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Samsung to Launch Dual Blu-ray HD DVD Player
narramissic writes "File this one under 'if you can't beat em, join em.' Samsung, one of the main backers of the Blu-ray Disc format, Friday said it plans to release an optical disc player this year that will play both Blu-ray Disc and the rival HD DVD format. With the announcement, Samsung becomes the second company to shift from a single-format stance (LG launched a dual player in North America earlier this year.) 'Our main concern is with the consumer and not a particular technology,' said Samsung spokesman Kwak Bumjoon."
And so it begins. I wonder if M$ will start grabbing these up now since someone took the plunge and they use Samsung already.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
Blu-ray is going the way of the dodo. Dead as a doornail in 5 years. Yet another Sony proprietary format to go down in flames, and it's probably a good thing given Sony's DRM and anti-consumer rights stance. So, as predicted, Blu-ray will be the next betamax.
Congrats, Sony. It's not that easy to repeat history. Every. Single. Time.
I would love to invest in a blu-ray or HD-DVD player. In fact, in looking at a recent one-call mag or some such, I see that there are "entry-level" HD-DVD players available for $399.
hmmm.
I still don't think that $399 is affordable enough, at least not for me. I didn't have a DVD player until they were around the $100 mark. The other thing I've noticed is that the Blu-Ray players are still expensive - or at least more expensive than the HD-DVD.
So what gives on the pricing? Average joes will not like to pick one up if they can't get into the 100$ market....
Karnal
A company involved in DRM that gives half a damn about giving the consumer a choice?
I thought that to get access to the Blu-ray specs, you had to sign that you won't develop such a dual player. Is Samsung ignoring that clause? Did they get special permission? Or did they obtain the Blu-ray specs through a 3rd party leak? through reverse engineering?
I could see the point of a dual player if both formats had a future. But its looking increasingly likely that HD-DVD would be lucky to see the new year the way things are going. Given that, why would someone bother to buy a dual player, especially since the cost is likely to be substantially higher than a player that just played one format.
It's a company that doesn't want to get left out in the cold if their choice of format doesn't succeed. They don't give a shit about you, but they will pretend they do in order to convince you to give them money. HTH...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Our main concern is with the consumer and not a particular technology"
I expect the MPAA Enforcement Squad to soon pay them a visit to correct this dangerous and subversive kind of slander.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
So pathetic.
The only people clinging to the dead HD-DVD format are foaming at the mouth Microsoft/Xbox fanboys who 'hate teh Sony'. Which is sad because Microsoft themselves have given up on the format.
The quote is actually missing some words, let me fill it in for you:
"Our main concern is with guaranteeing that the consumer's money ends up in our pockets, and in ensuring that our revenue stream does not depend on a particular technology"
There, that makes more sense.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Seems to me like a common sense approach, similar to how nearly all the previously PS3 exclusive non first party developers have used the same common sense and decided to go cross platform and not artificially limit themselves to a platform that is nowhere near having a majority. Widening your audience can only have positive effects for sales.
.. is having multiple cuts of the same film on the same DVD, without branching and the annoying layer change pauses that entails. Take Dawn of the Dead. The ultimate edition is spread over four DVDs. Yet a single HD/BlueRay DVD could hold the movie and all the extras. That'd be my main incentive to buy a HD/BR player.
Anyone else find the spokesman's name hilarious?
Kwak Bumjoon!
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo!
I mean, lets face it, normal DVD quality is as good as anyone really needs.
Blu-ray and HD-DVD is a classic case of "if it ain't broke don't fix it".
I'll be sticking with my DVD player thank you very much.
While combining functions on drives is nice since it saves space and, once the prices settle, even final costs of having just one drive in the computer. So far fragility created by mergeing devices that can fail in different has not proven to be a big problem that I have seen. e.g. the CD writer on the cd/dvd combo burns out prematurely and I have to replace the whole shebang. The motors or tray gears seem to go first.
But what does happen is that it takes longer and longer for the gorram computer to mount the cd/dvd. This is especially noticable when one inserts a damaged CD into a drive. the computer grunts and groans freaking for ever trying to decide it it is looking at a CD, and CD-R, D DVD-r, and DVD+R, a DVD. And each of these seems to have some different time consuming error protocol that involves trying to spin the thing at different speeds. Now they are going to be adding not one but two more protocols. And I imagine it won't be long before we have HDDVD-R and HDDVD+R and so on thrown on top of this.
it's going to take minutes when you shove in that Bad CD before your computer lets you eject it.
On Macs you can't just eject the CD by pushing a button like you can on Linux. Windows is heading that way, though I'm not really sure what VISTA does.
posting here since my other post is the parent.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
moviebeam, vongo, etc..
