LG to suffer case of Samsung Blus
WATCH OUT LG, because Samsung's new Blu-Ray drives are scheduled to appear on its new channel price lists in the UK next week.
Samsung seem to have made a bit of a mistake a while back when the firm backed HD-DVD along with Toshiba, but the electronics giant is back, and LG shareholders should be quivering in their boots at the prospect.
For some time now, LG has been taking advantage of Samsung's snail like slowness to market with its Blu-ray ROM, by sneakily upping the prices of its own kit whenever it could get away with it, pinning the blame on "market forces".
Local system integrators we spoke with told the INQ they were "really upset with LG's strategy" and indeed could scarcely wait for Samsung to storm into the market and blow up LG's "terrorist pricing".
INQuiring into what that pricing might look like, we were told we'd have the updated sales info in around a weeks time, with Samsung guardedly playing its cards close to its chest.
But seeing as, at present, the UK channel price for an LG Combo drive, that is, a Blu-Ray reader with CD/DVD burning capability, is some £59 ($95), we anticipate that Samsung's Johnny-come-lately entry should come in at around the £49 ($80) mark.
It's all a bit tragic really, because the fact of the matter is that if Samsung had pulled its socks up and come to market with its Blu-ray wares a while ago, then Blu-ray would be standard on pretty much all new systems by now, keeping prices competitive from the get-go.
Still, we imagine that there'll be a fair number of LG, Lite-On and other Blu-ray drives popping up on Ebay next week as punters buzz around Samsung's offerings like Blu-arsed flies. µ
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Honestly you cant blame Sammy for dragging their feet on putting out bleh-ray drives, they knew that without competition to drive the prices lower Sony and co would price themselves out of the market and pretty much kill bleh-ray themselves.
Which honestly they have pretty much done already since bleh-ray now fills a niche market of people with too much money to burn, and with digital distribution and online content etc becoming much more common these days thanks to *shudder* Itunes and other distribution platforms pushing it and gaining larger acceptance bleh-ray seems to be destined to be nothing bar a niche product simply because sony as always were too greedy...
Enough with combo drives! We remember the times of the DVD-ROM/CD Burner combos.
What is needed for BR drives to take off is a sub $100 BD rewriter
In September 2008, I picked up a combo CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, HD-DVD LG retail drive (complete with Cyberlink software) for 66.79 quid (it can't burn HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, but I wasn't bothered). I then went to a bunch of sites (mainly HMV) and bought dozens of 2.99 pounds HD-DVDs and very cheap HD-DVD box sets. It was a very cost-effective way into hi-def movie/TV viewing and I remain unconvinced about buying Blu-Ray discs yet.
I think the problem with HD-DVD and Blu-Ray is that to most average folks, standard DVD is "good enough", especially with a decent upscaling DVD player and a good HDTV. DVD movies/TV shows are ubiquitous and significantly cheaper than their Blu-Ray equivalents, hence it's been a real struggle for Blu-Ray to take off.
The obvious next step is streaming/downloadable HD movies/TV shows on demand, once the average punter's broadband is 10Mbit/s or better (it's more like 3-4Mbit/s typically). People will indeed want to "save" copies of movies and that's where cheap Blu-Ray burners/blanks will finally make their mark.
Nevermind the players. I have bought MAYBE 3 Blu rays in the last 6 months. They are a total rip off at the major retailers. You have to wait for some "super" deal at amazon to get a damn disk for less than 30 bucks! Bollocks! Better drop the prices idiots!
does anyone really think bluray will catch on?
the only people i know who have them is ps3 owners who have the console primarily for gaming.
it seems media players with harddrives are the next standard.
price will dictate public acceptance and so far the prices are nothing short of a gyp!
take off.
@coo hwip
DVD was doomed in the beginning as well. Don't believe me, google DVD + Fail + robertsdvd
DVD was an ebil conspiracy by electronics giants that consumers didn't like or need.
Sound familiar?
You're obviously a young one too. I remember paying just as much for DVD's.
I can rip and and convert DVD's to xvid in about 20 minutes on my 4 year old pc and then fit 5-6 movies on a single DVD to watch on my divx DVD player. How does blueray compete with this? Are there even divx blueray players out there?
@mogwai
You really don't understand the point of bluray, do you? Being able to play compressed copies of the already lesser quality DVDs is the exact opposite reason people buy bluray players. Quality, not quantity.
