Samsung to Launch Dual Blu-ray HD DVD Player

narramissic writes "File this one under 'if you can't beat em, join em.' Samsung, one of the main backers of the Blu-ray Disc format, Friday said it plans to release an optical disc player this year that will play both Blu-ray Disc and the rival HD DVD format. With the announcement, Samsung becomes the second company to shift from a single-format stance (LG launched a dual player in North America earlier this year.) 'Our main concern is with the consumer and not a particular technology,' said Samsung spokesman Kwak Bumjoon."

MMMhm...

And so it begins. I wonder if M$ will start grabbing these up now since someone took the plunge and they use Samsung already.

Re:MMMhm...

How long before the device manufacturer's figure this pattern out
1) Create two competing technonologies that are equally sufficient but incompatible.
2) Stifle standardization
3) market more expensive devices that handle both, as both a marketing advantage, a manufacturing skill advantage,
4) and to inflate costs, assuming profit margin is proportional to gross, and the number of units sold is the same.
5) profit!

there is no ?????

A very interesting side effect is that MS can no longer dictate platform specs. This is remarkably new phenomena and worth watching.

Finally Could the slash dot filter PLEASE stop people from writing M$ instead of MS. (;_;)

Re:MMMhm...

Sorry about the "M$" trouble, I didn't realize it offended anyone.. though I'm not anti-microsoft. I think Microsoft is beginning to learn that being a little to assertive with certain technologies, and pushing them on others.. is becoming pretty hard to do, now that the market is becoming more and more competitive. They're to the point where they're beginning to actually let things unravel and ride the wave in. Good or bad, I don't know.. but it's still interesting as you said.

Re:MMMhm...

Wow! A humble apology on slashdot--land of thick skins.

Re:the pro-and con of overloading drives

For what it is worth I work as a software developer in the field of computer forensics/data recovery specializing in optical media so I thought I could clear some of your misconceptions up.

But what does happen is that it takes longer and longer for the gorram computer to mount the cd/dvd. This is especially noticable when one inserts a damaged CD into a drive. the computer grunts and groans freaking for ever trying to decide it it is looking at a CD, and CD-R, D DVD-r, and DVD+R, a DVD. And each of these seems to have some different time consuming error protocol that involves trying to spin the thing at different speeds. Now they are going to be adding not one but two more protocols. And I imagine it won't be long before we have HDDVD-R and HDDVD+R and so on thrown on top of this.

This is NOT an issue with the drive (well a drive that is in good working order). A mounting problem is an issue with your OS. When you insert a disc into the drive the drive should go into what is called the "ready state" relatively quickly because all the drive does is basically tries to see if it can access the disc (it looks for a TOC among other things). When you insert a damaged disc the reason the computer grunts and groans is because the disc is damaged and it may be having trouble getting TOC information etc from the disc. The reason it is spinning up and down a whole bunch of different times is most likely because your OS is attempting to mount the disc and is trying to look for a file system on the disc and is having a lot of trouble doing so.

If you have an external case for a CD/DVD drive then a simple way to see that the problems you are seeing are the OS's fault is the next time you have a disc that exhibits the problems you mentioned above is to shut down the machine and then re-insert the disc into the drive. Most likely the light will blink a few times and the drive might spin up a little more than normal but the drive should stop trying to access the disc in much less time that when the computer was running.

As far as more formats coming out "adding more protocols" that is not really the case. Other than having to add different hardware the rest of how the drive acts should remain the same. The only way a drive is able to tell what kind of disc is inserted is by looking at what is called a profile number which is recorded at the factory on the disc and each type of disc has a different one. For example 0x9 is CD-R, 0xa is CD-RW, 0x11 is DVD-R, 0x1b is DVD+R, 0x2b is DVD+R DL, 0x51 is HD DVD-R and on and on. It really is not that much more overhead and sure a few more things might be added to the MMC standard but the drives functionality is nearly identical.

it's going to take minutes when you shove in that Bad CD before your computer lets you eject it.

You hit the nail on the head with this one without even knowing it. It is your COMPUTER ie the OS or some other software trying to access the disc that is locked up and has probably issued a command to lock the tray so that you cannot eject the disc by pressing the eject button on the drive.

Please stop blaming drives when it really is not the drives fault.

10 LET M$ = "Microsoft"

Finally Could the slash dot filter PLEASE stop people from writing M$ instead of MS. (;_;)

Then how can we paste classic BASIC code?

