Can a sub $200 hig def player be good?

[JoeSp]

We will soon find out if the Walmart player in question is a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player. Since Walmart has seen significant sales in BD (I have been told by a Walmart manager that this is because of the PS3) why would they back a format that they have been offering less and less shelf space to and the sales has been dwindling?

That question out of the way my real question is what would be missing in a sub $200/300 player? No HDMI? No advanced audio codecs? No 5.1 analog out? No 1080i output? No 1080p output? No internet conectivity? No advanced funtions?

Is it possible right now to manufacture a product fully featured that both manufacturer's are losing money on to sell under $500 (currently now only Toshiba is doing that with the 20gb PS3 being phased out) and do it at a point that you can still make money at it?

Reason behind the questions -- almost all of the player companies that are in the high def business have manufacturing plants in China. Either this new player will be severly feature crippled or the Chinese are making a move to take over a flegling market that they see as being very profitable in the near future. Either way some hd format is going to get cheap Chinese players in Walmart in the near future. It will be interesting to see what the other camp does to combat this.

Competition baby -- you gotta love it!

 

[mike123abc]

Is it possible right now to manufacture a product fully featured that both manufacturer's are losing money on to sell under $500 (currently now only Toshiba is doing that with the 20gb PS3 being phased out) and do it at a point that you can still make money at it?

Sony is in the process of producing a cost reduced 80 GB PS3, I would not be surprised if they can get it under $500. They know they are losing sales with the high price of the PS3. They will take out the PS2 compatibility chips (like the EU version), and IBM has reduced the die size of the cell processor, so yield should be better. And the blue laser diode shortage is beginning to ease.

There are HDMI upconverting DVD players selling in the $200 range, and with new broadcom chip sets able to do HD-DVD/BD on a chip now, I would not count out the ability to severly reduce pricing by both camps.

The question is when the Blu-Ray camp gives in and comes out with cheap stand alone players. This is the gift to the consumer that HD-DVD has provided. I bet without the HD-DVD the BD camp would be trying to produce only premium products with premium margins.

 

[vurbano]

It doesnt need to be spectacular, only good enough to get J6P to leave DVD.

 

[JoeSp]

He also has to buy into HDTV and while some have purchased a HDTV they have not been watching HD. I really believe that is the hill that any format has to climb before we can count on J6P making a dent in the HD market with any product.

 

[CochiseGuy]

He also has to buy into HDTV and while some have purchased a HDTV they have not been watching HD. I really believe that is the hill that any format has to climb before we can count on J6P making a dent in the HD market with any product.

I was amazed at the amount, variety, and prices of HDTV's at Wal*Mart when I broke down and went shopping at one last weekend. They had a better selection than Best Buy, and folks were snapping them up. And they had information fliers about how to get HD programming for cable & satellite.

As to the thread question "can a sub $200 high def player be good", I imagine in 1998 or 1999 folks were asking "can a sub $200 DVD player be good", and in 2004 asking if a sub $100 DVD player could be any good. China & Wal*Mart certainly know how produce good cheaply using large economies of scale.

And if these players carry the HD DVD logo, per HD DVD forum specs they have to:
- output video in 1080i or 1080p
- be able to read VC1, mpeg4 & mpeg2
- be able to decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD audio and output it at the full bitrate at which it was encoded.
- be able to play iHD interactivity and process & display a second video stream - PiP.

 

[JoeSp]

Does the M$ HD-DVD player carry the HD-DVD logo? I am just asking because I know it cannot do the lossless audio decoding internally? This is what I think the Walmart players will do -- they will follow M$ lead.

 

[JoeSp]

Most of those HDTVs in Walmart are substandard. They crush Blacks and Whites, they have a very slow response time and they pixelate alot. And most are 720p sets. Nothing wrong with that, it is just that I do not see Walmart as a leader in quality products especially on their own private lables. I applaud Walmart moving into the HDTV market. I just don't go to Walmart when I want quality in anything I am planning to keep. In my area all you have to do is call the local HDTV station and ask nicely and they will send you a free HDTV antenna. I have one in the attic and it works quite well.

 

[CochiseGuy]

Does the M$ HD-DVD player carry the HD-DVD logo? I am just asking because I know it cannot do the lossless audio decoding internally? This is what I think the Walmart players will do -- they will follow M$ lead.

