Jamie Le Souef

The folks over at Gizmodo have an interesting read about what to do now that that Sony’s blu-ray is now the crowned HD media format. Generally speaking I find most of Gizmodo’s articles to be heavily one sided and not really worth paying much attention to, but this one I tend to agree with.

Here are the finer points, you can read the full article here

1. Get the Spec In Order
   Now that Blu-ray is fully in the spotlight, it’s got to get its act together spec-wise. You may recall that we lambasted many Blu-ray supporters for only building 1.0 spec players, including the $1000+ home-theater flagships from Sony and Pioneer. Except for Panasonic’s DMP-BD30 and the PlayStation 3 with up-to-date firmware, no current Blu-ray player can even handle the 1.1 spec with picture-in-picture, already appearing in certain Blu-ray discs (and quite the handful of HD DVD titles-but we’ll get to that).
2. Finalize the Video Library
   We only need dual-format players as long as the library is split down HD DVD and Blu-ray lines. We are waiting for Universal, Paramount and DreamWorks to jump to Blu, and even once they do, it’s not a certainty that they can simply re-release everything currently out on HD DVD. Universal claims 150 titles-surely the Bournes will go Blu as soon as Uni does, but how long do I have to wait for a Blu-ray of The Big Lebowski? Hell, it’s almost worth scooping up an ultracheap HD DVD player now just to enjoy that one movie alone, 47 or 48 times in a row. At any rate, some speculation suggests that the remaining HD DVD studios may not even come around until summer or fall, depending on weird smoke-filled-backroom negotiations with Toshiba.
3. Bring On the Old-Fashioned Electronics Store Competition
   Sony’s more affordable new Blu-ray player will hit the market this summer for $400. Nothing built by Sony or anyone else should be considered before then, the one exception being the PS3. But even the Sony standalone at $400 is expensive, especially for a player whose capabilities are more or less the same as Toshiba’s HD-A30 HD DVD player, now (in a price nose dive) selling for around $130. Only when Panasonic, Samsung and LG announce their own Blu-ray 2.0 players, will true competition finally exist. (Pioneer will launch a 2.0 player too, but it probably won’t get involved in a price war.) It surely wouldn’t be long after that that we see a full-spec Blu-ray player for $200 or maybe even less. Our bet is Christmas, since Sony doesn’t seem like it will have anything on the market until “summer” and no one else is talking about their next Blu play.

Again, you can read the full article here, defiantly worth a look for those in the market for a blu-ray player.

Related Posts

• February 19, 2008 -- Toshibia will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders
• February 18, 2008 -- PlayStation 3 Outsells Xbox 360 by 16% — Nearly Passes Wii
• November 26, 2007 -- Sony Playstation 3 (PS3) sales jump after price cut
• October 8, 2007 -- Hitachi Creates 100GB Blu-ray Disc for PS3
• August 23, 2007 -- PlayTV - HD DVR for the Playstation 3

This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 10:12 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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