10 LET M$ = "Microsoft"
20 PRINT M$;" put too much DRM in Windows Vista."
30 END

Use of the "M$" moniker on Slashdot often appears to refer to Microsoft's legacy as a developer of BASIC interpreters.

Re:MMMhm...

I agree that the dollar-sign substitution thing has grown old, but somehow "MICROS~1" still makes me smile :)

I can see where this is going. Seen it before.

Blu-ray is going the way of the dodo. Dead as a doornail in 5 years. Yet another Sony proprietary format to go down in flames, and it's probably a good thing given Sony's DRM and anti-consumer rights stance. So, as predicted, Blu-ray will be the next betamax.

Congrats, Sony. It's not that easy to repeat history. Every. Single. Time.

Re:I can see where this is going. Seen it before.

HD-DVD and Blu-ray are going the way of the dodo.

Now it's fixed.

Cost...

I would love to invest in a blu-ray or HD-DVD player. In fact, in looking at a recent one-call mag or some such, I see that there are "entry-level" HD-DVD players available for $399.

hmmm.

I still don't think that $399 is affordable enough, at least not for me. I didn't have a DVD player until they were around the $100 mark. The other thing I've noticed is that the Blu-Ray players are still expensive - or at least more expensive than the HD-DVD.

So what gives on the pricing? Average joes will not like to pick one up if they can't get into the 100$ market....

Re:Cost...

You see, Sony is basically telling their partners to not sell BD players below the price of the PS3, because they still have this twisted hope/dream that it will help them sell PS3s

More like actual fact [reghardware.co.uk].

"The BDA cites a survey in conducted by talking to 10,000 US PS3 owners. It claims more than 80 per cent plan to buy movies on BD. A slightly smaller percentage, just over 75 per cent, said they plan to use their console as their prime device for watching movies."

Though that proves the converse of what you said (that the PS3 is helping them sell BluRay movies), it's hard to believe that none of those PS3 owners bought one at least in part because it could play BluRay movies.

Rob

Did I read that right?

A company involved in DRM that gives half a damn about giving the consumer a choice?

Translation

The quote is actually missing some words, let me fill it in for you:

"Our main concern is with guaranteeing that the consumer's money ends up in our pockets, and in ensuring that our revenue stream does not depend on a particular technology"

There, that makes more sense.

Does it even matter any more?

I could see the point of a dual player if both formats had a future. But its looking increasingly likely that HD-DVD would be lucky to see the new year the way things are going. Given that, why would someone bother to buy a dual player, especially since the cost is likely to be substantially higher than a player that just played one format.

Whaaaaaa?

"Our main concern is with the consumer and not a particular technology"

I expect the MPAA Enforcement Squad to soon pay them a visit to correct this dangerous and subversive kind of slander.

Common Sense

Seems to me like a common sense approach, similar to how nearly all the previously PS3 exclusive non first party developers have used the same common sense and decided to go cross platform and not artificially limit themselves to a platform that is nowhere near having a majority. Widening your audience can only have positive effects for sales.

What I'd really like to see Blueray/HD used for..

.. is having multiple cuts of the same film on the same DVD, without branching and the annoying layer change pauses that entails. Take Dawn of the Dead. The ultimate edition is spread over four DVDs. Yet a single HD/BlueRay DVD could hold the movie and all the extras. That'd be my main incentive to buy a HD/BR player.

Kinda OT but...

Anyone else find the spokesman's name hilarious?

Kwak Bumjoon!

AppleTV, XBox Video Marketplace, Tivo Un-Box

moviebeam, vongo, etc..

How long do you think the market for movies on physical discs will be around?

The DVD (HD, Blu, or Pink with spots) is bound to share the same fate as the CD eventually.

It doesn't help that a $70 upconverting DVD player makes enough improvement, that most casual viewers consider it "HD".

The real question is, when am I going to be able to use (either) technology in my PC?

I mean, reading/writing 25+ gig discs, *cheaply*?

IMO that's the real format war. The marketplace has shown a remarkable lack of interest in these things as $1000 uber-premium movie-watchers.

Customers are the main concern

"Our main concern is with the consumer and not a particular technology," said Kwak.

If this were a real philosphy instead of marketing speak, then this particular player wouldn't support HDCP [wikipedia.org].

Too late

I won't be getting a BluRay or HD-DVD player until they, or only one of them, becomes dominant over DVDs. Why waste the money now? This little feud will be over sometime and we'll move away from DVDs but until then I'll stick with my $20 DVD player that plays every movie currently on the market. I'll be the last to give up with my DVD player shouting Charleton Heston's famous words, "out of my cold dead hands."