How long do you think the market for movies on physical discs will be around?
The DVD (HD, Blu, or Pink with spots) is bound to share the same fate as the CD eventually.
It doesn't help that a $70 upconverting DVD player makes enough improvement, that most casual viewers consider it "HD".
The real question is, when am I going to be able to use (either) technology in my PC?
I mean, reading/writing 25+ gig discs, *cheaply*?
IMO that's the real format war. The marketplace has shown a remarkable lack of interest in these things as $1000 uber-premium movie-watchers.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
'Our main concern is with the consumer and not a particular technology,' said Samsung spokesman Kwak Bumjoon." - Translated: Yeah, might as well make a player that does both so we can sell more crap.
And someone else posted that Sony lost with blueray.
Neither one has won or lost. They are in the market and someone is buying them. Consumers have said they do not want to pick a format and now we see this. I personally would rather use blueray. I don't care about the video end of things, but I think more about backup media and other practical PC uses down the road.
I've never seen an argument about which one is better for open source use in the future.
PC vendors have not pushed either format like they did DVD. I remember early on that you could go into a store and see compaq's and other systems preconfigured to play movies. Getting DVD playback on a computer was one of the reasons many people could ignore the lack of recording and other problems with DVDs back then.
I'm waiting for the players to come down in price like most people. I bought a sony DVD player for $300 in 1999. I'm not afraid of picking up formats earlier, but sense I must first buy an overpriced tv to enjoy the new formats, the actual players must be dirt cheap. (or tvs must come down) We went from 20 inch tvs for $100 to 15 in tvs for $400... something has to give. I think these companies forget that consumers have less money to spend now than they did 5 years ago. We have higher gas prices which effect everything else, we must work for less money*, and we must rebuy our living room entertainment again.
* The combination of less raises, lower starting saleries, and competing in a global market.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
I won't be getting a BluRay or HD-DVD player until they, or only one of them, becomes dominant over DVDs. Why waste the money now? This little feud will be over sometime and we'll move away from DVDs but until then I'll stick with my $20 DVD player that plays every movie currently on the market. I'll be the last to give up with my DVD player shouting Charleton Heston's famous words, "out of my cold dead hands."
"'Our main concern is with the consumer and not a particular technology,"
Wow, so it's not going to have any DRM bullshit either? Oh, wait, they said consumer, not customer, so they're still treating us as automatons.
Then how can we paste classic BASIC code?
Use of the "M$" moniker on Slashdot often appears to refer to Microsoft's legacy as a developer of BASIC interpreters.
Call me crazy, but does it strike anyone as a very interesting idea to produce the next Xbox360 addon as a combo HD-DVD/Blu-ray player? Think about it...they win either way. If people buy the device itself, they're in good shape and they're stealing the only real reason for the huge cost of the PS3 away from Sony. It's an incredible strategic move. Make it available, make it affordable (within reason; I'm aware of the expense of said technology), and you've stolen Sony's thunder. Just a thought.
Better yet hold off on that uber-elite-custom-super-fun-happy-goodtime Xbox edition and give it a dual player. Then drop the price on what's now the premium console. The fanboys and wealthier will snatch the new machines up (particularly if they come in a custom color, because as we all know, that's what makes it truly '1337). Everybody else will continue buying the now-cheaper premium edition. Score all the way around.
If all my base are belong to you and I attempt to retrieve my base, does that mean I'm freebasing?
I was hopping Blu-Ray would win. 1080p native (instead of re-interlaced 1080i), more capacity, smaller wavelength. But Sony, being Sony, couldn't help but shoot itself in the foot.
Hostile to porn? Game over man, game over. The entirety of technology is to create a more efficient distribution network for porn. Printing press, telephones, moving pictures, home video, CD ROM, and the greatest porn distribution system ever created: the Internets (who's impact won't be outdone until direct-to-brain technology is developed).
HD-DVD will win. I just got my 46 inch 1080p LCD, and now I'm waiting for the HD-DVD price to get down below $250, or maybe $300. Netflix has HD-DVD, so that'll be my primary source.
I wish the movie industry, video industry, computer industry, and audio industry would all get together and realize that they are hurting themselves with this.
I have been wanting to replace my TV for 2 years now. I haven't yet, because what I have will play my old dvds fine, and I'm not going to buy two different players, and maintain two different formats of nextgen dvds. Sure, the dual-format players resolve this to some degree, and it's about time this happened, but realistically...
I'll tell you what I've almost done though. I've not had a game console since...well, a very long time ago, but since the PS3 has hdmi and optical audio outputs, while being just as cheap as a full blue-ray player without a game system attached, I've thought about getting a PS3 and not worrying about upgrading my computer (which handles non-games just fine). Thought about doing this. If these folks would just stop bickering and agree to something (or agree to do dual-format for a while), then I and a horde of others would be out there replacing our dvd libraries with the newer stuff.