@ bbr
Yeah, but I'll bet if you drop those DVD's down to black and white you could fit like another 10 movies per disc. If you go all the way down to text descriptions (aka the screenplay) you could fit all of your movies on 1 DVD!
@bbr
A very small minority, thats who!
The fact that most music now gets pushed out at 128K means the general population seems to have gotten over the quality issue for sheer convenience.
Yeah I dont think its a great development either but there you go.
As long as the picture doesnt have worn out VHS like wobble and tracking effects they dont care.
Here:
Pioneer Black 8X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 5X DVD-RAM 8X BD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA Internal Blu-ray Burner 8X Blu-Ray DVD Burner w/ Software Model BDR-203BKS - Retail
Free blu-ray disc w/ purchase, ends 6/30
N/B. SATA & Price. Once from $800 List World.Now:
$189.99 Its RAM Burner,too.
Just look up BLU ray +R disc & its about $Three & Fifie.
Blu Burner Price Today, about same as DVD Burner was when it started to pick up sales.
Pt. 1.) You be fool to store anything on partition, always throw any pictures, audio, software onto disc, bigger better, as who wants bunch of discs' competing with All gosh darn Wires for confusion.
With Blu+R you get space of 3 dvd dl+R, they are .80 Cents now so BRD Not Much More.
Or You could store stuff on floppy.NOT.
If follows normal retail path, in 1.5 years blu burner will be $100. Do You Have time to wait while discs pile up in confusion of contents? Well, BLU Plays & Burns 'Em ALL So Forget Money, BLU RAY.
Think of Partition Space Saved for Critical UpDates By putting Everything Conviently on BLU RAY DISC.
Being Saver. Heres Result:
On Next Charlie Flame on Chucks ezine forum gonna be when Mike Kicked Chuck in front of Stanley, Leaving Mike- Charles. Heard Charles Had Major Brains surgery & Now Can AlMost Count fingers on ONE Hand, Blurb,blurd gurgle-blurb. Saved Pics & Story on my own & NOW, AH- HA. Strike ONE, Flame One, Head Bashing 0. Its Rough Tough Life.
Imagine what BLU in Day to Day use could DO. Sorry, Charlie....BLUs' ONLY.
Motto: Format & Compress. Format & Compress. Good Time To Start Compressing 7 Builds.
Once O/S IS IN theCOMPRESSOR. ITs REAL!
Posted by the INQ:
"Samsung seem to have made a bit of a mistake a while back when the firm backed HD-DVD along with Toshiba..."
Jesus, this is embarrassing for a tech website. Samsung was first to market with a Blu-ray player. Not a combo player, just Blu-ray. Samsung never "backed" HD DVD at all...christ.
Oh dear Jeff
Wish you'd been at lunch with me and one of Samsung's regional directors, 10 months ago, when he told me that Samsung's biggest regret had been to channel all of their mass production effort into HD-DVD because they thought it would win
Can I suggest you stick to Club Penguin and leave the real posts to the adults ?
Well Sammy, your Samsung flunkie was wrong. Jeff e is right. Samsung was the first and probably most agressive blu-ray supporter, releasing the first (retarded) blu-ray player in June 2006.
They were always among the lowest priced blu-ray players.
Maybe you should check your facts.
Although I'm an LG fan (and not much of a Samsung fan), I think this is good news. More vendors entering the market should cause prices to go down. In the long run I think Blu-ray will supplant DVD as the standard because it's the only disc format on the next rung of the disc evolution ladder (with HD-DVD being toast). And this event just helps that happen.
I'll never purchase another movie in my life if that's what it takes to avoid HCDP built into the the HDMI cable and Blu-ray players.
Learn what it is. Demand otherwise from corporate America.
I'll never purchase another movie in my life if that's what it takes to avoid HDCP built into the the HDMI cable and Blu-ray players.
Learn what it is. Demand otherwise from corporate America.
Maybe you and Jeff E can form some kind of commune for the challenged - you know - help each other out and that
When you're bored, can you please enlighten the world and post a link here to any Samsung Blu-Ray combo drive that I can fit in my desktop PC
Send me the link and I'll not only buy one myself, but I'll also donate £100 to the charity of your choice (help the IT-enfeebled ?)