Blu-ray players dropping in price...

[cheddar]

Just for those who still might want to get a player for the holidays.

Prices on Samsung's BDP1400 player have dropped to $269. And this is the one with a firmware update that can bitstream TrueHD and DTS-HD MA to a receiver/pre/pro. Not bad for a 1080P player that does ALL the lossless sound formats.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000TME35W/panandscathed-20

And if you're in the market for a panasonic hdtv, you might want to pick it up from bestbuy and get a profile 1.1 player for free...

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?type=category&id=pcmcat138200050160

These are just a few of the deals coming out as we get closer to Christmas. Although if you've waited this long, you might want to wait and see what comes out of CES. Might be even more features for cheaper.

[bobman1235]

Unfortunately that BDP1400 didn't get the best reviews. Hopefully the problems are all firmware fixable, cuz it's very tempting.

[AndyGwis]

Those are both good deals, thanks!

Amazon has some great offers. I got the HD-A3 and 10 free HD-DVD discs (5 with purchase, 5 via rebate) for $199 shipped yesterday. Looks like BluRay is finally starting to come around as well.

For $1500, you can basically get a 1080p Panasonic plasma AND BluRay player? That is a really good deal, in my opinion. I'm almost thinking of doing something drastic, like getting that deal and giving my parents my old Plasma for XMas. Need to calm down. . . breathe deeply. . . don't need to spend another $1500.

[dkg999]

If I bite on HD DVD, it will most likely be on the new Samsung BR/HD player that is supposed to hit in January. The tech specs look good, hopefully the live product and reviews will be good also.

[Silverti]

If I bite on HD DVD, it will most likely be on the new Samsung BR/HD player that is supposed to hit in January. The tech specs look good, hopefully the live product and reviews will be good also.

ya, good call on your part.

[malikarshad]

Please don't post such deals. So tempting.
I really need a player than can bitstream HiDef audio to my 9.8.
Please resist....no I can't...i must

[obieone]

^^^^^
Resistance is futile! Now, just drink this Kool-aid, and we can start shopping!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHA*SHNORT*

[dorokusai]

The only way to survive is to cut prices...period.

[dkg999]

When the market didn't materialize as planned, or the market isn't growing, you have to cut prices to gain market share. It looks like based on the market research I have seen (which isn't close to what the big electronics manufacturers have access to!) that the High Def DVD market is moving from a mass market opportunity to a niche market opportunity. The High Def DVD player sales data and the High Def DVD movie sales data seem to be out-of-sync. I'm not sure Joe BoseIsGreat DVD movie watcher understands more than the sales pitch I've heard at Best Buy and Circuit City that the new High Def players make all your std def DVD's look better and you don't need to really buy the more expensive High Def DVD's. It will be interesting how this all plays out.

[Early B.]

It looks like based on the market research I have seen (which isn't close to what the big electronics manufacturers have access to!) that the High Def DVD market is moving from a mass market opportunity to a niche market opportunity.

Really? I'm thinking it's just a matter of time before HD-DVD becomes the "standard." Seems like it would be more money for everybody in the industry, at least in the short term until the next big thing comes out. Prices for HD DVD discs should drop even more over the next few months. Where have you seen this market research?

[dkg999]

EarlyB - the research was from the Forrester and Gartner analysts. The research was also prior to any price drops on the High Def DVD movies. Their analysis was that the High Def DVD marketplace was not obtaining the mass that was predicted, and that the growth/expansion wasn't happening at the expected rates. The research indicated the average consumer didn't understand why they needed to pay higher prices for High Def DVD equipment and movies, and really didn't care. Cheap, std def movies were good enough for the mass market. The research was also for the US market, and I need to go see if they followed up with the international estimates.

[bobman1235]

"Slower than expected growth and acceptance" isn't the same thing as "becoming a niche market". I don't think anyone in their right mind will refute that the future is not standard DVDs. Things take time to be adopted, and with all of the in-fighting it's no surprise HD/Blu-Ray are slow on the uptake, but considering the number of sales and money put into this it's well beyond niche already.

