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Hardware LG's Universal Blu-Ray, HD-DVD Player
Brandon Hill (Blog) - March 5, 2006 11:30 AM
Print 22 comment(s) - last by masher2.. on Mar 6 at 9:53 PM

LG BD199 Blu-ray player
LG drops plans for its Blu-ray player in favor of a universal player

LG has added yet another twist to the ongoing Blu-ray vs HD-DVD format wars. According to an internal memo, LG has dropped plans to launch its BD199 Blu-ray player this spring. "In light of uncertainty in this early stage of the market for pre-recorded high-definition optical discs, we have decided not to introduce the BD199 as originally planned for this spring," said LG sales VP Bob Perry.

The spring release of the BD199 would have played well with Sony's May 23 launch date for Blu-ray content. Instead, the company will release a hybrid player that can playback both Blu-ray and HD-DVD content in late summer/early fall.

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a
By hans007 on 3/6/2006 6:41:30 AM , Rating: 5
honestly on tv's that are less than oh... about 40", i dont think i could tell the difference between 480p/1080i and 720p . maybe just barely.


and as it stands most people in the world do not even own tv's over 42" or so.

it is actually a fact that only really in america are large screen tv's that prevalent, in most countries 50" and higher tvs just arent commonplace .


anyhow, i doubt it is a big enough difference for anyone but the home theater crowd to even care. we live in a world where no one even cares about the lowered audio quality of say wma 128kbps files. and that is an easy to hear difference even with $20 or so headphones.




RE: a
By probedb on 3/6/2006 6:44:07 AM , Rating: 2
I have a 26" LCD and I can tell the difference between 480p/576p and 720p/1080i. It's all about viewing distance.

Obviously smaller screens it's less noticable.


RE: a
By masher2 (blog) on 3/6/2006 9:27:16 AM , Rating: 3
> "honestly on tv's that are less than oh... about 40", i dont think i could tell the difference between 480p/1080i and 720p"

I don't know where people get this misinformation. Watching from the ideal viewing distance (roughly, 1.5-2.0X screen diagonal for SD material, a bit less for HD), screen size does not matter. All else being equal, at this distance, the difference between SD and HD material is pretty much equally visible on anything from 20" LCD to a 160" projection screen.



RE: a
By exdeath on 3/6/2006 3:29:02 PM , Rating: 2
If thats the case, then why did we seek 1024x768+ gaming on our 17" monitors years ago instead of being satisfied with 640x480?

17", 19" and 21" monitors are far smaller than 40" yet there was, and still is, clearly a push for higher and higher resolutions. I don't think gamers would sacrifice frame rates to go to higher resolutions if 1600x1200+ didnt look better on a 21" monitor than 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768.



RE: a
By ROB G on 3/6/2006 7:52:57 PM , Rating: 2
I would disagree on your point of people not caring about quality of TV's....I've been in retail electronic sales for 13 years and for some reason there seems to be a love affair with Americans and thier TV's.They won't spend a dime on sound and if they do it's a $399 HTIB with a $3000 plasma or lcd. So while sound system and computer/laptop sales seem to be dominated by people who think "it's all the same" The tv buisiness is about a what people see...and they can "see" the difference and are willing to pay for it. Of course being the first kid on the block with any new technology is going to cost...but hey, why work if not for our families and the toys...Just my opinion...I reserve the right to be wrong...lol


By ogreslayer on 3/6/2006 7:53:10 AM , Rating: 2
High Def is awesome, this tech on the otherhand is not!!!!
It is not about giving the consumer a better picture since upscanning DVD players do a good job of that already, 1080p is totally unusable, with maybe 3 or 4 TVs on the market that can use it. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are about 2 things royalties and controlling the content i.e. no more fair use. they have been saying forever now; that the stuff will get cheaper but adoption has slowed down, the market is already saturated for now, HD discs and game systems are not making anyone go out and buy new TVs the only thing that will do that is sub $500 dollar 42in. LCDs which I think we can agree is far far away.