What I keep trying to get you to understand is that M$ does not make or sell an HD DVD player. They sell an HD DVD drive. It's an external drive, so it's in a case and connects via USB. Kinda like the DVD drive in my PC - it has a DVD logo, but it's not a DVD player - it has no video output, not even composite video. It has no audio output, no even 2 channel analog. It just reads the content of the disk and relies on the PC software to provide the AV output. Same thing with an HD DVD drive.

If these Wal-mart players are standalone HD DVD players, they will have to comply with the HD DVD forum specs to carry the HD DVD logo.

I don't buy my home theater equipment from Wal-Mart either, but a lot of folks do.

 

[JoeSp]

Thanks for the answer CC. I think if Walmart can get either hd format in a player under $300 they will bring it to the US. Still will 2 mill standalone HD-DVD players be enough to over come the 6 to 8 million PS3s that will be sold in the US by Xmas 08?

 

[CochiseGuy]

Thanks for the answer CC. I think if Walmart can get either hd format in a player under $300 they will bring it to the US. Still will 2 mill standalone HD-DVD players be enough to over come the 6 to 8 million PS3s that will be sold in the US by Xmas 08?

Good question! :up

However, a better question is How the heck are they going to sell 6-8 million in the U.S. when they have half their worldwide production produced so far still sitting in inventory? As I posted in the Game Consoles forum here:

Sony PS3 price cut expected. Sony has mountain of unsold consoles in supply chain.
By John Mace - Fri, 04/13/2007 - 07:36.

Skeptical analysts are still predicting a price cut for the PlayStation 3 this year. “We think Sony will find it hard to get through the financial year (which began this month) without cutting the price of the console, and expect further game segment losses of over $1 billion during that period”, commented researchers from leading Japanese investment firm, Nomura, in a private briefing to clients this morning.

Sony has sold only half of the six million PS3s it has manufactured to date, Nomura estimates. Other sources estimate the number of units shipped out of Sony's factories somewhat lower, at five million, but concur on the sales data.

Source: http://www.texyt.com/Sony+PS3+price+cut+expected+058


The early sales of folks like you who grabbed one as the first sub-thousand dollar way (MSRP) to play Blu-ray movies has dried up. It's a powerful game machine (from what I read) with almost nothing out there to make use of all that power. And the Wii seems like more fun.

 

[diogen]

Does the M$ HD-DVD player carry the HD-DVD logo? I am just asking because I know it cannot do the lossless audio decoding internally?

You think making this statement often enough will turn it into a fact?

Most of those HDTVs in Walmart are substandard. They crush Blacks and Whites...

TVs can't do that, players do.

Diogen.

 

[mike123abc]

TVs crush blacks and whites all the time. It is usually called loss of shadow detail as all the dark gray shadows turn black, or highlight loss as all bright objects look white. One of the biggest arguments of Plasma vs LCD has been shadow detail. LCDs have been notorious black crushers. They are just now improving to near plasma levels.

 

[diogen]

When blacks and whites are not faithfully represented by a TV set it is just crappy contrast.
Blacker-than-Black (BTB) and Whiter-than-White (WTW) is a completely different animal:
it is the difference between the video [16-235] and PC [0-255] color space.
If you take a video black [16] and show it on a PC screen as [16] it is NOT black [0]. Same about white.
It is the players job to properly handle this, not the TVs.

Diogen.

 

[JoeSp]

Actually, Diogen -- you are right that the player has control over this. However, you are wrong when you state that tv's do not have a role here. Mike is absoultely right. I want you to show me one LCD that can do blacker then black or whiter the white that you can buy at a Best Buy, Sears, or any mass retailer in the US. LCD and Plasma are just now starting to deliver decent blacks and whites and are still not close to a reproduction done by CRTs. They will eventually get there but they are not there yet.

 

[diogen]

...I want you to show me one LCD that can do blacker then black or whiter the white that you can buy at a Best Buy, Sears, or any mass retailer in the US.

First things first: you are not suppose to see BTB or WTW on a TV when watching regular TV material.
The TV's capability to show it can be checked by simply driving up (or down for WTW)
brightness of the set while displaying PC generated [0-255] test screens.
If you see just one color below 16 (and above 235) - something is clipping "head and toe".
Having done this checking you adjust brightness back to normal levels.

When driven by an HTPC (NV 6 or 7 series video, PureVideo, TheaterTek or ZoomPlayer) I have seen BTB and WTW on a bunch of Samsung DLP's and two Sony LCDs (DVI or HDMI). Don't recall model numbers. All bought at BestBuy/FutureShop.

Diogen.