Sharp 1080 60p! Yes, 60p!

[navychop]

Good news here.

The Sharp BD-HP20S, to be released this fall, will output 1080 24p & 60p. Presumably, also 30p, but I don't know of anybody using that. Supports Dolby TrueHD, and has HDMI 1.3 and 5.1 analog outs. It should start playing a newly inserted disc about as fast as current DVD players do. Since the release date is in the fall, I'd expect it to fully support BD-java (1.1), including PiP. Maybe, dare I say it, it will also have an RJ-45?

It's rumored to cost less than $500.

I wonder which DVDs it will play? -/+ R/RW? RAM (dreaming)? Oh, be still my beating heart- DVD Audio?

This might be the player I actually buy, if I can wait that long.

 

[teachsac]

But no mention of DTS-HD Master decoding or if it adopted the 1.3 bitstream output option of 1.3. It shouldn't be that difficult to implement DVD-A if it does Dolby TrueHD as they are based on the same MLP lossless codec. According to DOlby white papers they should.

S~

 

[navychop]

My best guess for full specs to be published is another couple of months. I'm hoping it will be for sale in October. 2007, that is. If they want any holiday sales, it had better be shipping before Black Friday.

At this point, if it supports the Oct 31 specs, I'd pay $500 for it, even without a network connection or DVD Audio. Unless, of course, someone has announced a better featured player with those specs by then.

Maybe the dam is about to burst on Blu-ray players.

 

[John Kotches]

Ummm, almost all of the 1080p players output 60p. In fact, that's been more the case than 24p.

Cheers,

 

[navychop]

OK. Didn't know that. Interesting, since there is no ATSC standard for 1080 60p. I gather that the source material is not collected at 1080 60p, nor is film converted to 60p- meaning that today, any 60p material is converted at some point from some other format. But the system is getting ready for the day when "true" 60p is available?

 

[harshness]

OK. Didn't know that. Interesting, since there is no ATSC standard for 1080 60p.

1080p60 is defined by the ATSC for DTH satellite in document A/81. See the table on page 17.

 

[navychop]

OK, I should have said ATSC OTA standard, with the thought being that most production is made with either theaters (24-48fps) or broadcast TV in mind. But yes, it makes sense to consider the possibility of satellite or even cable (esp fiber) having the luxury of so much bandwidth.

Still- is anyone producing anything 1080 60p natively?

 

[mike123abc]

Still- is anyone producing anything 1080 60p natively?

I cannot think of anything doing native 1080 60p. All the 60p stuff now is really from film 24p converted to 60i (or a few players and sets can do 24p). Video is lucky to be shot in full 1920x1080i (most 1440x1080i, 1280x720p or less). Only source now would probably be computer animation...

 

[harshness]

Still- is anyone producing anything 1080 60p natively?

Here's an article about a production company that will be contracting for ESPN and ABC using 1080p60 equipment. Disney is between a rock and a hard place with needing progressive scan but not being able to buy cheap 720p native gear.

 

[navychop]

Sad update

Per this article, the Sharp BD-HP20S is not coming to the United States, after all.