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Samsung Ships the First Blu-Ray Player
DigitalDame2 writes "PCMag.com reports that beginning June 25th, consumers will be able to purchase the first Blu-Ray player: the Samsung BD-P1000. The BD-P1000 is twice the price of the HD-A1 ($999.99 list), but supports full 1080p playback, something the first generation of HD-DVD players do not. It also up-converts conventional DVDs to 1080p to improve video quality and comes with HDMI, Component, S-video, and composite outputs. The BD-P1000 will be sold at more than 200 retail locations, including Best Buy, Tweeter, and Circuit City, and 10 Blu-Ray titles will be available as well."
Gosh! Only $999.99 list (or as we learned from The Price Is Right, the price you ask if you never plan to actually sell any, except to the most gullible or desperate, actual price will probably be about $700) I can wait.
When VCRs came out I bought a rather nice one for ~900$US. When CD's came out I bought a nifty CD player for about 700$US. I was a little more patient with DVDs but eventually got a DVD drive for a home computer and then a portable player (computer ~70$US, Portabl ~1000$US) As I'm pretty well past the point of being impressed with Eye Candy in cinema, I'll probably only get a Blu-Ray when there's significant offerings and most of the newer films I must have are only available via that channel.
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No, the PS3 had it first! Oh wait...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
how on earth are they getting away with making dvd's look better by 'upscaling' them?
are they using the "Zoom" "enhance" method that we've seen on movies for so long... or are they recreating information which did not exist on the dvd using some crazy AI?
those kids at samsung, what will they think of next!
A thousand bucks, and there will only be ten titles when it first comes out? Now I can see why only obsessive early adopters would want something like this – quite honestly, I just don't see the point of getting a $1000 device that can only play 10 titles (no matter how high-definition the titles and/or the point may be).
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
If it is like other Samsung video players the attention to details like black level etc. won't be that great. I'd wait on this one unless you have money to burn.
Anyone know if that is 1080p/60 or just 1080p/24? Didn't see this specified on Samsung's website or in the user manual.
let's do the economics:
$999.99 for the player
$40? for the disks
only a few titles
LOTS of drm infesting it and making it not play full res
or i can just:
take the pc i already have.
open up a browser to TPB or Tspy
search "HR-HDTV"
torrent DL
watch full res HDTV quality encodes for $0-$25 (have to have dvd-r's right?)
and as a bonus, the last 720p movie i saw on xvid took up 3 gigs... you don't need blue-ray or hd-dvd.
thanks hollywood for drawing out the r&d and forcing the added costs of tons and tons of DRM! yet another reason to engage in piracy!
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It also up-converts conventional DVDs to 1080p to improve video quality and comes with HDMI, Component, S-video, and composite outputs.
You know, I've always wondered about this, so someone help me out here. Let's say I have a 1080p HDTV. As it's a discrete pixel device, not a CRT, it's got one native resolution, right? And when I plug my 480i/p DVD player into it to watch a movie, the TV is upsampling the signal to use all of the pixels on the display, right? So why is this a feature on the player? How does it improve image quality? Is it using a blingy-er algorithm than the TV would be using? Marketing fluff?
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Is that even possible? Just like when you enlarge an image in Photoshop, all you're doing to approximating what pixels WOULD be there ... you're not adding any real new information to the image. How could this possibly improve a DVD image?
This is an honest question. I'd really like to know if they have some special fancy way to truly fill in the gaps of resolution.
Now how about a proper 1080p TV then? There are HDTV's that have a 1080p display, but don't take 1080p inputs, and TVs that take 1080p but downscale it to 720p. Make up your mind!
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There are only 5-10 tvs that will even display 1080p right now, not even the Sony SXBRs can (NOTE many TVs actually display 1080p, but only accept 1080i input, like the SXBR for example).
As can be seen on this chart 720p will do for for most people. The human eye can't resolve the extra detail in the picture from 8' on a 42" diagonal.
