Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player stealth price drop?
Considering that lower priced high definition players are pretty much exactly what we've been asking for, we're a little surprised by the stealthiness of this one. Samsung's BD-P1000 Blu-ray player launched with a price of $999 but as some of our eagle-eyed commenters have pointed out, you can find it for considerably less. Several international reports have mentioned the US retail price of the unit as $800, although no change in the MSRP has been announced by Samsung. While it did show up for only $730 on Amazon.com yesterday, today the retail price displays as $799.99, with a list price of $899.99. Circuit City's website displays an on sale price of $899. Best Buy, Tweeter and Crutchfield don't appear to have gotten the memo and still show the original price. Whatever the reason for the price difference, the fact is you can get a player that --- probably -- plays 50GB Blu-ray discs for the same price as the high end Toshiba HD-XA1 (or not, it's currently going for $687 on Amazon) HD DVD player. With improved movie releases on the way and a quickly closing price gap, Blu-ray may be ready to take the lead from HD DVD sooner than any of us thought.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
hmurchison @ Sep 5th 2006 11:51AM
You guys think?
LOL the player is still woefully underspec'd
No ethernet no USB and plenty of poor movie discs out. Sorry even with a discount the Sammy player isn't worth it IMO. The $499 player still has more features if you want to compare the XA1 then you have have to match the sammy with more dedicated audio DSP and RS232 ports. Let's compare Apples to Apples here. The Sammy player is akin to the HD-A1 and not the HD-XA1
Dave @ Sep 5th 2006 12:04PM
Ooops! HD DVD is going to the trash can sooner than we tought? Great. No more war.
sean @ Sep 5th 2006 12:40PM
This post is a bunch of crap. Don't compare HD-DVD to Blu-Ray. They are not currently comparable. HD-DVD is by far the better deal.
MikeS @ Sep 5th 2006 1:09PM
Forget HD-DVD and Blu-ray......
Where's my Chinese HVD player?
Perrey Z. @ Sep 5th 2006 1:12PM
"Best Buy Tweeter and Crutchfield don't appear to have gotten the memo and still show the original price."
Oh, they did got it, they opt out of selling them at a lower price like always. Damn bastards!
I'm planning to purchase a Toshiba HD-AX1 for $699.00 including shipping and two title of my choice., is a special member's only deal at a local video store. BTW; is not Costco or Sam's Club.
It appears Toshiba and their HD-DVDs are leading the way for the next generation format without any efforts., they are basically letting the thing go without a lot of propaganda and it appears to be working very well for them.
Just this past week Hewlett-Packard announced they were going to produce an HD-DVD recorder. According to what i read, the asked Toshiba to produce the devices, and Toshiba pass the contract to Lite-On. We might see an HP HD-DVD recorder near this Holiday season selling for $2,999.00.
Rick Lyon @ Sep 5th 2006 1:30PM
Why does the article ASSUME that BRD will take the lead?
quote-
Blu-ray may be ready to take the lead from HD DVD sooner than any of us thought.
Huh? I really NEVER thought BRD would win. Ever. I think HD-DVD will lead, they both will fight it out for a niche market and both will collect dust like SACDs and DVDAs.
Subodh Kolla @ Sep 5th 2006 1:52PM
samsung has to decrease the price of their player becuase of the newer Sony, and pioneer players coming out soon. THe samsung at $1000 just doesnt have the features which are available on the Sony, for example, DTS-HD, DD-HD, or 1080p24fps output.
And also this decrease in price doesnt make this player even close to the range of competing with the two toshiba players. Im sorry blu-ray fans, both of the toshibas out perform the samsung in terms of PQ as well as features.
nullhypo @ Sep 5th 2006 2:08PM
Personally, I wouldn't buy any of the first gen HD players released so far. The Toshiba players lack standard DVD player functionality and convenience. They also have subpar performance downscaling to 720p. The Samsung player has a bug, and I'm not sold on its PQ even excluding the bug.
All this talk of the status quo is silly, as BD hasn't even really launched yet and relatively few people will be buying first gen players from either format.
The PS3 will be my first HD player, and I expect to be able to buy stand alone players with more features, better performance, at a much cheaper price, in the future. And I expect BD to offer the most HD components, the most HD movies, the most storage capacity and bandwith for BD packaged media, and the most storage capacity for writeable media.
hmurchison @ Sep 5th 2006 2:31PM
nullyhypo please try to remain current. A week ago Toshiba announced Firmware 2.0 which fixes the 720p scaling issue. What DVD player functionality does it lack? Seeing as how your 720p is off the mark I'm guessing you're incorrect on this one as well.
Good luck trying to find a 60GB Blu-Ray disc as DL Double Sided HD DVD discs are covered in the spec. That's 60GB total on one disc.
HEY!!!!! @ Sep 5th 2006 2:36PM
i spoke to a friend of mine who is a manager at CC and he said it's something there doing because they are not selling enough units as they had hoped too. so if he's correct don't expect the best buy and crutchfield to do the same. i do have a question does the samsung & the pioneer units play cds because i know the sony one doesn't and i was wondering why.
Benjamin Hill @ Sep 5th 2006 7:12PM
I have to agree until they consistently produce Blu-ray discs which are equal in quality to HD DVD discs then there is no point in comparing player prices. Even if Blu-ray players where half the price of HD DVD players I wouldn't buy one at this point in time. If Blu-ray wants to win the format war they need to produce better quality discs, not drop the price of the player.
JSmithson @ Sep 5th 2006 9:16PM
"Blu-ray may be ready to take the lead from HD DVD sooner than any of us thought."
I never knew this website was sponsored by Sony.
Xyzzy @ Sep 5th 2006 10:43PM
#8 - Lack standard DVD playing? Are you insane? It's one of the best upscaling DVD players on the market.
I love your quote here:
"The PS3 will be my first HD player, and I expect....[snip]...in the future. And I expect...[snip]"
So far, that's ALL BD has provided is "future potential." No guarantee that future potential will ever pan out, but feel free to "wait and see" while I go watch the best HD material available on the home market (and a kickass upconverting DVD player to boot). Oh, and have fun buying your own HDMI cable for your PS3, since it won't come with one. I have one that came with my HD-DVD player if you want to buy it ;)
#4: I know you were making a joke, but since China recently scrapped that project it's looking like they're going with HD-DVD as well. So we may see a flood of China-produced HD-DVD players cutting the price of the players down to very cheap. It's all speculation at this point, but that's all Sony has going for it as well, so.... :)
Joseph R @ Sep 6th 2006 1:40AM
And, unlike any of the magazine/tech reviews, actual Samsung Blu-ray owners are reporting [to their horror], that the player FORCES any standard 4:3 content to be stretched! [some have returned players just because of this].
So, can you imagine buying Blu-ray 4:3 movies/concerts [or the little 4:3 bonus content on the discs], and then realizing you can't change the image setting to "normal" - as Samsung's player won't override the forced-stretched setting!
So, after Warner releases the classic ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD on HD DVD in the coming months, and then maybe on Blu-ray, who's format is going to be the best for watching this famous movie? Well, it ain't Blu-ray!
TJ @ Sep 6th 2006 12:17PM
The HD-A1 is now $404.88 and the BD-P1000 is $708.88 on Amazon.
Falling prices can only be a good thing for both formats.