Retailers to ditch HD-DVD by next year?

[JoeSp]

Actually the PS3 is very capable of being a full featured Blu-Ray player including BD-Java.

 

[CochiseGuy]

Another combo player on the way

Well, if retailers are "going to ditch HD DVD by next year", I guess someone forgot to tell the CE companies. According to EndGadgetHD, Samsung - which produced the world's first standalone BD player - is now going format neutral, promising a BD/HD DVD combo player "in time for the holidays".

Samsung says Duo HD BD-UP5000 dual-format Blu-ray/HD-DVD combo player on the way

Samsung's been seriously non-committal about whether or not they were going to come out with a dual-format HD-DVD / Blu-ray combo player for a while now (they first said they working on one back in September of '05, only to retract that a few months later), but no more: it's officially happening. They've just announced the Duo HD BD-UP5000, their first player to support both HD disc formats. LG beat 'em to the punch with the BH100, but Samsung is promising that the Duo HD BD-UP5000 will have full support for HD-DVD (including support for HDi), something LG hasn't been able to offer with its player. We're still waiting to hear details about pricing and all that, but they are promising that the combo player will be out "in time for the holidays."

Gee, I never realized Samsung was run by morons. Sony has already said game over, Blu-ray has already won. .

 

[r.jones1116]

Like it or not, both formats will be around for a while.

 

[CochiseGuy]

Like it or not, both formats will be around for a while.

I like it.

I found a little better source for info on Samsung's announcement - Korea News Wire (English).

"We welcome Samsung's Duo HD player as another solution in the marketplace that will help reduce consumer confusion and buyer hesitancy towards HD media," said Ron Sanders, President of Warner Home Video. "This is an innovative product that can move us closer to mainstream consumer adoption of HD technologies."

"We are very pleased to announce the upcoming release of our Duo HD player. Consumers are hungry for more HD content but are currently confused about competing formats. Samsung's Duo HD player will allow consumers access to every HD movie title available regardless of the authoring format. Samsung is committed to making life simpler through technology and will market next generation DVD products which will satisfy the consumer and market requirement. This is a big win for the consumer.

As a member of the DVD Forum and contributor to the DVD Industry, we recognize that both HD-DVD and BD formats have merits. As such, we have decided to market a dual format player. Samsung is flexible to market a stand-alone HD-DVD player whenever consumers demand it. Our main concern is not technology but consumer choice" said Dongsoo Jun, Executive Vice President of the Digital AV Division at Samsung Electronics.

 

[navychop]

Actually the PS3 is very capable of being a full featured Blu-Ray player including BD-Java.

I hear you. But I've read articles where some think the PIP function will require hardware that the PS3 doesn't have. That might be the only loss. I don't care about PIP but I'd rather not have a player known to not meet some new minimum specs. Does the PS3 have 1 GB RAM?

 

[JoeSp]

The HDMI 1.3 is all the hardware that the PS3 will need. Heck, the stupid thing has 7 Spres setting aroung not doing much during BD playback and one of them can be doing PIP using the second video bandwith of HDMI 1.3. I don't see any problem here.

As for Ram the PS3 has 512k of ram split between CELL and GPU but accessible by a 22g bandwith by both the CELL and GPU -- along with the harddrive this should not cause a problem either.

We will find out soon enough as the Pirates discs (two 50gb BD each movie) will be providing PIP use thru BD-Java. If the PS3 can handle this then there should be no more questions and those discs are coming out soon.

 

[jmd102354]

Like it or not, both formats will be around for a while.

Just as long as I can enjoy my HD movies, I'm happy !