[dkg999]

It will be interesting to see what the 4th quarter sales reports are. Investment doesn't determine mass vs niche market, consumer adoption does. If you look at the HD DVD player and movie sales for the first 3 quarters of 2007, versus the total DVD player and movie sales, it's a single digit market share. I agree with the sentiment that hopefully the manufacturers and backers of the formats will continue the investment to get to a mass market status. Time will tell!

[Early B.]

It will be interesting to see what the 4th quarter sales reports are. Investment doesn't determine mass vs niche market, consumer adoption does. If you look at the HD DVD player and movie sales for the first 3 quarters of 2007, versus the total DVD player and movie sales, it's a single digit market share. I agree with the sentiment that hopefully the manufacturers and backers of the formats will continue the investment to get to a mass market status. Time will tell!

Oh, it'll defintely happen, and quickly, too. When dual format HD DVD players move below the $100 mark, that's when the feeding frenzy begins. We saw a taste of it a few weeks ago when the Toshiba A2 dipped below $100. I'm guessing that by next Christmas, execs at BB & CC will be contemplating whether they should continue to carry regular DVD players.

[Silverti]

Really? I'm thinking it's just a matter of time before HD-DVD becomes the "standard." Seems like it would be more money for everybody in the industry, at least in the short term until the next big thing comes out. Prices for HD DVD discs should drop even more over the next few months. Where have you seen this market research?

The market is still moving more in favor of Blue Ray. I saw statistics just yesterday that showed media sales something like 28% HD-DVD and 72% Blue. The problem HD-DVD has right now is titles. They have only released 1 block buster movie on HD-DVD in the past 2 months (Transformers) and Blue has rolled out about 10 (such as Pirates3, Spider3, Rat, Die Hard 4, Cars, etc...). People discount the fast that all these movies cost $30 in HD and people who can’t afford $300 fully featured hd units (BR or HD-DVD) are not going to be able to afford a few movies for it. I’m starting to think my Toshiba A30 is going to be pretty much used as a DVD upscaler pretty soon full time. At least it does it very well.

[bobman1235]

Where do people see all these 30 dollar HD titles? I have yet to buy an HD movie for more than 20 bucks.

I swear sometimes it seems like people look for the WORST deals rather than the best.

[cheddar]

Just keep watching amazon. BOGOs happen there about every other week for Blu-ray...less often for hd-dvd...

...but buying them from big box retailers will often get you prices very near retail...ouch!

I've also noticed that J and R seems to have title sales around 10 bucks for blu-ray quite often.

http://www.jr.com/JRSectionView.process?displayAll=1&Ns=pricing_amount&N=13326+3604&Ne=3600

[wout]

Netflix has 450 Blu ray titles for rent and 400 HDDVD titles (out of 90,000 total DVD titles BTW). Looks like a stalemate for now of tiny proportions.

It will be a while before HD is really going to go somewhere. In the mean time, would you get an HDDVD and a Bluray player to cover all bases? At 199 for the HDDVD and about 300 for the Bluray Samasung that is still less than the combo units. I would also think that a dedicated unit would be more compatible with future upgrades of the format.

[Sherardp]

Netflix has 450 Blu ray titles for rent and 400 HDDVD titles (out of 90,000 total DVD titles BTW). Looks like a stalemate for now of tiny proportions.

It will be a while before HD is really going to go somewhere. In the mean time, would you get an HDDVD and a Bluray player to cover all bases? At 199 for the HDDVD and about 300 for the Bluray Samasung that is still less than the combo units. I would also think that a dedicated unit would be more compatible with future upgrades of the format.

I'd grab a Toshiba A30 or A2 if you can find one, and a Sony BDPS300 or the 500 depending on your needs. If I recall correctly your AVR can handle the Hi Def audio so you'd be fine. Nice setup you have there.

[danger boy]

do receivers need special hi def audio connectors to decode the True Dolby HD signal, or can any 5.1 channel analog inputs be used?

[bobman1235]

What on earth is a hi-def audio connector?

Look, TrueHD is just a way of encoding audio information. Supposedly lossless. In order for the sound to come out of your speakers, someone has to decode said signal. If you use HDMI, you pass the digital, encoded signal to your receiver or processor, which decodes it and sends it to your speakers.

If you use analog, your HD-DVD player decodes the information, and sends the analog signal, into your receiver or processor, which immediately passes this information onto the speakers with no further processing (aside from volume control). At this point it is an ANALOG signal, the same as any other analog information you would send between components. There's no magic about it.

