Pioneer's BDP-HD1 Blu-ray player also delayed until December
by Cyrus Farivar 
posted Oct 31st 2006 at 5:56PM
There must be something really hard about making those Blu-ray players that no one seems to have anticipated. First Sony had to announce twice that its BDP-S1 was going to be delayed until December 2006 due to software bugs. Now Pioneer has been delayed too, for unspecified failure to meet "quality control requirements," which may or may not be related to the other assorted blue laser shortages. The BDP-HD1, which was due to come out this month (after having been delayed from its previous May launch), won't ship now until December as well. The price, however, has dropped since we last eyed it at CES -- it's now down to $1500. We're still not sure which is bluer, us consumers, who have been trying to get one of these Blu-ray players until we go blue in the face, or Pioneer, who is singin' the blues. (This entry has been brought to you by the color "blue.")[Thanks, Junger]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ken @ Oct 31st 2006 6:31PM
Have one at work hooked up to the 1080p Pioneer Elite 50" plasma and it looks ***WONDERFUL*** with the demo disc. Best picture quality I have ever seen on anything at any price. A still scene looks like a hi-quality printed picture from a good camera.
Obviously, this player is a pre-production unit. Very fact to operate (as good as a DVD player), doesn't lock up, and great ergonomics.
Before you complain about the price, you need to see and use it, it is awesome.
hmurchison @ Oct 31st 2006 7:45PM
It should be awesome for $1500.
Blake @ Oct 31st 2006 9:24PM
Oh believe me when i tell you that it is, there is one at my work too and we have it hooked to the same Pioneer Elite 1080p plasma and it looks stunning. However if you are in the market for buying a good one, i recommend waiting until next year as soon has HDMI 1.3 is being used and the players get better and cheaper. Just remember how DVD was when it came out.
Andy @ Oct 31st 2006 8:08PM
How could it look better or worse? With HDMI and digital blu-ray data, shouldn't HDMI simply send pixel-for-pixel accurate colors direct from the video codec? Therefore making no blu-ray player better quality than the other (video wise)
n2 @ Oct 31st 2006 9:23PM
Another player delayed. I can't imagine anyone publishing blu-ray movies feeling all that good this year about sales. This can't be good for their bottom line. Titles are selling in the 1000s
The only blu-ray title that's going to achieve really great business, will be the free pack-in with the initial shipment of PS3s.
Ed @ Oct 31st 2006 10:39PM
Or you can just go for the Toshiba HD A2 which is already a 2nd Gen player....Blu Ray should die already. The fact that people support it but can't afford it is ridiculous to me. Xbox 360 HD DVD $199.99 and it's has better picture and sound than bluray. Why would you still support Sony's owned format? HD DVD all the way!!!
Jon @ Nov 1st 2006 1:21AM
Blu-Ray has me priced out of the market. Clearly nobody's interested in selling me a Blu-Ray...cause if they were...they would sell it for far less that one months rent...and Damn...I live in LA area.
$199 Xbox 360 HD-DVD add on for the win. What sold me on the HD-DVD add on for the 360 was the inclusion of a Free copy of Peter Jackson's Kong. That's a $25 freebee and a Title worthy of my collection. There are 6 million folks out there who already own a 360...many of whom will be looking to surround the christmas tree with the add on and it will be an easy pill to swallow compared to all other alternatives which are at least twice as expensive.
marvin @ Nov 1st 2006 7:04AM
Besides the clutter of the external HD-DVD drive, you have to consider that there are very few TVs right now supporting 1080p over VGA and that due to the lack of HDCP owners of the 360 add-on will be left more or less cheated when studios start implementing the Image Constraint Token on their discs.
As the standalone HD-DVD players can already be had for 500$, I don't think the 360 add-on is a good investment for anyone. In my opinion, it can serve only as a temporary solution for existing Xbox 360 owners.
@ Ed: I prefer Blu-Ray (for its broad studio support & higher storage capacity) and I can afford it, even right now. However I don't intend to pay 1000$ or more for a movie player nor will I have to. Current prices are irrelevant actually. I am not an early adopter and I'm not going to chip in on Sony's or Pioneer's R&D costs. By the time people start upgrading to HD players prices will be down, there is no question about that. Especially in the Blu-Ray camp that includes every major CE manufacturer except Toshiba, competition is certain to drive prices down very quickly.
Vanillacide @ Nov 1st 2006 8:28AM
"Broad studio support" is only in USA of course.
e.g. Outside USA, in Europe for example, Terminator 2 is an HD DVD exclusive.
Why does this matter? Blu-ray is region encoded, and so you're stuck with "broad studio support" in your region. HD DVD is "region free" so you can import discs from other regions with no playback restrictions, and a very broad amount of studios with European rights to "US blu-ray exclusive" support HD DVD. :)
Maybe I support Blu-ray in the future; but HD DVD is here, players are half price of Blu-ray, has good (global) studio support, and picture quality and audio quality is (generally) much better than Blu-ray.