Consumer the main concern?

"'Our main concern is with the consumer and not a particular technology,"

Wow, so it's not going to have any DRM bullshit either? Oh, wait, they said consumer, not customer, so they're still treating us as automatons.

Speaking of Microsoft...

Call me crazy, but does it strike anyone as a very interesting idea to produce the next Xbox360 addon as a combo HD-DVD/Blu-ray player? Think about it...they win either way. If people buy the device itself, they're in good shape and they're stealing the only real reason for the huge cost of the PS3 away from Sony. It's an incredible strategic move. Make it available, make it affordable (within reason; I'm aware of the expense of said technology), and you've stolen Sony's thunder. Just a thought.

Better yet hold off on that uber-elite-custom-super-fun-happy-goodtime Xbox edition and give it a dual player. Then drop the price on what's now the premium console. The fanboys and wealthier will snatch the new machines up (particularly if they come in a custom color, because as we all know, that's what makes it truly '1337). Everybody else will continue buying the now-cheaper premium edition. Score all the way around.

It's the Porn, Stupid

I was hopping Blu-Ray would win. 1080p native (instead of re-interlaced 1080i), more capacity, smaller wavelength. But Sony, being Sony, couldn't help but shoot itself in the foot.

Hostile to porn? Game over man, game over. The entirety of technology is to create a more efficient distribution network for porn. Printing press, telephones, moving pictures, home video, CD ROM, and the greatest porn distribution system ever created: the Internets (who's impact won't be outdone until direct-to-brain technology is developed).

HD-DVD will win. I just got my 46 inch 1080p LCD, and now I'm waiting for the HD-DVD price to get down below $250, or maybe $300. Netflix has HD-DVD, so that'll be my primary source.

I wish...

I wish the movie industry, video industry, computer industry, and audio industry would all get together and realize that they are hurting themselves with this.

I have been wanting to replace my TV for 2 years now. I haven't yet, because what I have will play my old dvds fine, and I'm not going to buy two different players, and maintain two different formats of nextgen dvds. Sure, the dual-format players resolve this to some degree, and it's about time this happened, but realistically...

I'll tell you what I've almost done though. I've not had a game console since...well, a very long time ago, but since the PS3 has hdmi and optical audio outputs, while being just as cheap as a full blue-ray player without a game system attached, I've thought about getting a PS3 and not worrying about upgrading my computer (which handles non-games just fine). Thought about doing this. If these folks would just stop bickering and agree to something (or agree to do dual-format for a while), then I and a horde of others would be out there replacing our dvd libraries with the newer stuff.

So...

Instead of taking one hour to boot up, this model will require two.

Also, you will be unable to close the door to your entertainment center, unless you want it and everything around to melt.

Typically slanted reporting in TFA

Not complaining about the Slashdot article/summary, but the ITworld article linked to. Not that this surprises me, but I noticed that the article:

1. specifically fails to mention with movie studios back which formats (because that would make Blu-Ray look better, since the vast majority of studios are backing Blu-Ray, and only one studio is exclusively backing HD-DVD)
2. specifically fails to provide a comprehensive list of companies supporting Blu-Ray, but provides a comprehensive list of companies backing HD-DVD, which strongly skews the picture
3. cherry-picks which player hardware to mention at the end of the article, making the Blu-Ray and hybrid player options seem more expensive while completely omitting mention of both Sony's PS3 and the Xbox 360 add-on HD-DVD drive

One might draw the conclusion that this article was written by HD-DVD partisans.

Great...

...now I can ***REALLY*** save some money by not buying a single combined player.

Up until Samsung's announcement, I was planning to NOT buy two players - a HD-DVD one and a BluRay one.

Can it play...

Can it play regular DVDs as well, or just Blue-Ray and HD-DVD? That would be a really useful feature, and I would buy it for sure. Can it play Red-ray and HHD-DVVDD-BVD? (RvB ftw)

Why does one of the mediums have to die?

Times are different now then they were in video vs. betamax. Look at the "format wars" between DVD+ and DVD- media. They both exist. And, so does DVD-RAM. People will eventually get players that can read both and just choose which media to watch based on the features and price. When they rent them or share them, it will be based on the format available. At any rate, I think High Definition video formats are still way out of the range of the 90% of the customers who will ultimately decide which format will be more profitable for the manufacturers. I'm not going to get a player/recorder until I can get everything together for a reasonable price. I have to upgrade my TV before I even care.

