Pioneer's BDP-HD1 Blu-ray player also delayed until December
By Cyrus Farivar 
posted Oct 31st 2006 5:56PM
posted Oct 31st 2006 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]
And we all know where the blue laser went...
They are all waiting..
the premature samsung one already launched yes.. But come december, when 380 thousand BD players and a lot more than that have been sold, the HD market is going to explode.
Forget the crappy HD DVD, BD is where it's at.
Also look forward to 50GB discs using .264, for all the haters out there ;)
I suspect foul play. I suspect Sony is A) hoarding blue laser diodes and B) paying other companies to wait til after the PS3 launch to release BD players.
/semi-joke
"The price, however, has dropped since we last eyed it at CES -- it's now down to $1500" -- WOW !! down to $1500 now i really want one !!!
Or for $800 i can get a PS3 w/ blu Ray and the 360 Hd-dvd add on
And you can enjoy shitty processing! DVD playback quality off of the PS2 was always terrible, and I don't expect BRD playback to be any better on the PS3.
I could go down to Wal-Mart and pick up a $29 DVD player, and I can watch DVD's on it, but it's not going to have the same picture and sound quality as a Pioneer Elite upconverting player with internal Burr Brown DAC's.
This entry has also been brought to us by the number 1.
(Count the number of Blu-Ray players! One... One BluRay player! Ah, Ah, Ah!)
God I miss Sesame Street...
Before a bunch of uninformed Blu-ray haters jump all over this for being so expensive, you must realize that this is a Pioneer "ELITE" component. The Elite gear is just as it's name implies: extremely expensive and extremely top-of-the line. For example, Pioneer's ELITE DVD player (just plain 'ol DVD) costs $1000. So while the price is high, the performance is going to be top notch (picture quality, DVD upconversion, etc.). Also notable is that this blu-ray player has built in networking for streaming content to it. This is not just "a" Blu-ray player, it is "the" Blu-ray player to rule them all. If Pioneer made an Elite HD-DVD player, you can be damned sure it would cost upwards of $1000.
(And I'm not a Blu-ray or HD-DVD supporter: I'm just speaking as an owner of a Pioneer Elite DVD player. Yes, I have a $1000 DVD player.)
This is another example of why HD DVD is superior. While Toshiba is bringing in the money and people are actually BUYING HD DVD'S unlike BD supporters that only say "oh it holds more data" and CAN'T AFFORD THIS BD PLAYERS. XBOX HD DVD $199.99 and it's better than all Blu Rays in picture and sound.
Ed, the $199.99 you're referring to is just the cost of the (should-have-been-included) HD-DVD drive. There is also the cost of the system.
HD-dvd FTW!
I could not agree more about PS2 DVD playback .. But with some much money invested in making sure that Blu-Ray wins , would sony risk that with a crap blu-ray player ? I dont think so,why would the include HDMI 1.3 if they were just trying to throw a crap player out just to be out? Im not a PS3 fanboy , I can care less , i just love tech in general.. I have a PS3 preorder and basicly and getting it for the blu ray player to go along with my New 60" SXRD XBR2 .. I just dont see any company throwing a new product out built like shit that they have so much invested in , by the time PS2 was out , dvd was around and sony did not own it , so the fact it had ANY dvd player was the selling pioint , not quailty ... Id love to get the Elite Stand alone player , but i cant see spending $1500 untill the "war" is over , then i will be willing to go top of the line with who ever is still standing , or combo player is released ..
Padriac thanx for adding some comments. its funny that there are so many people quik to pull the gun, and throw out some comments about how outrageous a 500 dollar, 1000 dollar, and 1500 dollar hd/blu ray player is. when they DONT KNOW THE BASICS OF HOME THEATER. the dv59 two years ago, followed by the dv79 have been two GREAT dvd players. no divx, no xvid...just good dvd players. for denon fanboys the dvd3910 has been a great 1500 dvd player, and the 5910 an outrageous 3500 dvd player...to complain about the price of the new elite is ignorance...blu ray playback, coupled w/ its DNLA capability for $500 more than last years model...thats a pure steal.
in the meantime all the system integrators have had months to play with and design in blu-ray drives into their duplicators and OEM media center pc's. Its been a huge boom in the market, while HD dvd drives just sat there, proud of their few players on the market, but giving no hope to those who wanted to make their own HD movies.
In short, I've been having a blast with blu-ray burners, and I couldn't imagine be restricted by size. The players will come, and we'll all be glad we won't be flipping discs or swapping discs for extented movies when they do.
