Onkyo readies £500 DV-BD606 Blu-ray player for October release
By Darren Murph 
posted May 27th 2008 4:07PM
posted May 27th 2008 4:07PM
[Thanks, Jimmie]
posted May 27th 2008 4:07PM
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I just don't get it....October and still 1.1 player and not 2.0. At least Panasonic, Sony and Samsung will have 2.0 players by then, plus the ps3. Why any company would not go 2.0 that late in the year is beyond me.
Why people are making Blu-ray players that cost more than the PS3 is beyond me.
Because Sony is still losing $130-$260 per PS3?
Talk about amazing competition... NOT!
I just don't get it. I can build an entire media PC based around the Asus AMD780G board and a phenom (adds AA and other post processing over athlonX2's) with the LG combo HDDVD/BRD drive for LESS than these prices including the case, vista home premium, playback software, HDD, RAM, power supply, and long range wireless mouse/keyboard combo.
For less money, you can have a more complete solution. These new players escape my understanding.
There's a simple answer to your question.
GREED!
Bzzzzt. Greed as an explanation only works if there's illegal price collusion. Sony will be debuting two BD-Live players at less than half this price before Onkyo's even comes out. Onkyo is either banking on riding the coattails of some kind of reputation and brand loyalty in Europe, or they're keeping the true target pricing very close to the vest. I'm betting on the latter. Make everyone think you're debuting some high priced player, let your competitors set their prices high, then undercut them at the last minute.
or Mr. E Sony is able to lose more money as they are getting a large chunk of Blu-Ray licensing so they can STILL afford to lose more money. Onkyo is not getting ANYTHING from licensing actually has to pay BDA fees to release a player.
That's why you see these humongous prices. It's common sense for christ sake and pretty well known thing. There was an analysis of licensing to develop Blu-Ray players. Why do you think they are coming out with PRofile 1.1 and not profile 2.0 player? Because they cant?! LOL .. it's because they have to pay through the nose.
As I said.. GREED.
First of all Jimmy you comparing Magnavox and Onkyo is absoutely retarded. There's a HUGE difference in quality.
Second, Magnavox is probably something that was agreed on with Walmart and is most likely licensed on a larger scale with lower fees because when you manufacture 10,000 players and 1,000 players licensing has a different effect imbecile.
Don't you find it strange that most other brand name Blu-Ray players at 1.1 and above are $700+? And only Sony and Panasonic 2 major BDA license holders have cheaper players even those are $400,$500,$700. Even that new Chinese Blu-Ray player is what $900.
The only 2 players we've seen so far that will be in $300 range are that ridiculous Magnavox and possibly older Samsung at discount or new model that's coming out at $350 but Samsung has been making Blu-Ray players from the start so it seems that they managed to make a good deal while the war was in effect and have already broke a little economies of scale because they were the most sold Blu-Ray standalones anyways.
Turn on your brain idiot and do research. It's very obvious what the reason is.
"First of all Jimmy you comparing Magnavox and Onkyo is absoutely retarded. There's a HUGE difference in quality."
So you're saying the Onkyo might have a "huge difference in quality" yet you wonder why it costs more?
"Second, Magnavox is probably something that was agreed on with Walmart and is most likely licensed on a larger scale with lower fees because when you manufacture 10,000 players and 1,000 players licensing has a different effect imbecile."
"Probably?" Don't you know? Funai is an OEM that makes players under a raft of brand names - Sylvania, Magnavox, Insignia, Emerson. They even make branded equipment for the likes of Philips, Hitachi and so on. Indeed their new Blu Ray player has been described by those who have inspected its internals as a cut-down Philips BDP7200. Funai also make the BDP7200 so this is not surprising. Magnavox is not a store brand even if it is predominantly sold in places like Walmart.
Even if we assume your stupid argument were correct for a moment and that Funai got a bulk discount. Well clearly they anticipate selling a lot of players don't they? Implicit to your ludicrous claim is the admission that Funai thinks it will sell a lot of players.
"Don't you find it strange that most other brand name Blu-Ray players at 1.1 and above are $700+? And only Sony and Panasonic 2 major BDA license holders have cheaper players even those are $400,$500,$700. Even that new Chinese Blu-Ray player is what $900."
No I don't find it strange at all. But then again, I don't have my head up my ass. New technologies always target the early adopter first which means that the ratio of "set top box" style players to Home Cinema / AV rack style players is lower than it would be in a mature market. Even so, prices for 1.1 profile players are quite affordable. It would be easy to walk into a store like Walmart and buy a profile 1.1 or 2.0 player for much less than $700 - a PS3, or a Samsung BDP1500, or a Funai, or a Philips BDP7200 or in few months a bunch of other players from Sony and others which will all retail in the $250-550 range.
As for the new Chinese player is not $900. It obviously won't cost $900 or anywhere close, and only a cretin and/or someone deliberately lying would make that inference from what the company boss actually said.
"The only 2 players we've seen so far that will be in $300 range are that ridiculous Magnavox and possibly older Samsung at discount or new model that's coming out at $350 but Samsung has been making Blu-Ray players from the start so it seems that they managed to make a good deal while the war was in effect and have already broke a little economies of scale because they were the most sold Blu-Ray standalones anyways."
