Samsung announces combo player (1 Viewer)

[RobertSiegel]

Agreed.

 

[Felix Martinez]

Back to December...LOL

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Not that it is as good a player as the Samsung ... whenever it shall hit these shores, but the LG BH200 is out *now*.

 

[RobertSiegel]

Yes I saw the LG was out, there is a 3 page thread (so far) on AV forum, am I allowed to put a link here? Not sure but I hope so...for me, with my old Denon with 7.1 analog in and no hdmi, it's got to be the Samsung if I don't want to spend on a receiver for the high def sound too. The LG doesn't have the analogs (I will never understand that).

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...light=LG+BH200

 

[RobertSiegel]

Well, good news. I am still probably going to wait until I read just a few reviews of the player (other than the early one-hdGuru), or see a thread with one or two owners, but this player looks like it has it all...getting excited, no hi-def player right now, returned my Samsung bd-p1200.

 

[Cees Alons]

Exactly my thoughts and feelings.

Will read about it as much as I can lay my hands (and eyes) on, can wait until January, if necessary, am pretty excited about the first set of specs.


Cees

 

[Felix Martinez]

I'm going to cancel my pre-order. Samsung almost had me, but I picked up the $98 Toshiba A2 at Wal-Mart yesterday, and when I pick up the new Panny DMP-BD30 for under $500, I'm well below the Sammy (even with a good deal).

The Sammy may very well be a good player, but they really need to look at pricing this (list) in the $700-$800 range, not $1,000.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Just remember that both of those players seem to have inferior specs than the Samsung.

 

[Ric Easton]

I'm gonna wait til the Samsung is at Walmart for $98.

Of course by then you guys will be on another format.

 

[RobertSiegel]

It's funny, when the Toshiba A2 went on sale for 98.00, I still had no interest in it, I want a 1080p player on 1080 projector and be able to do 24 frames per second. I am going to wait and see what happens. Warner has been hinting at going one format now, so maybe the war might end sooner, and I really don't want to spend $799 (listed online at several stores for this). The thing for me is, I must have the Reon HQV processor. I heard the upscaling on the Toshiba A2 and A3 is not very good, and of course cannot upscale to 1080p. And even in their higher end models, except the XA2, they don't use the Reon. This feature is most important to me. After spending a month with the Samsung 1200, which had this processor, I realized just how good my dvd collection can look. Hundreds of those titles will take 10 years or more to be released on high def, so I want the very best upscaler, because I'll be darned if I am going to buy everything over again. Did it with VHS, Laserdisc and double dipped on dvd for "new" editions, but not anymore.

So, taking into account the Toshiba XA2, which is the only player from Toshiba that has the Reon HQV upscaler, that goes for about $550 online. Then, for a blu-ray player, say the Playstation 3 or the Sony bmp-s300 blu ray player at $399 (set top 300 player coming down $100 shortly from $499), (since only one has to have the Reon for playing the dvd's), that makes $950.00 compared to $799 for the Samsung on sale. Plus, neither the XA2 or the Playstation has the 7.1 analog outputs. I have a 6 year old Denon receiver with no HDMI, so I need those analogs to pass the new sound formats or spend on a new receiver over 500.00 to use the HDMI stream, and mine has 7.1 input. And only one set of inputs, so I could only use one of the separate players with my receiver if I want the 5.1 or 7.1 analogs because it only has one set of 7.1 inputs.

With all this taken into account, for me anyway, the $799 seems like a bargain instead of the separates. Like I said, after seeing the upscaling from the Reon, there is no other choice for upscaling for me, it's a matter of all the money I spent on my dvd collection looking its best and that I won't be replacing everything. I have tried the Panasonic blu-ray player, the Toshiba A20, and the Sony blu-ray player (300), and they didn't come close to the Reon HQV in upscaling.

So I'll wait it out, I am in no rush because I have Dish Network, and they are broadcasting hi-def which is great for now, and Dish exclusively has a feature for an add-on hard drive for the HD dvr, and there's no limit to number of drives. So my 750gb Seagate freeagent external drive has room for 130 movies in hd. I just purchased 2 more. That's exactly $1.00 each movie plus my monthly Dish bill. There's no charge for the external drive except a one time activation fee of 39.95 (got it for $19.95). So it's fine until some of this gets settled.

 

[Felix Martinez]

All good points. For me, however, my projector is component only, so upscaling dvds isn't high on my list. For $98, I was more than surprised by the fantastic image on my 92 in. screen. So paying another $800 for a combo player just didn't make sense to me, when I can get a decent Blu-ray player for under $500.

 

[Cees Alons]

Felix, I agree. You won't get an SD DVD upscaler of that superb quality for $98.
And then the HD DVDs it can play, of course....


Cees

 

[RobertSiegel]

I am lost on the last 2 posts. I understand what Felix is saying, why spend for an upscaling processor. But Cees, not sure what you mean by your answer.

 

[Cees Alons]

Sorry Robert. My post wasn't clear.

For someone who already has a HD DVD or BD player buying another upscaling player wouldn't make sense.

Felix is not interested in an upscaler, so he will be glad with just a BD-player under $500, he says.

But someone who didn't have either, would already have a fantastic upscaling player alone, when buying a HD-A2 at $98. And get the HD playing function for free, so to say.

(The meaning of my post would have been more clear, I guess, if I'd written "But you won't...", Or "You won't....$98, though.")


Cees

 

[RobertSiegel]

Thanks for clarifying..appreciate it, I didn't get it the first time. I had a chance last night to check out the A2 at a friend's home who just bought one, and we tried about 30 regular dvds, some new some classic movies with great transfers (mostly Fox and Warner) and compared the upscaling to the Samsung 1200, which he also has, that has the Reon. We personally didn't feel the quality of the upscaling came anywhere near the Reon, not sure what Toshiba uses as an upscaler, so for me, I would never use the A2 as my main upscaling player. But I do see how it would be ok for an under $100 price and maybe on a 2nd hd-tv if I had one, or for a hdtv with only component inputs. But for my Epson 1080 projector, I definately have to have the Reon.

Felix, did you see that Sony is reducing the price on their blu-ray player (the 300) so now it's under 400

 

[Thomas Ehlers]

I've been reading more about Samsung's new combo player and am getting more excited. It sounds like they've taken their time to come up with a first-rate unit that exceeds the LG offering.

My understanding now is that industrial support for HD DVD and Blu-Ray is split about 50:50, when taking into account a broad spectrum of companies (multimedia, entertainment, IT, etc.). So it seems to make sense to invest in a combo player like Samsung's if you haven't invested in a player(s) yet.

So far, OneCall.com has it on pre-order status for $799 if memory serves.

-Tom

 

[Dave Moritz]

I prefer to have 2 different players just incase one player goes down I still have the other one to enjoy. But that is not to say that I wouldn't buy a combo Blu-ray/HD-DVD player if the right company offered one. I am just not willing to spend money on a Samsung or especially a LG.

 

[Brent M]

I have no loyalty to any of these CE companies so if Samsung can deliver a Reon HQV processor, 7.1 analog outs for TrueHD/DTS-MA and every other spec that most stand-alone HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players DON'T have I'll gladly give them my $799.

 

[BrandonH]

Samsung has added it to their website with a detailed brochure
http://www.samsung.com/us/system/con.../BD-UP5000.pdf

 

[Kevin C Brown]

It'd be nice if we could actually buy one.