It's an odd culture at Samsung, sort of out-doing the capitalist US ... the only thing that matters is bringing in money.
What's more, they'll do whatever it takes, depending on the market: they'll sell crap where they can get away with it, and they'll make absolutely top notch stuff where the market is too competitive to sell crap. For example, the refrigerator market is ludicrously over-populated at all ends of the spectrum, so they make damn high quality ones at prices that undercut the competition by 50%, or 75% in the case of american-style fridges. (I bought one, frickin impressive build and even nicer price.)
Also in high-tech electronics: the top 1080p HDTV in the UK market under 1 grand UKP is a Samsung, and it's got unbelievable specs compared to the competition, even full res on the VGA input which is often ignored by others. But wait, WTF? There's no el cheapo market in 1080p sets in Europe, so how come? Who knows, that's Samsung, they don't appear to have a single policy. Unlike Sony, which does have a single policy, which is to be crap, totally moronic, and led by politics.
I think Japan is on the way out as a tech super-power -- even that Japanese minister said so, largely because they've abandoned tech in favour of politics. And it's the Samsungs that are going to be the big names, because they'll do whatever it takes, politics be damned.
Cool, now as they invalidate device keys and disable each player in order to protect their future DRM'd movies, at least they can switch between Blue Rays set of invalidated keys and HD DVDs set of invalidated keys.
Twice the chances of finding a disc that will play!
DRM is so cool!
Will it play? will it not? you don't know! I don't know! It all adds to the fun of watching a movie!
Here in the Netherlands they dominate the DVB settop box market for both Cable and Terrestrial with a line of the most horrible crap ever made.
But it is inexpensive, and that is what counts now. Because the analog transmitters have been shut down and analog cable is on the way out, what the providers need is a low cost of entry into their competitive subscription deals. So they offer a Samsung receiver for (almost) free when signing a contract.
What the customer is left with, is a very unreliable box that zaps slower than ever seen before.
That always reminds me of that 640k quote.M
It's as good as anyone really needs until prices comes down, then everyone will use HD, and pretty soon, everyone will find ridiculous watching anything in SD.
How is that? Are you talking about the Image Constraint Token?
The way I understand it, the movie studios have "promised" not to use that against us for a few more years yet. Not that I believe that promise, but if any discs were already out that make use of it, there would have already been a huge outcry here on slashdot about it.
The XBox 360 can play HD-DVD movies through the add-on drive, and it doesn't even have HDMI, much less support for HDCP. It plays HD-DVD movies just fine(*) through the component connections.
So what discs wouldn't it play again?
(*) Of course, people have reported problems with a few discs, but the same can be said for Blu-Ray and even early DVD releases.
Also, you will be unable to close the door to your entertainment center, unless you want it and everything around to melt.
Fuck Slashdot
One might draw the conclusion that this article was written by HD-DVD partisans.
Really? Damn! Did someone forget to tell me or the rest of the people on our (pretty damn large) team? I mean, seriously, it would be much easier if I didn't have to finish the multiple products I'm currently working on since we're apparently giving up on the format.
:)
I think we're doing pretty well, considering the PS3 outnumbers HD DVD players by probably 5:1. Luckily, people who own the PS3 either are still smarting from the hole in their pocket it left, or are those cheap gamer types who don't watch all that many movies. You may notice that for certain recent titles (Happy Feet, Planet Earth, a couple of the other Warner ones), the HD DVD actually did better than the BD. And then we also get a couple of reasonably popular titles this year that won't be on BD at all, or will only arrive "later", like Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, and The Matrix.
The battle is far from over
Got a PS3 and watched movies only on it. Yes, because I wanted a hi-def DVD format, Blu-Ray looks to be winning, and the PS3 is the cheapest player.
So I'm one, at least.
After a few weeks, I bought Resistance: Fall of Man which is a hoot. But I like our Wii much better for games.
head down to Circuit City or Soundtrac or wherever, and take a gander at their hi-def DVD lineup.
2 Blu-Ray titles for every 1 HD-DVD.
Now granted, most of this crop of movies just sucks even worse in hi-def. And having "Children of Men" only on HD-DVD really hurts (although I gather that title has caused havoc for XBox 360 and some Samsung HD-DVD owners.)
But still...I'll go with more choices, not less.
I too would buy whichever gets the Dawn of the Dead ultimate edition on one disc, but I feel like Star Wars has broader appeal. With all the money riding on who wins the format war, I can't believe one of them hasn't sent a fat check over to someone like George Lucas(although it would probably take a pretty big check to get him moving). He could put both the real Star Wars, and his stupid edited one on the same disc and make everyone happy. If only one format got Star Wars, the format war would be over.
