Sharp's BD-HP20S not coming to America -- resume waiting for BD-HP10U

It figures, doesn't it? Nearly every time we hear "cheap" and "high-definition player" in the same phrase, the news either turns out to be completely and utterly false, relates solely to HD DVD, or in the most recent case of the BD-HP20S, is not suited for American homes. As fate would seemingly have it, we're now hearing that Sharp's briefly anticipated no-fills Blu-ray player will be reserved for Japan, and according to PCWorld, it won't be making its way stateside "anytime soon." Sadly, that means we must all resume waiting for the nearly forgotten BD-HP10U, which was mentioned way back at CES but has hardly been heard from since. Ah well, at least you can snag a PS3 and five Blu-ray flicks for a mere $500 now, right?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 12:13PM]

Yeah but you can't play games, stream movies, download movies, go on ithe internet, chat with friends and much more with a Toshiba D2 player. So you see, this is no comparison! Great Deal by Sony!

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 12:17PM]

@invee
At least he can use a regular remote control with his player...

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 12:23PM]

Xyzzy:
you can (but it's 25 dollars)

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 12:41PM]

@Dominic: I thought the PS3 only had an RF remote (unless you wanted to hack the PS3 to support IR, but that looked lame)

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 1:42PM]

A lot of people use universal remotes like the Harmony to control their devices. The Harmony doesn't support bluetooth which is what the PS3 uses as its remote standard.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 12:42PM]

@Kris - Thats what I was talking about the PS3.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 12:47PM]

Invee:

Play games??? What games.... I hate MS myself and would prefer the linux driven PS3 but without any decent games for it it's just an overpriced BD player...

And surfing from the couch is not a big deal as I'd rather have a keyboard/mouse for that.

I don't care which side wins, because while they are fighting we win with cheaper players...
Long live the competition!

my 0x02$

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 10th 2007 4:08PM]

Kris, what's your problem with MPEG-2? MPEG-4 and VC-1 are not inherently superior, MPEG-2 can provide picture quality equal too, and in some cases *superior* too, the newer codecs. Granted, it does need higher bitrates, but there is nothing inherent in the codec that makes it something to dismiss out of hand. There are Blu-ray titles that use MPEG-4 or VC-1 as well, so you can't dismiss the format. I honestly don't know if any HD DVD titles have used MPEG-2 - and I can't be arsed to check - but the spec allows for it.

There are a number of reasons studios may use MPEG-2, such as the long experience with encoding MPEG-2 for DVD, and BD's higher capacity gives them more flexibility in the codec choice. HD DVD jumped on the higher compression of VC-1 for two main reasons:
1. The lower capacity of HD DVD. Using a newer codec allows them to maintain a higher image quality in the limited space.
2. Microsoft has been a huge proponent of VC-1, since it is the standardized version of WMV9. And MS is a major backer of HD DVD.

Using a new codec entails risk. The production software for the new codecs is still new itself. And each codec has idiosyncrasies that have to be accommodated. The technicians doing the encoding have a lot of experience with MPEG-2, but not much experience with VC-1 and MPEG-4. Look at early DVDs, and look at current DVDs. Same specs, same codec - big difference. That's the value of experience. Studios have to consider all of these issues.

If you want to argue the merits of one format over another, that's fine. But don't just make random comments about the codec as it if makes HD DVD better, it doesn't mean anything.