Samsung's BD-UP5000 is on schedule for December
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Oct 24th 2007 10:51AM
posted Oct 24th 2007 10:51AM
posted Oct 24th 2007 10:51AM
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This has put an end to the format war.
My God, always the trolls posting first. Crazy. Get a job.
At $800-$1000?
The biggest problem is the anti consumer decision to have a format war - now if dual format players win out, retailers have to stock both formats, and a "cold war" continues. Not to mention consumers have to pay for licensing for BOTH formats.
If the MSRP is $199 in December, then you have a chance of being correct. But even then, marketing is a beast.
Any word on it being able to internally decode DTS-HD MA?
I thought it was mandatory after the end of the month to have profile 1.1 no matter what. Loop holes? Thats not very firm in terms of standards. But MCREXX has a good question, I know its going to output DTS-HD MA via Bitstream which is usless to most of us, but what about internal decoding?
Ben: Props for obtaining this info. There have been some mighty panty bunch speculators out there regarding this player.
Sean and mcrexx: Yes, the player will be able to do internal decoding of all the formats. Read HD Guru pre-production review: http://www.hdguru.com/?p=184
THANKS BodegaBay! This player is SO MINE when it's released!
Format war is already over. Blu-ray won. HD DUD lost. Any questions?
"Format war is already over. Blu-ray won. HD DUD lost. Any questions?"
Yeah, when are you going to wake from your bizarre dream? The format dispute is far from over.
Yea the format "war" isn't over.. and it isn't even a war, it's a small skrimish to see who will have the near impossible task of beating DVD.
Pfft no it is over. No way HD DVD is going to be able to compete through this Christmas Season.
Once the Transformers sales go down that's it for the 2:1 ratio. It will then be 3:1 and then 4:1 as we get into 2008.
I am going to buy this player though so I can rent both formats and then likley just use it as a BR player down the road.
As long as there are studios supporting only one format there still be competing formats.
It will be much longer than Christmas '07 before a winner will be formed.
Kind of a weird name you have there, Jay, since you're ripping on HD DVD.
Anyone who thinks the war isn't over isn't too bright. Anybody who thinks one format or the other has won it is a moron. The war is over. It's a draw. And only the consumer loses.
Guys, you've got to quit responding to h4ldol. Look at his post history - he even goes into comments that aren't even related to the format war to rip on HD DVD. The best thing to do is just report his posts every time he makes a foolish one. I don't mind spirited debate on these comment threads, but his posts are erroneous and inflammatory without exception.
I wonder how he's enjoying watching Transformers on HD, the reference film for all HD Media!
If they got the price down a few more hundred dollars I think they could get some decent sales on it. It would be nice to be able to play both HD formats plus standard DVD's. I look forward to the review of this player when it comes out.
I haven't made the leap to a High Def DVD player as of yet. Even though I was a very early adaptor of the DVD format.
The war is not over and it will not be won by either side. This is not VHSvsBETA, this SACDvsDVDAudio. Combo players came late and expensive and both have lost. Same thing will happen here. Consumers want a player that will play all their optical media. I have both HD DVD and Blu-Ray but I really want a CHEAP combo player for the bedroom. And NOBODY outside of this forum knows or cares about l.l profile or Ethernet connections. The other Mike is quite correct when he says only the consumer looses.
Oh here we go again about the format war (HUGE yawn). This player isn't for the person who wants a low-end model. It's obviously been built for people who want quality and it's obviously going to cost more. I am sure they could have reduced the price with less than 7.1 analog outputs, bypassed the Reon HQV processing, and other features, but I am glad they are there, with all that is included, this player is going to be extremely versatile and going to kick butt,
Mike, you're right this isn't VHS vs. Beta, but it's also not SACD vs. DVD Audio. 99.9% of people don't have the equipment or ears to tell the difference between normal CD's and the other two "superior" formats. In this situation, more and more people buy an HDTV every day and as the price on players drops and they become more available, the HD formats will become more widely adopted. It may take a while, but both formats will continue to grow. And that's more than you can say for SACD or DVD Audio.
