[The News Bot]

Philips will launch its first UK Blu-ray player, but not until October. Despite the delayed introduction, its BDP7200 will not be BD Live compliant. The unit is Profile 1.1 ‘Bonus View’ only. Standard BD features apply, including 1080p video and multi-channel audio output.According to US market research firm ABI Research, it could take as long [...]
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[CrazyHorse]

From the article...

According to US market research firm ABI Research, it could take as long as 18 months before Blu-ray players can equal the price and functionality that HD DVD hardware had when Toshiba pulled the plug on the format earlier this year.

Which makes it all the more baffling as to how the hell Blu-ray won this format war! One thing is for certain, the consumer had no real say in the outcome, despite what some press releases would have you believe.

As usual it's the studios and the money men who decide such things and it's us punters who pay the price along the way.

[AgentCool]

Originally Posted by CrazyHorse

Which makes it all the more baffling as to how the hell Blu-ray won this format war! One thing is for certain, the consumer had no real say in the outcome, despite what some press releases would have you believe.

As usual it's the studios and the money men who decide such things and it's us punters who pay the price along the way.

You do have to ask why it will take 18 months for Blu-ray players to equal HD DVD in terms of price and features. There is no reason for it at all, especially given the PS3 will finally become the first fully-functional BD player as of tomorrow. The specs are finished so every upcoming Blu-ray player should be Profile 2.0 enabled. Some will say that there's nothing wrong with having a choice of whether or not you want to be BD Live enabled or not but this line of thought will look ridiculous once Profile 2.0 eventually becomes the standard. 1.0 and 1.1 players will be worth next to nothing when this time comes.

[Helicon]

HD-DVD was already struggling before Toshiba pulled out, and this reflected in the price of the software.

I agree, the Blu-Ray format has been rushed out, probably to make sure it had a fighting chance. But i'm glad it was, as now we have a format that spec-wise is superior, and also has a chance of growing when needed.

As far as 1.0/1.1/2.0 is concerned, the main people who seem to be moaning about the lack of initial interactivity seem to be HD-DVD owners. Blu-Ray owners and owners to be really don't seem to be that bothered. The majority of Blu-Ray collectors will have a 2.0 player as of today, so they've lost nothing. Those that just like watching films and aren't too bothered about extras will be happy buying a 1.1 player. As far as i'm concerned, now that the PS3 is 2.0, i'll use that for BD Live (if anything takes my fancy), so i'll be happy with a 1.1 player just to watch films on - maybe Denon's BD transport or Marantz's rather high end but reasonably priced looking player, as soon as i have built up a large enough library to warrant it. I think that 1.1 players will actually be more popular than 2.0 ones.

I really don't understand the fuss. I'm just glad the format with the most potential won through. The general public have made some bad choices in the past, so it makes a change from the best quality format losing.

[Ian_S]

Originally Posted by CrazyHorse

Which makes it all the more baffling as to how the hell Blu-ray won this format war! One thing is for certain, the consumer had no real say in the outcome, despite what some press releases would have you believe.

Not really...

What you say would be true IF the price Toshiba were marketing their players at represented the real price of the units. However, Toshiba were the only maker of HD-DVD only products (for everything, standalones, PC drives, Xbox addons, all used Toshiba drives) and were also the only HD-DVD company trying to aggressively increase market share. The way they did this was aggressive pricing on players. Ignoring the sell-off pricing, I don't think Toshiba were making money on the players, as evidenced by the share price rising when they announced their pull out. If HD-DVD was a profitable business for them, I doubt shareholders would have been quite so happy to see profit thrown away.

So, the prices people are used to for HD-DVD and the functionality provided, were artificially low in order to boost take-up. If it had worked then longer term Toshiba would have reaped the benefit from licensing revenue etc. However, the problem it also created was that whilst Toshiba were busy using price as the main weapon to increase share, no other manufacturer would make players as there was no profit in competing with Toshiba prices. Why would you buy say a Samsung HD-DVD player at a higher cost than the Toshiba for the same or less functionality? You wouldn't, nor would I.

We'll probably never know what real price the Toshiba players would have sold for to make money. Maybe the initial G2 prices were closest to the mark at I think it was £699 for the XE1 and £449 for the HD-E1. That pricing didn't last long though.

The sad fact is that £200 or thereabouts doesn't buy you much of a player if you want all the bells and whistles. I think this is why we are seeing such delays on BD player releases. The hangover if you like of Toshibas pricing is that people now expect a certain functionality at a certain price, and if BD manufacturers suddenly release a slew of players at twice the price there would be an outcry of rip-off... So the alternative is to wait until component prices drop to a point where they can deliver function at the expected price.

In the mean time we're stuck waiting...

That's my view of it anyway. Ironically I think if Toshiba had simply had the bottle to only undercut BD by say £100 on players initially, then they would still have won the functionality battle and they'd have left enough margin in the player price to allow other manufacturers to make players without making a loss on them... Then the consumer would have had a real choice. As it turned out, IMO Toshiba removed customer choice by pricing other manufacturers out of the HD-DVD market.

[Upholder]

Originally Posted by Ian_S

Not really...

What you say would be true IF the price Toshiba were marketing their players at represented the real price of the units. However, Toshiba were the only maker of HD-DVD only products (for everything, standalones, PC drives, Xbox addons, all used Toshiba drives) and were also the only HD-DVD company trying to aggressively increase market share. The way they did this was aggressive pricing on players. Ignoring the sell-off pricing, I don't think Toshiba were making money on the players, as evidenced by the share price rising when they announced their pull out. If HD-DVD was a profitable business for them, I doubt shareholders would have been quite so happy to see profit thrown away.

So, the prices people are used to for HD-DVD and the functionality provided, were artificially low in order to boost take-up. If it had worked then longer term Toshiba would have reaped the benefit from licensing revenue etc. However, the problem it also created was that whilst Toshiba were busy using price as the main weapon to increase share, no other manufacturer would make players as there was no profit in competing with Toshiba prices. Why would you buy say a Samsung HD-DVD player at a higher cost than the Toshiba for the same or less functionality? You wouldn't, nor would I.

We'll probably never know what real price the Toshiba players would have sold for to make money. Maybe the initial G2 prices were closest to the mark at I think it was £699 for the XE1 and £449 for the HD-E1. That pricing didn't last long though.

The sad fact is that £200 or thereabouts doesn't buy you much of a player if you want all the bells and whistles. I think this is why we are seeing such delays on BD player releases. The hangover if you like of Toshibas pricing is that people now expect a certain functionality at a certain price, and if BD manufacturers suddenly release a slew of players at twice the price there would be an outcry of rip-off... So the alternative is to wait until component prices drop to a point where they can deliver function at the expected price.

In the mean time we're stuck waiting...

That's my view of it anyway. Ironically I think if Toshiba had simply had the bottle to only undercut BD by say £100 on players initially, then they would still have won the functionality battle and they'd have left enough margin in the player price to allow other manufacturers to make players without making a loss on them... Then the consumer would have had a real choice. As it turned out, IMO Toshiba removed customer choice by pricing other manufacturers out of the HD-DVD market.

All well and good, but the point remains... HD-DVD works..

[Bribrian]

Originally Posted by Upholder

All well and good, but the point remains... HD-DVD works..

All be it, without a future......