produced for 6 months. Had Samsung used the same chipset found in the 1400 they would not have lost a dime on the player. Since Kjack knows the cost of the chip, and how it is implemented in the player, I prefer his word over yours since you do not actually know anything about the cost of chipsets, or how they have to be implemented. His words; The 1200 used the Reon, which require a more powerful pre processing chip(Broadcom BCM7411) which is also not cheap. Reon requires more bits and a higher transmission rate so it used 12bit 216mhz DAC's, so its not just the Reon chip, but all of the associated other parts and the seperate DVD processing pathway that drive up the cost of the player. To compare with the 1400, it used a single pathway for both bluray and DVD video playback, and a single Sigma chip, with cheaper 10bit 108mhz DAC.

** ahuh... ahuh... yeah...... You know you must stay dizzy spinning like that.

The company I work for doesn't make players, so they cannot feed me anything. Once again, do not make assumptions that you cannot support. Just throwing sh!t out there makes you look kinda stupid.

** Any you definitely know that from experience. So I guess that's two of us.

If you had read it the first time and got it instead doing all of this crying, I wouldn't have to say it again. We can be done when you stop crying. Apparently its going to take a while.
So another old man going back into the egg with kiddy insults. Are you and pixie twin brothers? I never said I spoke to thousands, all one has to do is go on the various sites and READ what people want, and even Ray Charles can see there are more requests for bitstreaming and internal decoding of the audio codecs, and there is one lonely little man(acting like a woman I might add) crying for better DVD playback. One can see that more people want cheaper players than more expensive ones. And then there is you, one person saying I want a more expensive player with expensive chipset for DVD playback. You are swimming against the tide old dude, you are the only person I have seen crying about DVD playback in a BLURAY player. So I suppose you want your toaster to make eggs!

** You must be as young as you act. Why does everyone have to be an "old dude" you have no idea my age but "old dude" is a complement because for some one with all the BR knowledge you sure act childish, so maybe you should grow up a tad. The egg idea isn't bad....

You know I'd like a cheap Krell or Mac too but I don't see them dropping prices over consumer demand. I think your "we're given the masses what they want" crap has more than ran it's course. Call me what you will but you are beating a dead horse my friend. Playing the virtuous manufacturer card just don't fly.

Here is some more advice. Stop crying like a girl.

** Again, a fine display of maturity. That's sarcasm in case you don't recognize it. I wouldn't want your head to grow any larger than it is.

It is the only option. Including the Reon requires that more powerful pre and post processing chips and a dedicated path. Eleminate that, and you can keep the players cost down. The 1400 is proof positive of that. Of course all of the crying keeps you from thinking.

sure.... ok.... whatever

Let me spell this out for you since you canot seem to figure this out on your own. The BDA decides the direction the BLURAY format takes as a whole. Each manufacturer decides what to put in their players. The BDA does not decide what goes into each manufacturer players, and a single manufacturer does not decide the direction of the format. Got that?
I have no interest in anyone marching behind me, you are just mad because you are not getting what you want. Babies do that.

More spinning when you get caught talking crap.

Remember grandpa, I am not the one whining here, you are. I am not the one complaining about DVD playback in a BLURAY player, you are. The DVD upscaling from my PS3 is great. The PQ of DVD in bluray players is reasonable, you can watch it can't you? It does not look like the PQ from a DVD player with the Reon chip, but that Reon chip is not adding any additional resolution to the picture, it just makes it cleaner. Backwards compatibility is a huge selling point for a bluray player. But it is not the players main function, and it is stupid to spend money on something that is not apart of its main function.

** One reply I'm a baby and another I'm grandpa.... you need to speak to your shrink about this. One reply backward compatibility isn't important and another is a "major selling point", see a trend here. I wouldn't think a "major selling point" should be one of the poorest thing a product does. Sure one can see a DVD picture but you know I could see it before on my DVD player and NTSC TV so what is your point? I'm not replacing my entire library of DVD's with BD's and when I use my BR player I don't want the PQ to look worse than I have ever seen it. I had a Denon 1600 and I'm not going to settle for my DVD playback to look like a $50.00 department store player when I spend money for a BR player.