All 10 titles? You should -be- so lucky. Back in my day, we had -1- 240x180 AVI of a CGI dancing baby and we -liked- it. You young whippersnappers and your "1820q" and your "ePod" and your "skipe".
"Everything worth innovating today will go to court tomorrow."
Also upscaling if done right can have an effect. No not much but it is like the difference between a interlaced video and a properly de-interlaced one.
Proper video filters can really improve the visuall quality of a movie. No it ain't the original anymore but with DVD you ain't got the original anyway.
But hey, you are obviously to smart to fall for this. You go right ahead and watch DVD's in their native resolution on your PC. At least you will have plenty of space left over to have a browser window open to post on slashdot. The rest of us just use video filters to help improve the image and watch it at the max resolution our monitors can handle.
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Yeesh, just look at that price! Unless they can drop its cost in a rapid fashion, the Blu-Ray format is almost certain to fail. Even earlier adopters, who usually see price as no object, are likely to balk at a price like that. A quick search on Froogle finds the Toshiba HD-A1 player for $620, a little less than 2/3rds the price. Technologically inferior or no, that's a hell of a price differential to overcome.
The Playstation 3 is likely to bring prices down, but honestly I think Sony put Blu-Ray tech into the system too soon. DVD was nearing critical mass in 2000, and the Playstation 2's arrival just hammered it home. HD formats, on the othr hand, aren't likely to explode for another couple years- at which point the PS3 will have sank or swum on its own merits. Having an Blu-Ray drive in the PS3 by default is more likely to be weight around the system's ankles, rather than a buoy to the top.
On the other hand, it will have the usability of a PS2 DVD player and the bugs of first-gen disc format, so you'll have to buy a better Blu-ray player soon anyway.
HR-HDTV - full res HDTV quality encodes
If you think the HR xvids are equivalent to full res HDTV, you are missing out.
They are only 960x540 and the bitrate is nowhere near enough to prevent artifacts like macroblocking and mosquito noise.
Don't get me wrong - the HR encodes are better than most any analog tv signal, but it is rare that they are better than a good DVD much less the equal of HD.
Why composite? Seems like a complete waste of money. First, anyone able to afford $999 for a BD player, or whatever reduced but still expensive price this thing will cost until PS3 arrives, will not be watching it on a TV so cheap/antiquated that its best input is composite. Second, I'm not a videophile/home theater buff, but I can clearly remember the vast difference in image quality on my Xbox and PS2 when going from composite to component and composite to s-video, respectively. Seems like composite on a BD player negates the primary selling point of the BD player in the first place - image quality. The only reason I can think of for including composite is that composite is now so cheap that its inclusion has a negligible effect on the unit's manufacturing cost, in which case, why not? Anyone know?
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I don't know if they do it on this player or not, but there is some easy-setup software you can do on your PC to check it out for yourself.
Use ffdshow (google for it). It is a DirectX filter (correct me if im wrong), in which youc an apply many effects to an image.
The trick is to scale the DVD 720x480 up to 1080p (or whatever you want) then apply a LANCOZ sharpening filter on ONLY the luma channel. *NOTE: I think I got that right, lancoz on luma channel, its been a while forgive me if im spelling something wrong.
There are actually lots of articles on the net (again google), that talk about this technique.
So I tried it for myself. Low and behold, the image really DOES look better. It amazingly adds "perceived" detail.
The trick again is sharpening only one channel in the image (luma/chroma/something else... (im no expert)).
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Surely all possible early adopters have already ruined their eyesight like the rest of us tech-heads? I can't tell the difference between DivX/XviD and DVD unless someone bypasses my eyes altogether, and I wear weak lenses.
Do you see what I did there?
Yea, I can't believe they only plan on release 10 titles ever. That's just retarded. What are they thinking???
Most Blu-Ray titles appear to be $20 on Amazon, and if you order a few early you get 10% off all Blu-Ray titles for a year.
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When I was in Taiwan, I got one of those Apex DVD players in my Happy Meal!