Problem with projectors is the space required for use I can't put one in any of my bedrooms, only option is either flat panels or CRT the viewing distance is to shallow for anything larger than 42 and even that is pushing it. In the day and age when you can afford to get a 32in tube TV from between 250 and 500 USD your not gonna convince anyone who is not interested and informed to go pay 800 - 2700 for a couple extra channels that only offer 1 thing... a crisper picture, people forget that DVDs adoption was not only about that it had space savings thanks to smaller media, novelty and a wide array of setup options, hell you can get an RF tuner and use a player while HD requires the rarest of connections DVI/HDMI-HDCP and you can get 780p/1080i out of an upscanning DVD player already (Toshiba makes one for $80 and thats probably a 10th the cost of a new HD player)

HD was worth the money for me but its not to my parents and even most of my friends; even after seeing the diffrence in image they are either gonna wait till everything is decided and for their TV to die or are waiting for thsose "inevitable" price cuts. This media war is not about consumers its about the MPAA the formats aren't about offering us anything its about offering the Movie studios a better way to protect their content from the oh so rampant threat of domestic piracy; be it through new encryptions, AACS, HDCP etc... As resposible consumers we should not purchase any movies on these new formats. I'm honestly not in a rush to replace any of my favorites from my $2000+ DVD collection and I don't think anyone really is, I just replaced some of our VHS tapes a few years ago mostly because they had just been release on DVD




By masher2 (blog) on 3/6/2006 9:32:18 AM , Rating: 2
> "If companies all start producing devices capable of playing both standards then that's going to mean both standards can co-exist for a while"

You're obsessing over little details. If dual-format players become ubiquitous, the fact that two standards exist become irrelevant to the end user.

> "It is not about giving the consumer a better picture since upscanning DVD players do a good job of that already"

Err, upscaling doesn't create detail. A 480p picture upscaled to 1080p is NOT in any way equal to a native-1080p signal.

> "1080p is totally unusable, with maybe 3 or 4 TVs on the market that can use it. "

That's today. A year from now most TVs sold will support it. And-- two years from now-- if you can't get 1080p DVDs because of decisions made today to not support it, you'd be crying about it then.





By Chernobyl68 on 3/6/2006 11:33:15 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
It is not about giving the consumer a better picture since upscanning DVD players do a good job of that already, 1080p is totally unusable, with maybe 3 or 4 TVs on the market that can use it


We'll, there's a few more than that. Home Theater Magazine recently had a big head-to-head comparison of several models.



By abhaxus on 3/6/2006 12:12:36 PM , Rating: 2
As far as I know there are only two TVs on the market that can accept 1080p signals... one being a mitsubishi 62" (their diamond series with the built in DVR) and the other being an HP. Both are 1080p DLPs which don't offer the same image quality as Sony's SXRDs or a 1080p LCD or plasma.

However I'm sure the new 1080p sets coming out this model year will support it.


By masher2 (blog) on 3/6/2006 12:26:39 PM , Rating: 2
I think the prior poster may have confused 1080p resolution sets with those capable of accepting 1080p signals. There is no DRM standard on 1080p as of yet, so the only thing even capable of generating the signal is a PC displaying unprotected content.


Have you ever watched an HDTV?
By contractcooker on 3/5/2006 1:14:43 PM , Rating: 2
All of this "useless" technology that is "expensive" today is what will be common place in a couple of years. Prices are high now but give it a little time and everyone will be buying cheap hdtv's. Personnally I have a High-Def DLP projector from InFocus. (tangent: InFocus makes great projectors. If you are thinking about a highdef tv consider a projector instead. They are much cheaper and the image quality is amazing. All you need is a white wall/screen). Highdef is awesome.




RE: Have you ever watched an HDTV?
By timmiser on 3/6/2006 1:42:44 PM , Rating: 2
I've thought about projectors before but the clarity compared to an LCD/DLP/Plasma monitor are just not there plus the fact that your room needs to be dark for the best picture.


