Samsung to launch £271 joint Blu-ray/HD DVD player next month

[julian_craster]

Samsung to launch £271 joint Blu-ray/HD DVD player next month

By Tony Smith

11th July 2007



Samsung will launch its promised dual-format HD DVD/Blu-ray Disc player in

Europe next month, the company has said, and industry insiders are already

claiming the machine could be priced at just Euros 400 ($548/£271).



Samsung apparently revealed its plan to launch the player, the BD-UP5000, at

a recent preview event for the upcoming IFA consumer electronics show, which

kicks off in Berlin at the end of August. Nothing was said about pricing -

the ?400 comes from Taiwanese moles cited by DigiTimes without addressing

how Taiwanese sources might know what local pricing decisions the European

wing of a South Korean company has made.



Samsung executives first hinted they were pondering a dual-format player

back in the Autumn of 2005, but the company quickly acted to stress its

total support for Blu-ray Disc. The rumour was revived last year after the

first signs LG might be planning to produce such a machine surfaced in March

2006. The following June, Samsung staff were once again being quoted as

claiming the company was considering a dual-format player.



Samsung has become increasingly willing to throw its weight behind HD DVD as

well as Blu-ray of late, most notably by announcing last month a latptop

with an integrated HD DVD drive.



The BD-UP5000 is said to offer full support for the two optical disc

formats' interactivity technologies, HDi and BD Java. That lifts the machine

above the dual-format player announced by LG in January: it will only handle

Blu-ray interactivity - HD DVD playback is limited to the movies themselves.



From

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/07/11/samsung_400euro_blu-ray/

[Aaryk Noctivagus]

Wow!.

[ChristineCB]

This is the only sensible move, something both format-leaders tried to prevent - yet do they honestly believe the consumers won't want to see comparisons or, if exclusivity of some titles succeeds, that consumers will be locked out because of their singular player choice?



I see several computer drives are slated to have all capabilities, too, but only as players at this point. Burners will be next year, I suppose.

[Cheeky Bob]

Interestingly, it was Samsung which was responsible for giving the fledgling DVD market a major boost - in early 1999 the now-legendary Samsung 807 player was sold via Woolworths for a mere £200.



This sounds extortionate by today's standards, but was an absolute bargain then - especially as it could play any region, PAL or NTSC, and make a decent fist of converting NTSC material so that it could display on even quite basic British tellies. At the time, the next cheapest model that could do that cost about £400 and was reputedly pretty terrible.



I bought one as soon as I heard about it, and never looked back. Over time it became clear that the player had some noticeable shortcomings, and I imagine this will be true of this dual HD player too, but it was incredibly important in terms of persuading people to dip a toe in the water. So it looks as though history's repeating itself.