Ed @ Nov 4th 2006 10:09AM
Xbox 360 HD DVD actually cost from $99 or $120 at Amazon.com. But only this first shipment will come with the free movie and remote, I hear the second shipment wont. The package cost $200 but King Kong is free -$40, the media remote is free -$30 and shipping is free -$10 so you actually be paying $120 for the HD DVD!!! Plus, if you apply for the Amazon Visa you'll get $20 off!!! so you actually be paying $99!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Juice @ Nov 1st 2006 8:49AM
Marvin you dont understand the whole 1080p/1080i thing. You dont need 1080p, infact both of the current Toshiba HDDVD players only do 1080i yet look better then the 1080p Samsung. you dont need it because there is 24fps for movies, 99% of tvs operate at 60Hz, so at 1080i you get 60 half frames or 30 full frames, so you still get the same info as 1080p, the only thing you would want 1080p for is for video games on the PS3 of Xbox as games could run at higher frame rates, but for movies there is zero benefit, unless you have a horrible 1080p tv that cant decode the frames correctly, for everyone else no difference. The only way you may see some picture quality is running at 1080/24, this way the player does absolutly no video processing and neither does the the TV, now that 1080p Pioneer plasma can do this it runs at 72HZ i believe simply showing each frame three times per second, and it has a pixel for pixel mode where it does nothing to the image. You need to remember that the pioneer is a $10,000 TV, so im sure the Blu Ray looks stunning, but im also sure if those dealers hooked up a HDDVD player it would also be stunning. Also at the moment there is no one using image constarint token on component cables, no company wants to make that move in fear of backlash from consumers. You have to remember that while all new TVs have HDMI there is still alot of home theater receivers and other components only doing component cable, its still the cable of choice for custom installs because it is so much more reliable and it is more economicle to customers with really long runs of cable where only fiber HDMI would do. The only real disadvantage to not having HDMI is that the 360 will have no Dolby True HD or DTSHD so no lossless sound for 360 owners, not a bad deal still for $200.
For current Xbox 360 owners the HDDVD drive is a fantastic buy. Save yourself $300 by not buying the HDA2 and use that money on buying 12 movies or something to start your collection. You dont need HDMI for good picture, and the component cables you are already using proves that with games. Also there is already 6 million 360 units out there and they forcast 10 million by years end. Sony predict 2 million by year end. If one in five get the addon Blu Ray lost any advantage it had. This is atbest also as every HDDVD add on will actually be used and that consumer will buy HDDVD movies, not true for the PS3 how many will only use it for gaming?
marvin @ Nov 1st 2006 10:46AM
Juice, even if you feed a 1080p display 1080i signal it still needs to process it in order to show it, during which process there will be some loss of quality and information. Not only on horrible TVs, on all TVs. 1080p video on the contrary will be shown as is without any interference from the scaler or processor, resulting to better picture quality in most cases.
As for ICT, I personally hope it's never implemented at all, but there is a big chance it will and any device that does not feature HDCP is not future-proof, plain and simple.
Juice @ Nov 1st 2006 6:03PM
there is still image processing im most 1080p signals, such as that from the samsung Blu Ray. It takes the 1080p/24 on the disc upto 1080i/60 and then to 1080p/60. With HDDVD or Blu Ray over component the player takes 1080p/24 to 1080i/60 where your tv turns this to 1080p/60. Same amount of processing. At best you could have a player that goes from 1080p/24 to 1080p/60, still going to introduce noise should be no difference between the two. The only way to get no video processing is to have a player with 1080p/24 output and a TV?projector with 1080/24 input and a set that runs at multiple of 24HZ such as 48 or 72HZ. This is the only way to get past processing. The Pioneet 1080p plasma and Blu Ray will do this, like a I said before these are extreme sets, that new Pioneer plasma maybe the best set I have ever seen though im sure Fujitsu will pass with their own 1080p sets. some of the new players coming to the market will do 1080p/24, but most TVs cant accept this signal, very very few. So again the 1080i for most people, even those with true 1080p sets, will be fine unless they have a set that can accept 1080p/24 and get a player that oupputs this, the current Samsung and Panasonic Blu Ray does not, and I dont beleive the PS3 will either. So there is still going to be processing, just with one it is in the TV and the other it is in the player.
pliepl @ Nov 5th 2006 5:17AM
$1500? Are they kidding...
They must be having production problems or something since I cant see this player being a threat to PS3 (or HDDVD for that matter) sales at that price.
Ken,
You wont win a format war by catering to the few. The number of people in the market for a $1500 movie player is far less than the number of people in the market for a $500 movie player.
Blake,
Ill definitely be waiting till players get better (less bugs) and prices drop. I remember picking up a DVD player @ $300 (from the initial close to $1000 start). Itll probably be the same this time around. Im not married to a format like some seem to be.
Jon,
Apparently (if the price of this Pioneer player is any indication) Blu-ray is meant for the well-to-do crowd as the cost of ownership is probably well out of reach of most people. I guess the marketers of Blu-ray know something I dont. because catering to the few to win a format war doesnt seem to make sense to me. Id always thought you had to go after mass adoption to win a format war...