I seems to me this whole BD/HD DVD duel misses the whole point. Who needs physical media when we can A) view movies on demand from our TV providers B)rent and/or buy movies from download services, eg. CinemaNow, Movielink, Amazon Unbox?
My personal PC equipment is perfectly capable of storing and playing HD video/audio, so I feel as if choosing either option, I'm adding to the world's trash heap by consuming more physical media and related hardware.
Its the file format that matters, not the platter its served upon.
Downloadable movies are years off and even then - the public majority doesn't have a strong interest in them now or in the next few years. They've just become comfortable with digital music in the past year or two. Movies are a whole different medium (I'm not talking YouTube video either - that's a different type of experience all together.) with a higher cost of purchase. Once you get above that $20 range (High Def is certainly there) people still want to have a physical thing to own (and display on a shelf). Same goes with interacting with movies. There is still an ingrained desire (and enjoyment I might add) in scanning the shelf loading up the DVD player, making popcorn and watching a movie. There was never this level of "ritual" with main stream music listening. Why do you think netflix is still going strong? People want and love those discs. Now even netflix acknowledges a change will come but no where near as fast as the DVD. So physical discs are here for a while longer (5 years at least). Jobs is right when he says most families DONT want their PC in the living room. Something also left out of most discussions is the bitrate of a physical disc vs cable or other sources. I'll take that much higher bit rate any day.
The war isn't over - it's not really a war either. It's more of a populairty contest at the moment to see who can sit at the cool jock table at school. The table doesn't have a lot of people there (just like there aren't that many MAINSTREAM consumers) who care enough about higher res yet to make them a serious sales force. HDTVs are gaining popularity because of size/form factor (flat) more than they are resolution. Until the average, non-TV enthusiast consumer walks into BestBuy and is concerned with 720P, 1080/24 and the lot instead of "ooooh! it's so nice and flat!" HDTV is a small market relative to SDTV / DVD. Right now the average HD Disc consumer KNOWS a decent amount about both formats and A) Is turned off by it all and has chosen to "sit it out to protest" B) Picked a horse early and is rooting it to the finish or C) waited for a horse that would win in the long run In this case the long run winner is the Dual Format player - period. People can whine it's too expensive but for $800 street this covers both bases for less than two players with "COMPARABLE FEATURE SETS". So for me, I understand the formats and that they both give me what I want - resolution. A dual format player such as this covers me till a debate becomes relevant 2 years from now. Then - the rest of the public will be buying dual format players for a lot less (funded by me and others who chose "c") Because, to the average Joe, if it gives them good picture and a player exists that can play both - Who cares what color the laser is. Now that the Sammy 5000 is here - I don't and never will.
I think this player is definitely a step forward for the format war in some respects. This player actually has pretty much every feature you could want on a combo player (True quad-format compatibility, HDMI 1.3, XV color, DTS-HD and Dolby True-HD formats, 24 FPS, ethernet upgradability, HQV Reon Processor, CD/DVD/BD/HD-DVD compatibility.) So features wise it's stacked. I'm sure it will be much better than the first combo player that LG put out. That product had almost none of these features and it was full of bugs and didn't work very well.
The one bad thing is the price. The LG sold for 1200 initially (now 850) and it didn't sell very well at all. You could buy both a blu-ray and hd-dvd player separately for that price. The Samsung, while starting at 1000, is kinda in the same boat. If by the end of it's product life, it drops to 500-600 or lower, I could consider it making a seriuous dent in the format war. But not now, not at that price.
There's a reason why the Blu-ray fans hate dual format.
Dual format is just as big a threat to Blu-ray as anything.
If things really do end up where there is a majority of players that are dual format why on earth would any studio choose to suffer the known addition high costs inherent in Blu-ray?
The lower costs of HD DVD replication etc etc are an obvious route to higher & greater profitability in that scenario.
I think my price limit for a dual format player would be about $600. It would so totally be worth it to me, the peace of mind would be soothing and I could spend more time watching and buying HD movies and less time worrying about the best setup for HDVD/Blu.