IFA, basically the German version of CES, is going on in Berlin right now and the first big day brought a lot of Blu-ray product announcements. It’s worth knowing what the other guys are up to so that you can have a better perspective on your own position. The first day at IFA featured announcements from Samsung, Sharp, Philips, Sony, and Daewoo saying they each had at least one new Blu-ray player coming out soon.
Except for the Daewoo (price or launch date not announced), most of those players are already “old” in the sense that none of them support the latest Blu-ray spec. In fact, there’s no player out now or coming out in 2007 that supports all the coolest interactivity features that are bragged about in Blu-ray promotions. Some of those features are beyond what firmware updates can fix, so this is not a silly issue. The reason that many of these players need to get announced and launched right now is that those advanced features become mandatory on Blu-ray players that come out from November onwards.
But internet stuff and disc bonus features are really only secondary to picture and audio quality when it comes to home theater, and in that area, all of these players feature 1080p, HDMI 1.3, Dolby True HD, and most of them also offered support for DTS-HD audio. Here are links to various gadget sites and their descriptions (and photos) of the new machines:
One of the things that many (Blu-ray) folks criticize about HD DVD is that Toshiba is the only company that makes the players, but we’ve seen recently that Onkyo and Venturer are about to fill in the highest and lowest ends of the spectrum with their own players in a month or two. As hinted at in the Gizmodo article about the Philips, even if many people make units, if all the units are essentially the same thing, isn’t that almost the same situation in the end as having only one company make all of them? Where does the consumer get any variety if everybody’s pretty much putting out the same box?
As is typically the case with shows like this, major competitors make announcements on separate days so that each can get their fair share of media coverage. The HD DVD news from IFA is coming next.
August 31st, 2007 at 11:36 am
Well, if I were a consumer walking in a high def home theater aisle, I’d be a little concerned when I see that several well respected brands have BR players, but yet Toshiba is the only one with a HD player. What conclusions could consumers draw from that? I think it would take away from some of the value saved in the much cheaper HD players, seeing as though Toshiba is the only one thus far to have the confidence to release a player. That, and I’m sure that Toshiba doesn’t list the studios that support HD, as the list is smaller than the competitor. My guess is it would say something to the effect of “great studio support”
August 31st, 2007 at 12:25 pm
well it sure didn’t make a difference to me! I went into futureshop open minded looked at the movies, prices, and content and in the end HD DVD was the choice for me! It mainly had to do with the fact that Universal was exclusive and I need my Jurassic Park!! But the companys developing the players didn’t effect me! I just wish 20th century fox was on hd dvd!!:( might have to get a blu-ray player for my die hard and my aliens!
August 31st, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Sky, just to report to you on the fact that you bought HD-DVD for your Jurassic Park…. The first movie was directed by Steven Spielberg, who happens to be a fan of Blu-ray. The only movie directed by Sir Spielberg to be released on any HD format, is Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which is being released this year on Blu-ray. So if you’re looking for JP to come out on HD-DVD, then don’t hold your breath, because it probably won’t be released on either format until there is a winner.
August 31st, 2007 at 11:46 pm
I am very aware of this. Although I am not quite sure sir speilberg is the blu-ray fan everyone makes him out to be. I have never seen anything that says he supports blu-ray over hd dvd just that he supports blu-ray. I think he just wants all of his movies to be enjoyed by everyone. So i think sometime in 2008 he will release all his movies in hd which means having them on both players wherever possible and having a few exclusives liek JP on hd and prolly something on blu-ray. Because it is very clear that JP will not be showing up on blu-ray unless it ends up winning and that won’t be for a loooong time but I would suspect it will be on HD-DVD sometime in 2008!
September 1st, 2007 at 12:13 am
Guys like Spielberg, Lucas, and Jackson will always make sure that each and every release of a film is all about the film and much less about other issues surrounding that presentation. I think Spielberg would rather make sure that the thing you remember about its high-def debut is that Close Encounters was a good movie, and not so much about the format it came out on.