I thought about the same ... until I got an HD TV. And a digital amp. And, in my experience, the HD cable TV outstrips the DVD video. And the DVD video makes me cringe to watch SD cable. (The DVD audio, however, blows the HD audio away, but I think that's my HD PVR which isn't giving me digital audio, while my DVD player does give me digital audio.)
I'll be trying to convince the CFO to get a next-gen DVD player (Blue-Ray or HD, depending on who "wins") as soon as they become reasonable in price.
Up until Samsung's announcement, I was planning to NOT buy two players - a HD-DVD one and a BluRay one.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Absolutely. I expect LOTR has some push too, but Lucasfilm (Star Wars and Indiana Jones) could end it instantly.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Can it play regular DVDs as well, or just Blue-Ray and HD-DVD? That would be a really useful feature, and I would buy it for sure. Can it play Red-ray and HHD-DVVDD-BVD? (RvB ftw)
The dyslexic atheist says, "There is no dog"
Times are different now then they were in video vs. betamax. Look at the "format wars" between DVD+ and DVD- media. They both exist. And, so does DVD-RAM. People will eventually get players that can read both and just choose which media to watch based on the features and price. When they rent them or share them, it will be based on the format available. At any rate, I think High Definition video formats are still way out of the range of the 90% of the customers who will ultimately decide which format will be more profitable for the manufacturers. I'm not going to get a player/recorder until I can get everything together for a reasonable price. I have to upgrade my TV before I even care.
It'll be interesting to see what Matrix does. It's being released on HD DVD this May. No BD release date, although it's rumored to be late this year, once the BD camp actually finalizes the spec (yes, they've been selling a product for a year that isn't even finalized yet. Go Sony *rolls eyes*)
I posted this in another thread, but I'll reiterate it here. Does it really matter if you can burn a 15G disk vs a 25G disk, when harddrives are now 750G to 1TB? I mean really, an extra 10G is important?
Ok, it can be either way around. But this is what I thought of when I first heard that blu ray and hd dvd were incompatible: Use on for data/computers, the other for movies/holywood. By this, they should be able to curb piracy until people make blu-ray devices for computers, blah blah stuff. -- How I see it as a curb to piracy is that we have one format for movies and tv. and the other for computers. - I have chosen blu-ray for movies because Microsoft has chosen HD-DVD for the Xbox 360, which one can assume that there will be HD-DVD for Windows as well. The other reason is because lately Blu-ray has been winning the movie format war thus far. If they (the companies involved) could be arsed to work together to curb piracy by using different formats for different duties then this could happen. But the truth is, is that these are different companies and companies don't like to do this sort of thing. what do you think about it?
signature is pants
"Finally Could the slash dot filter PLEASE stop people from writing MS instead of MS. (;_;)"
I figured that this was going to happen eventually just like it did with DVD burners. Simply put, people don't give a damn which is better, instead what the consumer cares about is what's cheapest and for those who have some product loyalty, the manufacturers got tired of the beef why doesn't my burner handle this brand of disk? that they got with the +/- format war. Tech Support costs them money when customers bitch and it costs them market share, which once again costs money and they're share holders beef.
So simply wait at least 12 to 18 months for prices to drop to a reasonable point and we'll be able to use either format as easily as we do DVD's right now.
Considering neither format is going nowhere. Universal has to much of a big stake and has already released stacks of titles, as has Warner.
I had a feeling Samsung would do this, it's just like them. I have faith Samsung will get it right this time (full HD-DVD support this time please). If so it "will" be mine.
Let's look at the companies that developed Blu-Ray and HD-DVD and are fighting a format war, trying to get their own format to win. Blu-Ray was developed by Sony. HD-DVD was developed by Toshiba and NEC. All three of these companies are Japanese.
Now let's look at the companies that have announced they are going to be format-agnostic, sell dual-format players, and sidestep the format war. According to the summary, LG already introduced such a product, and Samsung has announced plans to release one as well. These two companies are both Korean.
I don't want to read too much into this, but it seems like while the Japanese are busy trying to own the market by owning the format, the Koreans plan to start selling players as soon as possible, removing the major barrier (format uncertainty) that is holding back adoption. This, combined with the huge increase in build quality and improved reputation of Korean products in the last few years, may pay off big time for the Koreans. While the Japanese manufacturers are busying believing that Japan owns the market and all that remains is for them to settle the format question among themselves in a contest of Japanese corporate leverage versus Japanese corporate leverage, the Koreans may come in and take the market by selling more sensible, appealing products.
And it's DVD!
-makoffee