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Samsung Sued Over "Defective" Blu-ray Player
Anneka notes that, although both Netflix and Best Buy threw logs on HD DVD's funeral pyre today, things are not all going Blu-ray's way. A Connecticut man is suing Samsung, the maker that brought the first Blu-ray players to market, over its "defective" BD-P1200 player. The lawsuit seeks class-action status. The problem is that the Samsung BD-P1200 is a "Profile 1.0" player that can't play some Blu-ray discs and Samsung has no intention (or ability) to upgrade these players via firmware. Quoting Ars: "The meager requirements of the 1.0 profile mean that Blu-ray players which fail to implement the optional features won't be able to take advantage of picture-in-picture, which requires secondary decoders. 1.0 players are also unable to store local content, lacking the 256MB of storage mandated by the 1.1 profile. Profile 1.1 discs should still play on 1.0 players, however, but the extra features will not work."
There's a reason we call it the bleeding edge - because it cuts you. And you bleed. It's much like new software - I won't touch a new OS or game until it's had at least one patch or service pack.
Frankly, I wouldn't mind seeing these companies getting a slap on the wrist for a changing definition of what Blu-Ray is by changing the profile but not making the differences obvious (it's a little tiny box on the back of a case).
That said, sounds like the guy has a case to me. Read this part:
It was defective. It sounds like the bought a DVD player (let's pretend) that wouldn't play a good percentage of DVDs. Not "doesn't play every neat feature". Not "doesn't support 12.16 theatrical sound". Just plain "won't play". They could fix it with a software update, but they don't seem to want to.
That part is bait-and-switch. He bought a player that should play any good Blu-Ray movie (possibly san-extras). It won't play many of them. Either all those movies are defective, or the player is. If it is the player, he was ripped off. At the very least, they should have replaced his player with something that would play movies.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
...but that comes with being an early adopter.Why should it? If he bought something marked that it plays Blu-Ray it should play any media that is also marked Blu-Ray, regardless of when either was bought. Just because it was the first player to market doesn't make it exempt. If they change the spec they should change the marking to at least show that the two aren't compatible.
i read about it in a blog once
"And then I want to see Sony get slammed for selling "CDs" that won't play in some CD players because the Sony CDs have DRM that's not part of the "CD" spec."
Do you see any of these logos on the front or back paper inserts, on the OUTSIDE of the case (not inside, as in after opening the case,) SPECIFICALLY the one that says Compact Disc Digital Audio?
If you don't see the CDDA, then it's safe to assume that the CD does not follow the CDDA format, and therefore has DRM. CDDA does not have provisions for DRM, and any disc carrying DRM, or is 'enhanced' (extra data track after audio tracks included) may not display that logo on the case. The actual part that holds the disc in the case will just have the plain Compact Disc logo most often.
If you have any discs that display the CDDA logo and they have DRM or any 'enhancements' for our computer, the maker of that disc is in violation of the rules that Phillips set forth in specifying the format. You should immediately notify them of the breach of contract between the music company that made the discs and Phillips. And you should probably go ahead and lawyer up, because once you stir up the snake nest they're gonna come crawling and biting at your ankles.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
> ..but $150 players are only a recent phenomenon and it's effect on the market remains to be seen.
:)
I suspect the $150 players were the result of the retail channel seeing what was happening and deciding that the Xmas season was their last chance to unload inventory that was about to be worthless. Add in a little inside info paranoia and deliberate postponing of the studio shifting, etc to allow retails time to dump and things make a lot more sense.
Everyone knew that only one would survive and at the first hint that the market was picking a winner the desire not to be left holding a big stack of dead inventory created a huge bandwagon effect. If I had to guess it was the PS3 finally starting to sell as the price dropped. It became obvious there was soon going to be far more BD players just on the strength of the PS3, one studio flips camps (actually just stopped doing both) and it snowballed. At this point I doubt even Sony can manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Me, I haven't even bought a HD set yet and haven't owned a console since the 2600. Waiting for the pricing to plateau out, no sense getting in a hurry to go HD just to be able to pick from a few dozen crap/blockbuster titles.
Democrat delenda est