Well, would you look at that. Just months after we
heard whispers that the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) would be granting a handful or two of
China-based manufacturers with Blu-ray licenses comes a slew of brochure shots proving that said scenario has apparently gone down. Or either Desay, Hotwell, Hualu and VTREK have taken it upon themselves to conjure up BD decks and show 'em off at the SinoCES show floor without permission (but we're banking on the former). As expected, none of these look particularly awe-inspiring, but for those
hoping to see vanilla players dip under the $200 (or lower)
price point, this could be very, very good news. Hit the read link for more details on each.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
EQC @ Jul 16th 2008 4:38PM
Very nice! I know these aren't 2.0 (but really, I don't care about that), but they look pretty fully featured. Internal decoders for all the audio formats (I think), 1080p DVD upconversion, HDMI 1.3, etc...
I hope they're cheap so I can think about getting into the HD movie world!
Mr. E @ Jul 16th 2008 8:08PM
Actually, if you look at the linked story, Hotwell is apparently working on a BD-Live (AKA Profile 2.0) player, and the Hualu one is "either BD-Live, or will be at some point in the future."
Still, I'm not really convinced that BD-Live bring much value add to the high-def movie experience. It was a talking point in the format war, but I have yet to see any truly compelling reason for it.
In any case, it's great to see yet more hardware competition in the Blu-ray arena. This will definitely help bring the prices down overall.
Landlocked @ Jul 16th 2008 4:59PM
What idiot would design and release something based upon profile 1.2 this late in the game?
JDS @ Jul 16th 2008 5:28PM
profile 1.2?
there are only blu-ray profiles 1.0, 1.1 & 2.0
you must be thinking about hdmi profiles not blu-ray and even there I am not sure there is a 1.2 only 1.1 or 1.3a & 1.3b iirc
EQC @ Jul 16th 2008 6:35PM
Hi NFinity:
I'll agree with you that BR players are way overpriced...especially at around $400 for Sony's new 2.0-capable player.
I think the first DVD player I got was around $180...but a year or so later they were all down around $50-$60. I don't plan to make that mistake again.
But I wouldn't go so far as to say a profile 1.1 player is obsolete -- you still get true picture-in-picture, and significant on-board storage. Profile 2.0 only adds a little more on-board storage and internet interactivity. Personally, for a movie-watching machine, I couldn't care less about interactivity...it just seems like such a gimmick with no real benefit (oooo, movie-related ringtones, and Disney castles that match my local weather...big whoop).
So, while I'm glad that new profile 1.0 players haven't been allowed to hit the market for 8 months or so, I think I'll be perfectly happy with a cheap profile 1.1 player sometime in the future. If that means saving big money compared to the gimmick of 2.0, I'm all for it!
I know you think BR is stuck in the niche market (and it might well be...), but if 1.1 prices drop fast enough, maybe it'll just be the profile 2.0 gimmick that stays stuck in the niche, and the rest of us can start to enjoy cheap 1.1 players for some decent HD movies.
gamedude420 @ Jul 16th 2008 6:48PM
not everyone wants nor needs 2.0 so whats the point? you still can watch the movie and some players might have firmware updates. and whats to say non of the players will support it. they dont come out til 09 so by then they prob will all have profile 2.0 support
and a few newer players would have stereo 3d support
Mark @ Jul 17th 2008 5:43AM
New players are only going to be either 1.1 or 2.0. Since the only difference between those profiles is internet connectivity I don't see any issue with that at all. Most people just don't need to hook their players up to the web, either because they don't have broadband, or they don't want to trail cat5 through their house, or they just want to watch the movies. I don't even get why these pathetic arguments about it are still going on. If you want the BD-live stuff, buy a player containing it, otherwise don't. It seems the only people moaning about it are disgruntled HD DVD fans - a platform which conclusively demonstrated what a damp squib network connectivity was.
burndive @ Jul 16th 2008 5:04PM
Best of all, if they're cheap, and 1.1, then all those 1.0 players will have to be cheaper (assuming the consumers are educated on the difference), which will drive adoption and allow new iterations of cheaper, full-featured players to hit the market.
DrXym @ Jul 16th 2008 5:30PM
You can tell they're targeting the OEM market. I expect dozens of no-name players are going to be on the market by this time next year.
h0mi @ Jul 16th 2008 5:43PM
wow, 6 models. i wonder what the differences are?
Mark @ Jul 17th 2008 4:19AM
These players are going to be rebranded and sold under different names. I doubt the internals are any different at all and the only difference between models is the casings.
Brian Kaempen @ Jul 16th 2008 6:09PM
If they have Ethernet connections, what else would the corporations need to add to make them 2.0 compliant, internal storage? Anything else? Lower prices will make everyone happy though.
-Brian
Mike @ Jul 16th 2008 7:05PM
Sucks that BD is making us wait on $120 2.0 players.
Movie studio suck for making us wait on an over priced format