Onkyo & Meridian to release HD-DVD players in 2007! (1 Viewer)

From the CES HD-DVD press event....


http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...4501052&EDATE=


Great news for HD-DVD.

It is great but I like this part the best:

"Several of the more innovative of the Asian manufacturers such as Alco,
Jiangkui/ED Digital, Lite-On, and Shinco will add competitively priced HD
DVD products to the market"

With value HD DVD players on the market, Joe Blow consumer will more likely pick up an HD DVD player- and of course as we all know the more customers a company has the more of a chance they have at winning this crazy war.

Not to mention the new 50gig HD DVDs- http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/003423.html

Good point Adam. I'm sure the Meridian player will top out around 1.5 k and the Onkyo will compete more with the mid level Toshiba (HD-A20). Just my thinking anyway....and having the Asian players on board is indeed a big boost for HD-DVD.

I'm still waiting for Denon.. a DVD-2930CI + HD-DVD would likely be the ultimate player on the market. D&M Holdings (Denon's holding company) belongs to the HD-DVD Consortium, so only time will tell!

No snark here.... only in the interest of latest news.

e-gear


Sounds like they might be thinking combo.

Anyone familiar with this site?

I think the key word or year here is 2007. They may just push production back being we are almost at the half way point of 07.

Either way its good news to have a two companies like this on the HD-DVD front. I wont upgrade from my XBox add on until I feel there is a winner either way but this is a good sign.

To tell you the truth, it seems just a sound business decision for any new player to be a combo at this juncture in the game. Why put all your eggs in one basket?

http://www.e-gear.com/story/story.bs...nown&swd=onkyo

I see it as the beginning of a full retraction and an Onkyo BD only player in 2008.

At this point the best HD DVD supporters can hope for is a combo. I have one: a SACD/DVD-Audio changer (DV-CP802).

Hey Peter, where do you see that they're out on HD DVD in that statement?

You are wanting to see that I know. ....Seems like the best BD can hope for is a combo player.

Truthfully, at this stage in the game for any new manufacturer to jump in I think it makes good business sense to provide a combo player.

Peter is looking to that statement quite a bit but if you consider they were looking at HD DVD only but now are looking at a dual format player you can easily believe Onkyo is no longer convinced that HD DVD is the winning format to stick behind.

You don't go from HD DVD only to a combo player if your confidence is unchanged.

However this article:
http://www.consumerelectronicsnet.co....jsp?id=132136

seems to only mention HD DVD. This makes me question the validity of Peter's thread. With phase hydra being out there I don't know who to believe but real press releases nowadays.

Good point Shane. After CES, certainly BD gained the market share with their new titles and I agree that it's good business to re-evaluate plans etc...I just think there are many proclaiming that Onkyo is done with HD DVD. I just don't see that in any of their rep's actual comments. Seems like at the least it would be a combo which is still a good thing. I wished Pioneer & Panasonic launched combo players.

With HD DVD disc sales just about to hit the 1 million mark too, there is ALOT of $$$ not being taken advantage of on both sides.

Nice find on the link.

Well, that is from the Associated Press. I don't think they are going to editorialize on the format war in a release about new receivers.

Onkyo may very well issue a combo player, but that is still not the ringing endorsement of the format HD DVD folks felt at CES.

Actually, it makes sense for the high-end companies to produce HD DVD players. It seems it's the high-end folks with $$ to spend who have HD DVD players, or both formats. The people who buy Onkyo or Denon probably aren't worried about trying to save money by only buying into one format.

Not when the mantra is "cheaper is better" and "cheap chinese players will save the format". Really, other than Universal exclusive support and better interactive features (both temporary) what is the reason for supporting it over BD?

Really, it's possible Onkyo could have been reading enthusiast boards like this, seeing all the posts on who has the cheapest players, the Walmart rumor, the chinese player promises and decided that their fairly high end high cost market is not in the HD DVD camp's interest. If they bring out a player it will be a combo with BD. I'd be surprised otherwise.

Well Peter there are many people who think a combo player is the way to go and might end up being the standard for awhile. Onkyo makes good stuff. I remember their first THX reciever and if my memory is right, it was the worlds first THX reciever. It looked and sounded AWESOME. I believe it retailed for about $2K.

I think Onkyo changed somewhat in their overall lineup-became a bit more affordable if you will but still puts out solid gear.

It was the TX919 receiver. I have one in storage. Still works perfectly.
It was also the first receiver with a 6-channel input for the "future AC-3 decoder". I had to get a special 6-RCA to DB25 Monster THX cable for it.

The logic doesn't make sense. The market for low cost players is not Meridian or Onkyo's market. The possible production of low cost Chinese players will not play a part in any high end companies decision to market. It certainly has not effected the release of 2k and up DVD players even though Walmart has marketed low cost Chinese DVD players for years.

From the Associated Press article:
...on track to offer its first HD DVD player later this year.

And, magically, that has become a Blu-ray player or a combo player!

:rolleyes

Mark