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 The High Definition DVD Studio Support Petition Campaign |
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Proven Correct Again! - Samsung Announces Their Universal HD Player! (Reserved) Proven Correct again - Samsung Announces Their Universal HD DVD / BD Player! And here’s another one from the “I told you so” archives. I’ve made no secret of my conviction that Samsung was continuing to work on a brand new Universal player to play both HD DVD and Bluray discs. I re-iterated this belief earlier this year when I wrote about the LG Universal player which was unveiled at CES in January. Many of you will recall how Sony effectively threw Samsung under the bus and pretty much blamed them exclusively for the poor initial quality of Bluray movie releases. When a story appeared in the last few days from a French magazine, there was lots of speculation, and Bluray fans on all the forums were denying it and calling names. But THEN, within hours, Samsung issued a formal press release acknowledging the arrival of their long rumoured HD DVD / BD Universal Player. Introducing the Samsung BD-UP5000 Universal Player. Samsung really gets it! Said Samsung in their press release: “Our main concern is not [only] technology but [also]consumer choice”. Well, hooray for that. Consumer choice is what HD DVD supporters have been on about from the very start! We have picked our favourite format, and now Bluray folks can join us, and start enjoying what's been called the best quality movies of any consumer Hi Def format, with us! For those of you who don't know the history, the "saga" of the universal player has been rather twisty. I last covered this issue in January, when the LG player was launched (although the LG has crippled HD DVD support). You can read my analysis of what the Universal Players mean to the format war here. Quite interestingly, Samsung also said: “Samsung is flexible to market a stand-alone HD-DVD player whenever consumers demand it”. Intriguing, indeed!! Unlike the first LG, which has “crippled” HD DVD HDi functionality (LG are reportedly working on an updated, compatible version), the Samsung is a full fledged HD DVD machine, said to decode ALL the advanced audio codecs (DD+, TrueHD and DTS HD MA) as well as output 1080p video over HDMI. Said to street sometime between January and November this year, at an estimated price of between $800 and $1000, the player is (as I mentioned) fully HDi compliant and will wear the HD DVD badge with pride! Initial reports this week on a French website leaked the news, citing a street date of July 2007. These leaked reports were almost immediately followed by an official press release from Samsung, and the news is now featured on their home page. However, Samsung’s press release was rather more vague about the release date for the UP5000, stating only that it would be here “in time for the holidays”. (We hope they change their mind and bring this date closer, however, but they may be waiting on the BD Player Profiles disaster to be fixed so they can be sure it is compliant with the BD 1.1 spec that is supposed to take effect later this year. Many of you will recall my feelings on this BR player profile debacle. However, in case you didn't realize it, the debacle just got worse, and the BD 1.1 standard Player Profile deadline for all players to be compatible has just been delayed till November 1st. My updated thoughts here.) As a final note to this posting, there are MORE Universal Players in the pipeline as we speak. Remember that we have dealt with discussion before about Panasonic working on their own Hybrid player to potentially street this year. And NEC and Philips are rumored to be busy also. And of course, what discussion would be complete without mentioning names such as Denon, and maybe HD DVD players from Onkyo and Meridian, too? … Now, to those of you who have been concerned (even though you probably shouldn’t) about the future value of your investments in HD DVD – Worry no more! As I have maintained all along, Universal players will be commonplace in the future, as HD DVD has proven itself in the marketplace and shown itself to be the apple of the eye of hundreds of thousands of HD DVD owners worldwide. It is our preferred format and is still given the nod as the best players and PQ releases available! Now that Universal players are here to stay, you can rest assured that you can continue to pick up your favorite movies in your favorite format. Yes! Now - what is my position on Universal Players? Well, my previous opinion piece covers that very well, but I will nutshell it here to re-iterate the key points. First off, HD DVD has gone for the price and value approach to bring Hi Definition to the masses. HD DVD players have more feature that are important to you and I, such as TrueHD audio decoding, an excellent advanced interactive system HDi, which actually works properly, Network Ports, and many other things. All of this is in ONE, and only one, player profile, for a very low price ($500 at launch). Contrast that with Bluray, which started with machines that lacked most of the same features, did not have the final player standards ready (which don't match HD DVD minimum specifications anyway) - AND the Bluray players launched at twice the price, up to $1,500, in fact. It's e asy to see why HD DVD took the lead so fast. However, HD DVD is going to reduce their prices even more this year, to get entry level players (with the same minimum specifications, don't forget) into as many homes as possible. However, entry level Bluray players are still targeting the $600 level, and still have not met the BD-Video 1.1 minimum specifiations (or "BD Player Profile") that are to take effect later this year. (And it's been delayed AGAIN! Remember my previous opinion piece on the BD Player Profiles disaster? Well, I've written an update you shouldn't miss.) If the better Bluray players with more features are still selling at $1,000 and the better HD DVD players are selling at $600, with more features, then a Samsung Universal Player at $1,000 is going to hurt BD player sales. And deservedly so. So I think that HD DVD will own the low end mass market, and Universal Players will dominate the high-end market, handing victory to HD DVD - since they'll probably prefer to publish in HD DVD and more of the market can use them anyway. And HD DVD players selling an an anticipated $300 to $400 will not be affected by the Universal Players, allowing HD DVD to capture the mass market. We shall see of course... Long live HD DVD! :)
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