Samsung Blu-ray Players Ship

[Wayde]

Samsung Electronics America Inc shipped North America's first consumer Blu-ray disk player to retailers today. The playback device is scheduled to be sold to the US market on June 25th, that’s about the same day as the first Blu-ray movies. Samsung's Blu-ray disk player is the BD-P1000 and will retail at $999. Blu-ray will be the most powerful disk media format available to the public with the ability to store 50 Gigabytes on a dual layer disk.

Blu-ray movies will be mastered in 1920x1080P and will send this high resolution video through the BD-P1000's HDMI output. Samsung's BD-P1000 will up-convert standard DVD movies to 1080P. The BD-P1000 is backward compatible to DVD, CD and can playback DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+RW and DVD+R. Supported audio formats include Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS, MP3 and 192KHz LPCM. For playback of your own high resolution still image slideshows Samsung included a 10-in-2 memory card reader that can read all the major memory card formats. Let's hope it runs a lot quieter and less buggy than early reviews have demonstrated of Toshiba's HD DVD player.

Why do I care?

The next generation disk media is seen as a boon for anyone who owns an HDTV and demands disk media that can produce images up to the capabilities of the new television technology. Currently DVD only offers image quality at a resolution of 480P through a progressive scan DVD player. So, the DVD is a serious bottleneck in image quality when using an HDTV. Even so called up-sampling DVD players cannot exceed the source material's limit of 480 lines of resolution. Most HDTV owners know that the image quality they receive from digital cable, satellite TV or over air HD broadcasts are far superior to what they get on DVD. HD broadcast television sends video signals to your HDTV at resolutions of 1080i or 720P. An HD DVD or Blu-ray disk is capable of delivering video at a resolution of 1080P, that's about five times the resolution of the original 480i video that is stored on a DVD movie disk.

The biggest benefit to Blu-ray over HD broadcast TV is that it's free of many imperfections inherent in Mpeg2 compression used by broadcast television. Macroblocking occurs when high definition images move too fast for the decompression wall of Mpg2 video. Highly compressed broadcast TV diminishes sound quality affecting frequency response, separation and soundstage in your audio. These problems should not be an issue when using the new high def disk formats. Newer compression and audio formats (Dolby Digital Plus) will provide your audience with audio that is superior DVD and video superior to broadcast HDTV. It's more than the best of both worlds!

Clouds of War

Although the Blu-ray format is locked in heated competition with rival HD DVD, Blu-ray has received favorable industry support and appears to be in the lead. Blu-ray, developed by Sony, was able to get more movie studios on board its format securing more movie titles. The perception of Sony's Blu-ray being ahead in the format war is partly due to its greater numbers, it can hold more information per disk. A single layer HD DVD can hold 15 Gigabytes of data. A single layer Blu-ray disk can hold 25 Gigabytes of data. Although both disk formats are a considerable leap from DVD's 9 Gigs. The storage capabilities of both formats are enough to meet the increased demands of movies in high definition.

Link To Original Article

[Sonnie]

I don't understand why Blu-ray is twice HD-DVD... is it because of the 1080p and storage capabilities on the disk? I need a combo player to arrive.

[bobgpsr]

The current Blu-ray Discs are limited to single layer (25 GB max) but due to yield issues can only really use 20 GB. The spec'd 2 layer 50 GB discs have major manufacturing problems and people guess that they may become avail late fall possibly. The Sony provided Blu-ray disc authoring tools only currently support the old legacy Mpeg2 codec which is not as efficient at compressing video. This all makes for controversial issues with the ability to give a truly high definition "transparent" rendition of a long movie with the current Blu-ray disc offerings. Also no advanced audio decoding in the Samsung. So a lot of us are going to wait for HDMI 1.3 and have to get new AVRs and 2d gen Blu-ray players and only buy latter offerings of 2 layer 50 GB Blu-ray discs. Maybe a year before that all happens. Meanwhile IMHO the two layer 30 GB (most of the current offerings) HD DVD format offers the best quality picture/audio and the best value.

The only big benefit of Blu-ray is that Sony, MGM, Fox, and Lions Gate say they are only going to release hi def in Blu-ray. Disney already has said they might have to support both formats. Fox now controls MGM distribution as is seen as possible to also end up also eventually releasing in HD DVD.

If the future 50 GB Blu-ray format does turn out to be a big deal, then Toshiba may update the HD DVD format spec to include triple layer 45 GB. Toshiba has made 45 GB players in the lab but is reported to have had issues with making triple layer discs so at the last minute did not include triple layer in the spec. Like the current two layer 50 GB Blu-ray disc build issues the triple layer 45 GB HD DVD disc build issues may be eventually worked out.

Bob

[Wayde]

Great info Bobgpsr!

I'd like you to pipe up if you see any innacuracies in any of my posts so I can change them asap. I get info from a variety of news sources and sometimes draw my own conclusions. Having someone around that knows the industry as in depth as you makes it a real discussion.

I have seen press info that neither the Toshiba HD1 and Samsung BD-P1000 will support mandatory managed copy. The AACS's website speaks of the "interum" spec they're still issuing to licensers.

That basically means there couldn't be a worse time to buy either player than now. Neither are even complete! In another year we'll see HDMI 1.3 (which may not have any bearing on your current HDTV but definitely will on your next one), we'll see how their interactivity features pan out or whether or not either bothers. We'll also see who gets LOTR and Star Wars trilogies.

The reason for the price difference. Supposedly HD DVD are cheaper to make because it's "closer" to DVD in technology. I'm not exactly sure how that works in terms of tech specs but they've been announcing since the begining that HD DVD will be cheaper than BD.

[Wayde]

Hey Sonnie

As for a unified player ... Samsung promised it then backed away. LG stepped in a few months later and so far has yet withdraw their resolve to release an HDDVD-BD combo player. As of last March they pretty sure they could release a combo player.

[Sonnie]

Thanks for the info link... had no idea what was going on really.

I sure hope they can pull it off. I'd probablybe one of the first to jump on the bandwagon.