By ShinoOoo on 3/6/2006 7:55:17 PM , Rating: 2
The sanyo line (especially the Z3 and Z4) as well as the Panasonic 700 and 900, gives an incredible luminosity. Hdtv (hdmi) and other connections (composite, rgb, etc) are there, and they work just fine (1080i/720p)

as for the dark room, a true home cinema with hdtv display requires it, too.



Alternatives to $$$$
By KaerfSusej on 3/6/2006 8:15:17 PM , Rating: 2
I will be happy when I get my new Samsung 997mb 19" CRT monitor for $180 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82... - , with a maximum resolution of 1920x1440. 1080p is 1920x1080, so it will be capable of displaying a full 1080p HD signal (with the black bars). UNFORTUNATELY, its native is 1600x1200, so maybe its not quite the same, but its pretty darn close.
(lol, check out the limit per customer on the link)

On the other hand, I would bet that a lot of the new dvds will be in 720p anyway, so anybody with a screen capable of 1280x1024 (720p is 1280x720) will be able to view HD disks. (and before I get yelled at, the blu-ray's higher capacity of 25gb [instead of 15gb for hd-dvd] might be able to contain a full length 1080p movie.)




RE: Alternatives to $$$$
By masher2 (blog) on 3/6/2006 9:53:39 PM , Rating: 2
> "UNFORTUNATELY, its native is 1600x1200, so maybe its not quite the same"

Um, that's a CRT monitor, it doesn't have a native resolution.

> "On the other hand, I would bet that a lot of the new dvds will be in 720p anyway"

720p or 1080i. Some of the later Blu Rays may be 1080p, but until the spec is finalized, we'll just have to do without it.


By Johnmcl7 on 3/6/2006 6:56:12 AM , Rating: 2
I have to say, this doesn't look good to me - I would rather one standard 'won' outright so we all just upgrade to one or the other. If companies all start producing devices capable of playing both standards then that's going to mean both standards can co-exist for a while. I really don't want to see a repeat of DVD+-R, in the early days I ended up with a -R burner and a +R burner (one was a laptop and could only be +R) which was just a pain in the neck as I had to buy different discs for each.

John




720p/1080p
By exdeath on 3/6/2006 9:27:03 AM , Rating: 2
720p and 1080p definately look better on my projector at 106" and 10' away.

Though I have to admit even the original xbox still looks gorgeous at 480p; even upscaled it's razor sharp.




re to A, to see is to believe
By lucyfek on 3/6/2006 1:10:36 PM , Rating: 2
try watching some of PBS' shows on hdtv, even on wide 27" screen to begin with (hd crt is still the best for the quality of black and depth of color). you may find yourself watching tv for the quality of the picture alone. besides that, i can't even look at regular tv sets with the screen of the same (27") or bigger size - the black lines show up (interlaced frames), resolution usually sucks, etc. to make things worse, the broadcasters (cable companies or both) try to save extra money and apply insane picture compression (to include time compression as well - has anybody noticed strange sounding music in some comercials or is this just me?) - this applies to both digital and analog broadcasts (in case of analog tv nobody should ever deal with square artifact and this has become the norm lately. the quality of analog tv picture some 15 years ago was superior to what cable companies serve to their customers today). not even dvds are immune (most movies look like screeners but are sold at regular price). whatever resolution new standards will bring (and the higher the better), i hope the quallity of encoding will improve. there's no reason to glorify 1080p if the picture consists of huge muddy looking bricks/(blobs?). i like to pay for what i get and not for what i could have got.




Hmm...
By realist on 3/5/06, Rating: -1
RE: Hmm...
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 3/5/2006 1:13:05 PM , Rating: 3
I would not consider the move from 480i to 1080p the same....


RE: Hmm...
By realist on 3/5/2006 1:15:49 PM , Rating: 2
I wouldn't either, but look it depends on what kind of display your TV gives, sometimes you wouldn't even notice the difference. Kinda hard 2 explain :)


RE: Hmm...
By Rock Hydra on 3/5/2006 1:16:49 PM , Rating: 2
Please tell me you were just joking around.


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