Being a cry baby is not going to get you better DVD playback either. I do not need to be a cost specialist, I have access to one. He can tell me all I need to know about the cost of parts, implementation, and how the players are built. I am sure Sony hires janitors as well, but I don't work for Sony, and I am not a janitor.

** Oh... so when I voice an opinion as a consumer I have to be a cry baby but you and the boys listen to the supposed masses to put frivolous features on the BR players.

** Oh yeah, it's different, we are forced to use it on BR and every component it would connect too. I think they are related. Definitely, more so than you saying the 1200 lost money because HD-DVD players did. Dude, you are grasping at straws[/quote]

Just to show the value of your uneducated thoughts. Upconverting DVD players have HDMI outputs. Are they related? HD DVD players had HDMI outputs, are they related? Televisions have HDMI inputs, are they related? The studios wanted HDMI, not the manufacturers, and not the BDA. The BDA is only complying with the wishes of the studios.

right, whatever you say.

I am going to try and make this as easy as I can, but based on my experience with you on this thread, I still think you are not going to get it. The XA-2 had the reon processor, so did the 1200. The XA-2 had the Broadcom 7411 processor, so did the 1200. The XA-2 had 12bit 216mhz DAC's, so did the 1200. The XA-2 was priced at $799, and so was the 1200 when it hit the streets. The XA-2 didn't sell that well, but its lower priced siblings did. The same with the 1200. It didn't sell well but the discounted and lower priced 1000 did and so did other cheaper bluray players. The player that followed the XA-2 did not contain the Reon chip, and the player that followed the 1200 didn't either. According to Kjack(who should know this, his company supplies the chipset for both formats) at $799 they were making a VERY small profit from the players. When they had to discount both players to move inventory, both companies lost money on these players, and they were discontinued. Both companies used cheaper chipsets in the next generation players. According to Kjack(who should know this) if both companies used a cheaper chipset, and a single pipeline for both bluray(and HD DVD) and DVD signals, they could have priced both players at least $300 cheaper, and still made a profit on each player(much like bluray players now). The grand experiment of using high end DVD video processing circuits in BLURAY players is a failure. Bluray players are for bluray discs, and DVD playback adds value to that player. It would be smart to use higher quality(and priced) chipset to enhance bluray playback(whether audio or video). It is stupid to invest in expensive chipsets for non bluray enhancing playback. Your crying is not going to change this.

** It's not stupid and I don't know what you get out of defending these grease balls. Your right, all the players after the 1200 used Sigma BS ships and a single path, that includes Sony ES and Pioneer Elite which of both sold for more than the 1200, so what's your excuse for that? The fact that Toshiba lost money has nothing to do with the Reon, it had to do with Toshiba's agenda with HD-DVD. The 1200 price stayed up because Samsung didn't have to discount it. The price eventually dropped with the Java problems and players hitting the market with more updated technology. So what if the Reon chip is more expensive these guys are going to sell expensive players so why not offer something for the price? You seem to know so much about BR yet you forget BR was holding it's own against HD-DVD selling for double or triple the price. BR may not go back to decent DVD playback but it has nothing to do with price or chips. Hell if Oppo can do it while selling the whole machine for $169.00 then it's a piss poor BR that can't do it and still make a profit and $600.00 or better.

I do not see either the HDMI LLC or the BDA in court for any of the charges you mentioned. More conspiracy theories? I know this might be difficult for the pea brain in peabody's head to grasp around. HDMI LLC only handles matters of HDMI, not bluray. The BDA handles things to do with the bluray format not HDMI. They are not related, and the stupidity of your comment is profound. HDMI inputs and outputs are found on upscaling DVD players produced by members of the BDA, AND non members as well. It was the studios that requested more secure means of transfering information from the disc to the players to the television, not the BDA, and not the manufacturers. It was up to the manufacturers(with the tools they currently had) to come up with the connection and transfer protocol. The goal of HDMI LLC is to manage HDMI, the goal of the BDA is to manage Bluray. The two are not intertwined, the two do not do the same thing, even if the companies that are apart of both organizations are the same. So how do you spin your arguement when you understand that alot of the same members in the DVD forum are also in the BDA as well?

