Samung's new drives

[deinabog]

Samsung will be offering new Blu-ray solutions in the near future:
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/De ... wsId=23058

I'm interested in the burner myself .

[Ian]

That rumor has been floating around since 2006. Unless they can provide a model name or some specs, I have a hard time believing it, especially now that HD DVD is dead.

[deinabog]

Hopefully it proves true this time. I'll keep an ear to the ground for anymore info on these drives.

[Dartman]

And in that article they admit that now that Blu has won nobody wants to do anything to drive down profits and they redid many of their promotions as well for same reason Competition was good for us no matter what side you were on...

[Ian]

One thing that people really haven't noticed is that LG cut the price of their combo drives by about $100 when Toshiba declared that HD DVD is dead. I wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to clear out their inventory in preparation for Blu-ray only drives.

[Dartman]

They have claimed they are going to continue to make combo drive as far as LG is concerned. I think Samsung has said they will not make any more but we'll see.
Walmart here still has some hd dvd movies on sale, and a sign saying new ones were coming but they mostly wanted full retail for them and that store just might not one up to date on clearing out old stock.
The Samsung versions have had some real issues according to the real users at AVS, the LG's has been pretty good.

[dolphinius_rex]

And in that article they admit that now that Blu has won nobody wants to do anything to drive down profits and they redid many of their promotions as well for same reason Competition was good for us no matter what side you were on...

Actually... Blu-Ray burners have begun plummeting in price now... it's only in North America that pricing hasn't been adjusted, mostly thanks to the crappy US economy, and Canada is being dragged along also. It's cheaper to buy Blu-Ray burners in Europe now, even with exchange and shipping!!

[Dartman]

yeah, I want to get a LG multi blu soon, New egg has or had them for 260 shipped which is a good price I think for now.
I saw their LG-200 multi settop at CC for like 599 so it has come down a bit but as far as regular players they are all still about 400 here, glad I got that cheap Panasonic when I did.

[Halc]

I wish the BD-R discs would plummet in price.

I don't mind paying 600€ for the drive, if the discs cost 1/4 of what they cost now.

They are just _way_ too expensive and I believe that will remain for quite some time. Maybe even so long that something else comes along?

[Dartman]

Some of the slow moving stores here in the states have had fire sales on BD media as nobody bought it.
Circuit City has had like 6 bucks a disk, and Some targets are now blowing out 25 gig bd-re disk for around 6 bucks now so some deals are around if you watch the sales.

[Halc]

Pity I'm not in the states. 50GB 2x discs cost 28€ (c. $43) per one disc in Europe. No way I'm paying that much. The price per gigabyte is just horrendous.

[Wesociety]

The LG BH200 is currently selling for $799 at Bestbuy.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... 6004964788

The Samsung BD-UP5000 is currently selling for $499 at Bestbuy (sold out online)
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... 6007992533

That Samsung is a pretty sweet deal for any HD DVD owners out there that are converting to Blu-ray. Too bad it's only profile 1.0 compliant, right?

I did see another model number for a Samsung Combo player at CES, but it was only a prototype. I believe it was BD-UP7000 or something like that.

As far as LG is concerned, when I talked to a representative at CES in January, they actually seemed pretty happy that HD DVD was about to lose (Warner announcement / impending doom at the time). The LG rep told me that their BH200 is an excellent solution for those HD DVD owners that will now be getting into Blu-ray.

[Ian]

I did see another model number for a Samsung Combo player at CES, but it was only a prototype. I believe it was BD-UP7000 or something like that.

Are you talking about the BD-UP5500? It was cancelled shortly after going into prodcution.

As far as LG goes, I see them offering support for HD DVD until their stock of combo players runs out. After that, they'll be Blu-ray only.

[Dartman]

The Samsung continues to have problems, the LG is much better but not perfect either. The good thing about the Sammy is it has 7.1 outs so you can get most of the audio formats into a older receiver with out HDMI or other inputs.
If it has enough on board memory and like that it MIGHT be able to upgrade to newer profiles but as far as I know it's 1.0 right now.
The LG has all the right things and enough memory and was just updated to 1.1 but doesn't have any analog outs in case you have a older receiver.
I paid like 169 for my Panny DMP-BD10a as a open box demo, so all purple now anyways and so far it has mostly played every BD movie I've fed it fine, I think it glitched on audio once so far even though it's also a 1.0 player and never will be upgraded.

[Wesociety]

Are you talking about the BD-UP5500? It was cancelled shortly after going into prodcution.

No, the model actually said BD-UP7000 or something similar on it. I believe the Samsung reps claimed that it was just a BD-UP5500 with a different model number printed on it, like a show-off for a possible future model.

[vinnie97]

The BD-UP5000 is 1.1 capable...been waiting for the upgrade since December.

[Dartman]

Well if either goes on blowout cheap enough I'll bite and retire whichever machines are not as capable. I know Samsung has released updates, they just don't have it 100 percent yet and it sounds like the LG has less issues and all ready received it's 1.1 update.
I hope fr the owners now and in the future they add 2.0 and get all the trouble titles working rather then just give up on it.

[vinnie97]

I'll be happy with the addition of bitstreamed HD audio, profile 1.1 and resolution of audio dropouts. Profile 2 is just window dressing at this point.

Both of these can be had new for as low as $430 (for the BH200 with the use of a $20 coupon good through the end of May at Crutchfield )...I wouldn't wait too much longer, seeing as the future of this type of set top hardware is currently unknown.