Sherwood bringing two new Blu-ray players to CEDIA
By Richard Lawler 
posted Aug 27th 2008 11:47AM
posted Aug 27th 2008 11:47AM
Sherwood's been known mainly for its audio, but TWICE has the details on two new Blu-ray players on the way at CEDIA. Consisting of the high end $499 MSRP BDP-6003 and the mass market-targeted $299 BDP-5003 are both Bonus View Profile 1.1 players that upscale all content to 1080p and decode all Blu-ray audio formats, with the 6003 including 5.1 analog out, while the 5003 makes do with just stereo. Front mounted USB ports, DivX, JPEG and MP3 playback, HDMI 1.3 and Ethernet ports are consistent across both players, but we'll wait for a hands-on next week to see if analog surround sound is enough to bring this hardware on a level with the competition.
These are nice specs. If I didn't have serious concerns about Blu-ray's medium and long term viability (http://squiggleslash.multiply.com/journal/item/159/Blu-ray_DVD_2.0_and_Freedom-loving_Geeks), I'd have been tempted by them.
What a retarded article. It seems some hd dvd fanboys are still alive :D
Soon there will be no SD DVD and the only optical medial will be Blu-ray. It has the capacity to be.
Yeah, there'll be no DVD. Because the studios would rather earn a fraction of what they're earning trying to prop up an unpopular product than sell to everyone.
The optimists are suggesting that Blu-ray will be even with DVD in 2012. That's four years away, at a time when online downloads are beginning to become credible. The only way Blu-ray is going to pull even is if DVD becomes a niche product, with everyone switching to downloads for their primary source of content.
Seriously, pull your head out and look at the real world. Blu-ray isn't going anywhere. It needs a massive take up of HDTVs just to be attractive to a majority of the population, and still has to overcome the increased competition it's going to get and the fact BD disks are unattractive to anyone with SD TVs anywhere in their infrastructure. With the economy as it is, that's improbable.
It's the wrong format at the wrong time. Let's hope the BDA ignores the Blutards and actually fixes the problems.
@squiggledick
"Yeah, there'll be no DVD. Because the studios would rather earn a fraction of what they're earning trying to prop up an unpopular product than sell to everyone."
OBVIOUSLY they are not going to cease DVD production until Blu-ray completely takes over the market. They will both be made for the foreseeable future.
However, the studios will start to push Blu-ray as adoption continues because DVD revenues have been falling for years now, and they need a new way to boost revenue. Blu-ray can offer them that because:
1) BD discs can be sold at a premium compared to DVD. The studios have already largely made all the fixed investment costs for BD authoring and production, so they can start to realize greater profits as more customers make the switch.
2) Just as was done with DVDs, many consumers end up re-buying favorite titles in the new, higher-quality format. Again, more money for the studios.
"The optimists are suggesting that Blu-ray will be even with DVD in 2012. That's four years away, at a time when online downloads are beginning to become credible. "
Given that Blu-ray is already at 7-8% marketshare, It's not much of a stretch to see DVD parity by the end of 2012. Downloaded media will continue to make inroads, but will come nowhere near dominating the market by 2012.
It just isn't realistic, at least in America, because of the broadband situation:
- Many people, especially in more rural areas don't even have access to high-speed broadband internet connections, and are stuck using 56K dial-up, or don't have internet at all.
- Tens of millions more people have slow connections using 1Mbit DSL, fixed wireless, satellite, or 3G cellular broadband that aren't capable of downloading high-quality HD movies in a decent time frame and may have data transfer limits.
- Ignoring the very few with true fiber-to-the-home connection, the rest of America gets their broadband from their regional cable company, which while fast enough for movie downloads, is now moving to monthly transfer caps.
Also, with the recent popularity of 3G cellular broadband laptop cards and internet-connected smartphones, many are disconnecting their home broadband connections and just using their mobile connections. These connections are always capped to a very small data allotment each month.
"Seriously, pull your head out and look at the real world. Blu-ray isn't going anywhere. It needs a massive take up of HDTVs just to be attractive to a majority of the population, and still has to overcome the increased competition it's going to get and the fact BD disks are unattractive to anyone with SD TVs anywhere in their infrastructure. "
Even with the concerns of the economy, HDTVs have been flying off the shelves. I have no hard numbers on adoption, but I don't believe a lack of HDTVs would be an inhibitor of Blu-ray sales.
1.1 is okay with me, but 5.1 analog out with internal decoding, what's the point. Back to the drawing board.
Well, for people like me that don't have an HDMI receiver, I would rather spend $100 more on an analog out blu-ray player than $400-500 for a new receiver. I am not alone in this. Remember that the people buying blu-ray players right now are still mostly fanboys like me, it's not the general market.
Bring on!
Bitstream out all audio codecs via HDMI 1.3 please.
Looks like cheaper blu-ray player components are starting to find themselves in the players.
This is great news. Both players look promising.
As much as I know full spec is "important", I don't CARE about profile 2.0 (as long as the disc can be played properly). + it wasn't clear whether you can send the decoded LPCM over HDMI (as the article emphasised sending it over analog), but I'm sure you can, and if so, the cheap $299 player looks like a great player for the market indeed.
What is with the sound comment?? This thing has HDMI right?? IF it does 1080p it MUST HAVE HDMI. From the sound of things we are about to see some pretty sweet deals on BD players by christmas..