Well, I just got this unit in at my work for display purposes. We've got limited quantities, but it is available now.
Rob...are you SURE you got the unit, and its available now...or did you get one in a pioneer box. saying that its a display only unit and only able to play 2ch stereo, missing the dnla feature and with return postage on the box...which you are supposed to send back to pioneer when they request? because thats what i got last wednesday
I currently own a Toshiba HD-A1. It is slow starting but the picture is awesome. I have watched a Samsung twice at different Best Buys and am not satisfied with the quality. I have about 40 hd dvds and am collecting blu rays, about 15. I hope the Sony PS3 will have a decent player and I will get that one. Blu Ray has potential, and until I see it, I won't buy. So in my opinion and after reading an article on cnet, hd dvd is ahead for now.
I got the same unit at my job from pioneer. Its not available for sale yet and when pioneer says to return it we have to send it back. When you turn the unit on, the start screen says the unit is for demo only and its not a final product.
I wonder how many HD-DVD add ons Microsoft is looking to sell this Christmas. By January...MS should have a good 9 million Xboxes sold if not more. So if only 10% of those people were interested...there would still be way more add on's on the market that PS3's. My guess is that the HD-DVD add on's will be sold out for months to come.
And historically....if you look at the Xbox'es high attach rates...you will see that folks that buy Xbox purchase more games and accessories than any other console and also have a much higher rate of actually owning HDTVs. If that transfers into HD-DVD add on purchases...and more importantly...HD-DVD movie title purchases...then Sony is in some deep crap. Why??? Because they are about to loose 1 billion dollars in the first year of PS3 release to hardware cost to a system whose format may be a dud from the starting line. If Blu-Ray fails...then Sony's inclusion of it in the PS3 is all for naught. And all that money lost on subsidising Blu-Ray in the PS3 will have been an excercise in futility.
Sony better hope and pray that the PS3 doesn't have widespread hardware issues like the PS2 and PSP did at launch.
OMG! All those delays are for good, what do you want a buggy player or something!
Those people are doing their best to improve it, to make it fine and you whine?
These guys are right. I saw one of these yesterday at a Tweeter in PA. They are in the wild but not available for sale. They also had a 'Euro' demo disc in the player that the National Pioneer Rep gave them. Not sure how true this may be but...
Alright folks, a caveat here as I'm an HD DVD owner -- but the claims that a 30GB HD DVD can't hold "longer movies" at top quality.. well, check out Grand Prix - a 3 hour film, shot in 70mm Panavision, that looks absolutely phenomenal -- flawlesss -- on the format.
And yes, I'm sure it will look just as good on Blu-ray -- but the cost conscience among us realize that the HD-A1 is four hundred bucks on Amazon and the Samsung Blu-ray player, with flaky HDMI output, is pushing a 900 to a grand most places.
If I was getting better quality video for the extra $500 I'd consider it, but for now I'm holding off on a Blu-ray player until the price is reasonable.
Other "long" films on HD DVD include Spartacus (3 hrs 20 minutes, I haven't watched it yet, I'm hoping it looks as good as the Grand Prix disc -- looking forward to looking at it side-by-side with the Criterion edition to compare) and the upcoming release of Warren Beatty's Reds (also about 3 hrs 20 minutes or so).
Blu-ray makes perfect sense for enterprise-level data backup, broadcast video archiving and a lot of other cool things -- but for playing movies on your HDTV at 1080p? HD DVD is more than up to the task from what I've seen, it entered the market at a prosumer price point versus the "pro" price point of Blu-ray.
Seriously, home theatre folks, ask yourself what you're getting for the extra $500 that going Blu-ray right now is going to cost you.
Ok warning 1:30 AM Rant.
This should have been included in the 2006 Home Entertainment Device of the Year awards. I can't believe engadget hasn't covered this player since it was delayed because of firmare issues. Since it wasn't I voted for the sony.
The reason I would have voted for this is because it is basically the Sony bluray plus the home media gallery (depending on what u read pioneer either build the Sony or gave them major help). This feature can stream music, photos, and video from any xp box running WMP 11 that is on your network. It has it's own ethernet port. Furthmore all this comes out the HDMI port. And it playse Bluray in native 1080p24.
This blows away any of the products on that list, and should be a write in. Don't get me wrong it's not perfect and the next gens will probably stomp on it, but for now I'd love to put one in my av rack. Pioneer also contiues to update there firmware with ver 2.1 coming just being released 4.3.07.