Sony to delay BDP-S1 player until October? (1 Viewer)

[EricRWem]

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTE...hav_bluraydisc

Note the release date: October 25.

 

[RobertR]

Looks like the Samsung player is it for BD for at least the next 4 months?

 

[Adam Tyner]

It could be that Sony Style was only allotted so many players for pre-order, and that first batch has already been reserved.

 

[EricRWem]

That's very possible. Is there anyone who can find out for sure on this?

I know they're running to the moon on AVS, for starters, with this and assuming for sure that the product has been fully delayed outright.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

If Sony continues to delay and STILL doesn't provide HDMI 1.3 and/or advanced audio decoding in their player this videophile will be very put-out. I'd go so far as to say vexed.

 

[Larry Sutliff]

Perhaps Sony is waiting to release their player when 50GB discs are ready. Might be a smart move.

 

[Matt Hetzler]

Nope, it's an across the board delay, according to posters over at AVS that have talked to their Sony reps. They said they were just informed this morning about the delay.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

Sheesh!! At the rate Sony is going, Samsung will have their HD-DVD/Blu-ray "combo" deck out before the first Sony Blu-ray is available.

Now that's embarrassing!!

 

[Dave Moritz]

Has anyone heard why the Sony and Pioneer players where delayed?

I saw the Samsung player at BB and while I was glad that Blu-ray was now on retail shelves. And I believe that the fault was with the transfer of House Of Flying Daggers. The picture seems to lack sharpness and depth that I have seen with HD-DVD titles. I blam this on the first Blu-ray titles being MPEG2 transfers. Even if the Samsung is a nice player I can't see myself spending $1k on a Samsung.

I plan on starting to save money for the Sony Blu-ray player starting in August and should have the player by November. It's pretty embarasing when another company beats you to market with your own format. Needless to say that I am not to happy about Sony's player is delayed yet another time. I can only hope that Sony can get there player on store shelves and better MPEG4 discs.

I heard something about Samsung offering a dual format player months ago, but that seemed to have evaporated quickly. Is Samsung really going to offer and put a dual format player (Blu-ray & HD-DVD) on retail shelves? Granted even if Samsung does put a dual format player in local retailers I personally don't think I would purchase one, just not a Samsung fan.

I just don't want to hear that the players have been delayed yet again once the August released date nears!

 

[Rob_HD]

They probably decided that folks might want to play CDs on it

It's possible they have decided to fix some obvious pre-issues like this before releasing for sale.

 

[Ryan-G]

The HDMI 1.3 standard may have had a bit to do with it. From what I've read about that whole "Deep color" thing, it's a big enough feature to warrant delaying a few months, especially given the recently announced advances in LCD.

Considering that someone else reported an expected 40% increase in HDTV's and that the first BR Players will likely hang around for awhile, I could see them delaying to add a feature that might be considered critical.

I'm not an expert, but sounds to me like the whole "Deep color" thing could mean a significant difference in image quality between a have and a have not.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

According to this recent article, the answer is "Yes!" :

http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=22245

There has been some confusion in the past several weeks about whether or not Samsung would be allowed to bring a dual format player to market this early (supposedly the Blu-ray camp was against the idea); but based on the tone of this article those hurdles have now been leaped!

Personally, I thought Samsung was going to achieve this by simply providing a box with two drives: One for HD-DVD and one for Blu-ray. (Both drives would play and upscale SD-DVD, natch!) But, based on this article, it will be just a one drive machine due to the fact that "There are only a few technical differences between the formats." It sorta' makes you wonder why we had to have a format war in the first place!?

 

[PeterTHX]

October is my birthday month. They are just waiting for me.

I just think that if it is truly delayed (they said the same thing about the Samsung's June launch) that they are trying to make sure everything is PERFECT.

Joseph: they said they are considering it. Which is a pretty big "maybe, maybe not" in the electronics world.

 

[Hank_P]

Based on this latest discovery... lets say, something bad happens to you now, God forbid, and then you're not around.... we could have this sooner than October since we don't have to wait for your birthday.


j/k. I think the waiting and waiting is giving everyone high blood pressure. It better be worth the wait!!

 

[Lew Crippen]

In my opinion that is a bit of an understatement. The main technical difference is that Blu-Ray uses a laser with a different frequency (blue, not red) than does DVD. This is the reason that the manufacturing process for BD has proved to be more difficult than for HD-DVD disks (which are really just DVDs) and why there is not as of yet a dual-layer BD.

So a universal player will need to have two different pickups to read the two different formats and some internal electronic additions that handle the different decoding. However (and here I don’t actually know for sure), since Blu-Ray players are supposed to be downward compatible with DVDs, it follows that the red laser pickup is already in place.

Of course things like the power supplies, transport mechanism, chassis, and so on would be common elements of an universal player.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

That's not 100% accurate. HD-DVD actually does utilize a blue laser just like Blu-ray. The difference is that the frequency chosen by the HD-DVD technology allows the same laser to be able to read standard DVD and CD. But, due to that backward compatibility, HD-DVD cannot pack as much data onto a standard size disc. (That's the reason that HD-DVD is restricted to 30 GB on a dual layer disc as opposed to a (theoretical) 50 GB on a dual layer Blu-ray disc.) Blu-ray gives up trying to be backward compatible with DVD (instead opting for a second red laser pickup for backward compatibility) so that it can provide denser recording and therefore more storage capacity. Of course, so far at least, the promise of more storage capacity by the Blu-ray camp is just that: a promise.

 

[Lew Crippen]

I had not realized that Joseph--thanks.

But in the end, it seems that a multi-player will need both lasers.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

What do Blu-ray players do to read BDs and DVDs.... do they have two lasers or can they use the same blue-laser for everything? Since HD DVD falls in the middle in terms of pit-size, it should be easy to do both BD and HD DVD with the same laser at least. Since the hurdle of reading DVDs in BD players is already a non-issue, that shouldn't present a great problem (even if it means 2 lasers)

 

[Joseph Bolus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray

So, yeah! A "Combo" deck will require multiple laser lens (either red and blue and/or both blue with one utilizing the HD-DVD wavelength) in order to provide a "universal" CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray drive.

BTW, the most interesting development alluded to in that Samsung article linked to above was the fact that other Blu-ray hardware manufacturers are also looking into providing a "universal" drive since they all own the hardware specs for HD-DVD via their participation in the "DVD Forum".

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Than that should work with reading HD DVD as well.