[malikarshad]

I took my chances and bought an open-box player. I already have a PS3 but it does not output bitstream hi-def audio. So I wanted to compare how does it standup against stand alone player.
I updated the firmware on the player before testing.
The load times on the player were considerable slower than the PS3. I used Ratatouille BD disc and the load times were terrible. On PS3 it takes roughly 10 secs to load the menus while on the player it was close to 30 secs.
I did not find any difference in visual quality but there was a difference in audio quality when outputting bitstream from Samsung and pre/pro decoding the audio. The audio was more cleaner sounding when I used DTS-HD MA on XMen3 BD.
I did not test the upscaling as I mainly use Reon upscaling on my pre/pro.
But to me it was not worth $300 price tag. I can still live with PS3.
But again YMMV depending on what you had currently in my system.

[Sherardp]

I took my chances and bought an open-box player. I already have a PS3 but it does not output bitstream hi-def audio. So I wanted to compare how does it standup against stand alone player.
I updated the firmware on the player before testing.
The load times on the player were considerable slower than the PS3. I used Ratatouille BD disc and the load times were terrible. On PS3 it takes roughly 10 secs to load the menus while on the player it was close to 30 secs.
I did not find any difference in visual quality but there was a difference in audio quality when outputting bitstream from Samsung and pre/pro decoding the audio. The audio was more cleaner sounding when I used DTS-HD MA on XMen3 BD.
I did not test the upscaling as I mainly use Reon upscaling on my pre/pro.
But to me it was not worth $300 price tag. I can still live with PS3.
But again YMMV depending on what you had currently in my system.

The Rat movie is a Java disc, so it loads slow on damn near every standalone player except the PS3. There has been many complaints about this over at AVS, and I can concur that it takes forever for the thing to start on my S1. Everything else I throw at loads fast, so again you should try another title.

[cheddar]

In order for the sound to come out of your speakers, someone has to decode said signal. If you use HDMI, you pass the digital, encoded signal to your receiver or processor, which decodes it and sends it to your speakers.

You can also use HDMI to pass a digital PCM signal that has been decoded internally within the player. This is sometimes overlooked as an alternative way to pass already decoded HD audio from a player to a pre/receiver.

[cheddar]

I did not find any difference in visual quality but there was a difference in audio quality when outputting bitstream from Samsung and pre/pro decoding the audio. The audio was more cleaner sounding when I used DTS-HD MA on XMen3 BD.
I did not test the upscaling as I mainly use Reon upscaling on my pre/pro.
But to me it was not worth $300 price tag. I can still live with PS3.
But again YMMV depending on what you had currently in my system.

Not exactly an apples to apples comparison as DTS-HD MA is the only remaining lossless format you can't get out of the ps3. TrueHD and uncompressed LPCM (by far the majority of the disks out there at the present time - only Fox and maybe some smaller studios like New Line appear to be DTS-HD MA shops) come over fine via HDMI. But you are correct that its ommission is the one weakness in an otherwise great blu-ray player. (As long as you don't need analog outs.) It may be possible for them to include DTS-HD MA decoding in a firmware update.

[bobman1235]

You can also use HDMI to pass a digital PCM signal that has been decoded internally within the player. This is sometimes overlooked as an alternative way to pass already decoded HD audio from a player to a pre/receiver.

I find it hard to believe that nothing is lost in the process.

[dorokusai]

Them theres electronics sure is advanced there BillyBob.

[dkg999]

And next up from the China Marketing Company .......... a neat little gizmo that has an HDMI 1.3 input and analog 7.1 and component video outputs. Not sure how good it works, and don't have a link, but a friend got a sample one from the Chinese company he buys his cell phone jammers from. He was a little confused as to what and why? I'll have to see if he can ship it to me to try out!

[cheddar]

I find it hard to believe that nothing is lost in the process.

My understanding is that compressed formats such as TrueHD have to be decoded (uncompressed) to PCM before they can be processed to an analog format and out to the speakers. So whether it's decoded in the player and sent out over analog outs or sent to the pre/receiver with HDMI or decoded at the pre/receiver, you're going to deal with a PCM signal as you can't 'play' the audio in its compressed form.