** You should be careful trying to lay stupidity when it was you who tried to claim the BDA and manufacturers were two different entities. You can spin it however you want but have you heard the saying "a house divided against itself won't stand long"? The same companies belong to HDMI LLC and BDA, so you believe if you want they have separate agenda but I don't, think, so.

Ahhh, trying to dismiss things now. You should wake up peahead, were has your stupid a$$ been for the last two years. There was a format war idiot, a format war where prices were pushed down far faster than any of those other technologies you mentioned. Sony's first generation players were $799. Their second generation was $399. The first DVD players were over a $1000, the second generation $800, and the third generation players were around $500. DVD had three to four years of around or above $500 pricing. Bluray a little less than a year. Thanks to Toshiba everyone expect player prices at $200-300 NOW. The fact that you do not know this shows that you are commenting, and making assumptions that are profoundly uneducated, and shows that you really have not been paying any attention to the events of the last two years on this subject.

Your flip flopping again, first when debating Pix you said BR prices will remain up so the boys can make some jingle off the sappy consumers, but now, Oh, it was a war, prices are down. I hope me pointing out these little contradictions will get you to seek help. My what adjectives you yield when you have little real substance to speak of. You should notice as well that DVD players also range from $25.00 to who knows, I know for sure I've seen them not so long ago at $3k to $4k. Your argument on price is really invalid and if you were a man you'd admit it and move on. I don't particularly want to spend that higher end and won't but there's no reason why a BR that does good DVD playback couldn't be built and sold for under $1k and the company still make some decent money on it.

Prove its false, or shut the hell up. Its just that simple. The Cell processor cost more than all of the seven processor in a typical standalone bluray player, and some. Its a large and complex processor, and they cost more to manufacture The Cell processor is in the PS3 because it plays games and movies, something that NONE of the standalones have to do. The real power of the Cell processor comes from gaming, not bluray playback. It cruises playing back a bluray movie and processing lossless audio, but it has to work a little for processing video and audio in gaming, especially games in 1080p. It would be stupid(much like your statement to include it in all players) to put a expensive processor who's power would be largely unused in all bluray players. It is a unnecessary expense, and there are cheaper alternatives. Folks who understand the Cell chip know this, the ignorant folks assume everything.

** Nice of you to take the high road to try to make a point. No one is saying put a high performance chip in every single machine. You talk as if everyone is going to sell the same machine with just a different name on the front. It may be difficult for you and I am coming to realize you have a bit of mental challenges but try to broaden your picture, your perspective here a little. Products are sold at different price points and as you go up the line at some point you could include a good SD chip with a separate path. And before you start to play your broken record that expensive players don't sell, you had better look again at the market place because there are top of the line products in every catagory, they are made, have been for years, they sell, or else they wouldn't still be on the market. Your insane banter about the 1200 is just wrong, if Samsung couldn't sell the 1200 with a Reon chip how the hell did Sony and Pioneer expect to sell a player more expensive without it? You yourself said there aren't any machines on the shelves, why is it just the cheap ones left? Can you find an Elite any where? Again, how did they sell that $1k player without a Reon chip when poor Samsung lost so much money on the 1200 at a lesser retail with the Reon? You slung stupid around a lot, as a supposed market man, you need to look in the mirror.

As ignorant as your statements have been on bluray, you have not been anywhere but here. Anyone who surfs other AV websites can plainly see that folks want cheaper prices, and enhancements related to BLURAY playback. I have not seen a groundswell of complaints about a BLURAY players DVD playback except from your whining butt. All one has to do is travel and read peabody, that is it. You start seeing trends. When is this titles coming? When are the sub $300 players coming? Where are the profile 2.0 players coming? Does this bitstream, how much is it? What I do not read is when are they coming out with more expensive bluray players that have the reon chips inside? They were out there, didn't sell well, and were eventually discontinued in favor of lower cost options.

Right..... read my above comment again. So you are saying all BR players are going to be cheap for now on? Some one had better tell Marantz and Denon they are making a big business blunder, I believe the new Marantz is just over $2k. I'd hate to be the corporate boy that has to answer for that one. I am not insulted that I am loyal to AR but that don't mean I live in a cave either. If you got around as much as you say, you wouldn't try to claim I am the only one who seems to notice the Sigma chip sucked out loud.