Blu-ray for moview/holywood -- HD-DVD for Data...

Ok, it can be either way around. But this is what I thought of when I first heard that blu ray and hd dvd were incompatible: Use on for data/computers, the other for movies/holywood. By this, they should be able to curb piracy until people make blu-ray devices for computers, blah blah stuff. -- How I see it as a curb to piracy is that we have one format for movies and tv. and the other for computers. - I have chosen blu-ray for movies because Microsoft has chosen HD-DVD for the Xbox 360, which one can assume that there will be HD-DVD for Windows as well. The other reason is because lately Blu-ray has been winning the movie format war thus far. If they (the companies involved) could be arsed to work together to curb piracy by using different formats for different duties then this could happen. But the truth is, is that these are different companies and companies don't like to do this sort of thing. what do you think about it?

This is great news . . .

Considering neither format is going nowhere. Universal has to much of a big stake and has already released stacks of titles, as has Warner.

I had a feeling Samsung would do this, it's just like them. I have faith Samsung will get it right this time (full HD-DVD support this time please). If so it "will" be mine.

smart Koreans

Let's look at the companies that developed Blu-Ray and HD-DVD and are fighting a format war, trying to get their own format to win. Blu-Ray was developed by Sony. HD-DVD was developed by Toshiba and NEC. All three of these companies are Japanese.

Now let's look at the companies that have announced they are going to be format-agnostic, sell dual-format players, and sidestep the format war. According to the summary, LG already introduced such a product, and Samsung has announced plans to release one as well. These two companies are both Korean.

I don't want to read too much into this, but it seems like while the Japanese are busy trying to own the market by owning the format, the Koreans plan to start selling players as soon as possible, removing the major barrier (format uncertainty) that is holding back adoption. This, combined with the huge increase in build quality and improved reputation of Korean products in the last few years, may pay off big time for the Koreans. While the Japanese manufacturers are busying believing that Japan owns the market and all that remains is for them to settle the format question among themselves in a contest of Japanese corporate leverage versus Japanese corporate leverage, the Koreans may come in and take the market by selling more sensible, appealing products.

The format war winner is in!

And it's DVD!

Re:Poor Liddle Zonk, Still Fighting For A Dead For

And someone else posted that Sony lost with blueray.

Neither one has won or lost. They are in the market and someone is buying them. Consumers have said they do not want to pick a format and now we see this. I personally would rather use blueray. I don't care about the video end of things, but I think more about backup media and other practical PC uses down the road.

I've never seen an argument about which one is better for open source use in the future.

PC vendors have not pushed either format like they did DVD. I remember early on that you could go into a store and see compaq's and other systems preconfigured to play movies. Getting DVD playback on a computer was one of the reasons many people could ignore the lack of recording and other problems with DVDs back then.

I'm waiting for the players to come down in price like most people. I bought a sony DVD player for $300 in 1999. I'm not afraid of picking up formats earlier, but sense I must first buy an overpriced tv to enjoy the new formats, the actual players must be dirt cheap. (or tvs must come down) We went from 20 inch tvs for $100 to 15 in tvs for $400... something has to give. I think these companies forget that consumers have less money to spend now than they did 5 years ago. We have higher gas prices which effect everything else, we must work for less money*, and we must rebuy our living room entertainment again.

* The combination of less raises, lower starting saleries, and competing in a global market.

Is this enforceable? (natural law)

I thought that to get access to the Blu-ray specs, you had to sign that you won't develop such a dual player.

Duct tape a PS3 to an Xbox 360 with HD DVD add-on and voila, dual player. So how can such a contract clause be enforceable?

Re:Poor Liddle Zonk, Still Fighting For A Dead For

Really? Damn! Did someone forget to tell me or the rest of the people on our (pretty damn large) team? I mean, seriously, it would be much easier if I didn't have to finish the multiple products I'm currently working on since we're apparently giving up on the format.

I think we're doing pretty well, considering the PS3 outnumbers HD DVD players by probably 5:1. Luckily, people who own the PS3 either are still smarting from the hole in their pocket it left, or are those cheap gamer types who don't watch all that many movies. You may notice that for certain recent titles (Happy Feet, Planet Earth, a couple of the other Warner ones), the HD DVD actually did better than the BD. And then we also get a couple of reasonably popular titles this year that won't be on BD at all, or will only arrive "later", like Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, and The Matrix.

The battle is far from over :)