Why is the Magnavox ridiculous? Accounts from people who have actually purchased and used it have been very favourable. Which is to be expected seeing as Funai are an OEM for many manufacturers with several BD players already under their belt. They know what they are doing and the new player appears perfectly suited for people who want to rig a player up to an HDTV and don't have an expensive AV setup.
Yet you bitch about price and then you bitch something else when a cheap consumer player appears.
Your rationalizations about Samsung making a "good deal" are equally absurd. It's clear that the likes of Funai, Samsung, Philips are pursuing the consumer market while the likes of Onkyo, Pioneer, Marantz, Denon are pursuing the AV crowd with the rest somewhere in the middle.
No conspiracy theories are required to figure out why there might be a price differential between a Magnavox and Onkyo player. Different companies, different features, different target audience, different retail model, different business model, different volumes, different everything. Only fools like yourself seem perplexed which is not surprising.
@Nfinity
you have to be the biggest douche bag that reads this blog stop sharing your opinion
why? because pussies like you cry mommy and can't handle when fact don't bode well for something you spend so much time hyping up. Get over it fanboy and grow up, there will be people with different opinions and you will need to learn to accept it.
Seriously though, does ANYONE buy these things?
A non high-end $1000 profile 1.1 player? What kind of ridiculous fool would actually buy this? How do they sell even O-N-E of these?
What's strange about this information is that this pricing is very uncharacteristic of Onkyo, at least here in the U.S.. On this side of the pond they've established themselves in a niche of high value/low cost receivers (e.g. the TX-SR875 with Silicon Optix Reon-HQV high quality video scaling, at an MSRP of $1699, significantly lower than equivalently equipped competitors).
Unless Onkyo is viewed as a high-end brand in Europe, and since this is not an official announcement, I'm betting the price is going to be signifcantly lower when it actually appears.
I agree completely that they should be shooting for BD-Live, especially at this price point. The Sony and Samsung 2008 Blu-ray players are going to eat them alive.
"The Sony and Samsung 2008 Blu-ray players are going to eat them alive."
I really hope your right about this statement!!!! That would rock!!!
Don't we have enough expensive Blu-ray players???? How about some cheaper ones.
You must also remember that Onkyo will be using the Realta upscaling processor, a very expensive processor, so they are aiming this player at the upper end. It is really unfair to cut them down for the p[rice, that's exactly where they want it, it will have solid components for sure. What I don't get is why it is not a 2.0 player, the fact that as of October we will have NEW players that are only 1.1 really boggles my mind. Especially at this price point, it should have everything.
Where did you see that the DV-BD606 will have the Realta chip in it? I didn't see it in the source article, and that would seem a pretty dumb move to me, since anyone interested in that kind of upconversion would want it for SD or OTA/Cable/Satellite HD sources (it won't do anything for 24p BDs). The receiver or processor (or outboard processor) is the best place for such upconversion, IMO, so it can work on all sources, not just BD/DVD. In a perfect world, I'd want my DVD player outputting 480i to the upcoming TX-SR876, providing they've shaken out all the bugs that plagued the TX-SR875, of course.
This isn't 2.0 because....?
Of course if it will allow my TX-SR805 to do TrueHD and DTS-MA decoding that's worth something right there.
I don't need an upscaler. My HD-XA2 works just fine thankyouverymuch.
@Nfinity
Remind us how much Toshiba was losing on each unit?
The PS3 is only selling at a loss to compete with XBOX 360. If it wasn't there wouldn't be any players under $500...worth owning.
So true. Toshiba douches were loosing a lot money per unit and per disc :D That is why they lost the war. No other hardware company joined the losers game.
@Mike. Many of us don't care about 2.0 so the Panasonic that will be $450 +100 Gift Card at Wal-mart in June would be a pretty good player under $500.
Are you kidding me? A NEW $990 Profile 1.1 player for release in October and it's not even 2.0? Who the hell are they kidding. Really if this is the game that's going to be played, Blu-Ray will surly FAIL!!! What a joke.
I don’t get it why everyone is complaining that plenty of high-end manufactures release blu-ray players with profile 1.1.
Profile 1.1 is the final standard whereas profile 2.0 is optional. Features on discs that make use of BD-Live capabilities this far has been a joke. What I care about is good audio and video components so I get stunning sound and video. I would like to have a good video processing chip that can upconvert my standard DVDs to 1080p in a good manner. Another thing I would care about is start-up times, that the player has a stable chassis.
The new Panasonic DMP-BD30 is a good new player and is just profile 1.1. Picture wise it is among the best when playing blu-ray discs, only one that might be better that I have seen was a really expensive one from Pioneer, but it is way better than PS3 (with all updates applied). Shame that the upscaling on DVDs is so-so.
I agree with Jimmie - my guess is that it is dawning on some of the hardware manufacturers that very few people outside possibly the hardcore geek crowd will care about the added possibilities of 2.0, so why bother adding it..?