First peahead, the people that bought into bluray early had HDTV, or why would they buy a player(duh!). Early adopters know far more about the bluray format than joe six pack. If you did this poll amoung early adopter(not ignorant folks much like yourself) they would know far more about 24fps, bitstreaming, PIP and everything else bluray related than the general public. Early adopters to bluray were not buying players for their DVD playback, they were buying them to play BLURAY movies. You seem to think your way of thinking is the only way. Now you see it ain't. Bitstreaming of the latest codecs is completely unnecessary. You actually lose the audio in the extra's doing it without gaining any fidelity in the audio. Why are we seeing it in players and decoders in receivers, because there was a demand for it, people were asking for it. They got it. You have it in your head that all early adopters are as dumb as you are about this technology. It ain't so peabody, alot of folks know alot more about this technology than you do, and are asking for different things than you are as a result.
The early adopter is not just some person on the street.

** Oh! so now the truth finally comes out. Your little click just builds the machines for yourselves and us ignorant folks just have to put up with whatever you decide is good. You were *****ing about Harris doing slanted polls yet when it is to your benefit we have to poll only your cronies. And, who are you calling dumb, did you read what you wrote? The very first BR player could bitstream to current equipment, it was only the core audio but it could be done and it was slightly better than DD or DTS on SD. I'll give you a hint before looking even more stupid and disputing what I say go read the Dolby website. Now, there is an audio advantage if a player can bitstream Tru-HD or DTS-MA AND it can be decoded by the receiver, so everything you said is WRONG! Are you saying the early adoptor is some one like you up in the ivory tower looking down at us poor ignorant soles. If everything is as you say BR don't have a prayer of making it. And, if you early adoptors are so grand then why are you yelling for a cheaper BS BR player?

I am not going to respond to anymore of your conspiracy claims. You sound like a paranoid old man hiding in his closet because the entire world is full of evil crooks and corporations all out to steal your money. Your stupid a$$ has the option of either purchasing a player, or not. You chose to ignorantly, and now you are all mad at the world for the stupid decision you made. You do not go to a Chinese Restaurant for a good burger. You do not make eggs in the toaster, freeze things in the oven, chop with a fork, or clean your mouth with a plate. You also cannot expect state of the art DVD playback from a BLURAY player, so stop all of the whining and complaining and move on. If you do not like your BLURAY players DVD playback, take the damn thing back to the store and get a Oppo with the money you get back. Whining, pissing and crapping all over yourself is not going to change a damn thing.[/QUOTE]

I am quite happy with my BR player, I happen to have two BD-P1200's and DVD looks marvelous. I can expect good DVD playback from a BR player, and I do.

[N. Abstentia]

Hate to tell ya, but everything (save for some Japanese porn) is gonna be released
on Blu, if it hasnt already.
Enjoy your doorstop

Possibly in a few years maybe. But guess what? I've got a stack of HD-DVD's that I'm watching NOW that are NOT available on Blu-Ray. So I guess I could wait a few years for the Blur-Rays, or I could go watch them NOW. Or better yet I'll just stream the HD movies via my Xbox or DirecTV...by the time Blu Ray gains traction it will probably be dead as well.

Enjoy your Japanese porn.

[collingwood56]

Hi
You have done a good question, it’s really interesting. If you get any good reply, so please let me know. So I’ll also get some good idea.
Thanks for your
future help.

[Worf101]

I just began to consider this whole Blu-Ray question. If you know me you know I just "went wide" with a Sammy 6 Series. I've not been following the HD vs. BluRay war because, it didn't apply to me, I didn't have a monitor that could show it. Now that I have screen that'll handle it I'm trying to get my mind around the whole war of the competing formats. One thing's for sure, not unlike the Civil War, the war maybe over but the shootin' hasn't stopped!!!!!

I've done some research and have decided to do the following.

1. Replaced my old Denon carousel DVD with an Oppo upconverting one.

2. Wait for BluRay prices to become resonable.

3. Wait for a good BR player in a carousel format (this may take a while).

4. Try not to get between the Hatfields and McCoy's.

Da "wow you guys are pissed" Worfster

[Rich-n-Texas]

1. Good idea. The 981 is the good video processor model IIRC.

2. Could be a while.

3. Could be a looooooong while!

4. Nah. They're just a couple of big ol' teddy bears.