Future Arcam Blu-ray player spotted at CES

Arcam may not be at the top of your list of must-have brands, but it's about to join the flourishing Blu-ray player market in the near future, regardless. Sadly, the only details about the deck you see above -- which was seen sporting a high-end-signifying FMJ-xxx logo at CES -- are that it's likely to be staggeringly expensive and it should ship next month. 'Til then, it looks like you'll be testing your patience.

[216 @ Jan 14th 2009 11:20AM]

looks like a vhs player to me

[SewerShark @ Jan 14th 2009 11:34AM]

My thoughts exactly.

[anon @ Jan 14th 2009 11:27AM]

Arcam are a well respected high end A/V company. Very good stuff.

[Najakwa @ Jan 14th 2009 11:41AM]

Looks like Arcam's design team called this one in. Or it could be that audiophiles and in this case videophiles don't care about how clunky, unattractive, and downright ugly their equipment looks as long as it performs.

That thing looks like a Walmart Memorex VCR from the 90s.

[letstakeawalk @ Jan 14th 2009 11:57AM]

Audiophiles don't really concern themselves with what their gear looks like (except the tube guys, but they're an different species). We usually fall into one of two groups: Silver Face Gear or Black Face Gear. Honestly, the simpler the better.

As long as the equipment fits into the rack and makes quality sounds (or pictures), we're pretty easy to please.

Regarding Arcam, one reason they are so popular and respected is their ability to be modded. By a lower-level or older unit, and it can be upgraded with minimal effort. I would think the sort of people who read Engadget would appreciate that!

[Vanillacide @ Jan 14th 2009 3:13PM]

Been waiting a long time for this.

Read elsewhere that they have two modules: fully loaded and transport (for serious AV geeks with external video processors and audio processors that handle HD formats over HDMI).

[Vanillacide @ Jan 14th 2009 3:14PM]

Darn Engadget's lack of edit ... two MODELS not two modules.

[Sheldon @ Jan 14th 2009 11:29AM]

"Arcam may not be at the top of your list of must-have brands..."
...but they should be pretty high-up.

[arcsine @ Jan 15th 2009 11:03AM]

Yup, right behind Anthem.

[Wolfticket @ Jan 14th 2009 11:49AM]

They are near the top of my "must have brand if I had the money" list. Makes me wonder if Engadget would prefer bose... or maybe they like Krell :-)

[Red5 @ Jan 14th 2009 11:31AM]

Blu-ray Player? Where does the disc go?

[SewerShark @ Jan 14th 2009 11:35AM]

Once again, I refuse to answer that question.

[Like_A_Glove @ Jan 14th 2009 12:01PM]

Rear end? Oh, that's so nasty!

[Eric @ Jan 14th 2009 11:44AM]

Sweet! Will go great with with my AVR350 and the mono blocks! I really didn't expect Arcam to come out with this for another year!

[CraigJ @ Jan 14th 2009 11:47AM]

I have a serious question for someone who knows the answer, because I think I may be missing something here.

If I have a BR (or DVD) disc with digital data, and I have a player that reads that media and creates a digital signal, and sends that digital info to my TV which displays it, all without any analog conversion along the way, then what is the purpose of a high end player vs. a cheap player, vs. a media PC? As long as the digital data remains a 100% digital signal from source to terminal, there should be no quality difference at all, should there? I get the feeling that high end blu ray and DVD players are kinda like monster cables: really expensive but no better than blue jeans at then end of the day.

[Jamieconverge @ Jan 14th 2009 12:00PM]

absolutely nothing, assuming (in a blu ray sense) that the tv is displaying the original 1080p 24 signal straight off the disc without any processing all blu ray players should be exactly the same.

dvd players are a little different, as most nowadays will tend to include some form of scaling chip, where the quality can differ

[superhobo @ Jan 14th 2009 12:03PM]

W1nd0ze is 2 cnfuzin' lol

Well, it's for people who don't want to get a PC just to watch videos.

I would never buy one of these things, but I know people who might.

Also, the high end ones might have extra features like being able to read scratched CDs, faster read speeds, error correction and stuff. But if you put in a scratchless BR disc in a decent cheap player, it should provide the same playback results.

Maybe this has a built in hard disk? More cache memory? More ports? I have no idea. But most people have no use for it.

[letstakeawalk @ Jan 14th 2009 12:09PM]

Good question! I'll give a partial answer, and let other chime in.

1. Quality construction. Better power supplies, higher-grade electrical components inside (from wires and connectors to chipsets and processors). This means your high-end gear should outlive the cheap stuff by a long time.

2. Better service. Your Wally-world player conks out? Oh, well... Your Arcam messes up? Two-year warranty from the company, and your dealer will probably help you out for longer than that (trade-up credit).

http://www.arcam.co.uk/downloads/warranty.pdf

3. Upgradeability. Whether you're physically modding a unit, or just hoping for the newest software, higher-end gear usually handles upgrades better.

[CraigJ @ Jan 14th 2009 12:46PM]

OK, this is basically what I thought. Maybe some more features and a better build quality, but the actual primary function is pretty much the same. One thing I would pay for is quieter operation. The thing I hate most about watching movies using my xbox is that it sounds like a friggen vacuum cleaner.

[letstakeawalk @ Jan 14th 2009 1:19PM]

CraigJ

You've got it. There is no magical difference, just practical ones. It's the same reason some people buy Kias and some people buy Mercedes... or more to Engadget's readership, I'm perfectly satisfied with my 6-year old eMachine while others absolutely have to have the latest Apple product.

Both cars, put in some gas and you'll go where you want to go. Both computers'll let you post on Engadget...

[letstakeawalk @ Jan 14th 2009 1:20PM]

CraigJ

You've got it. There are no magical differences, just practical ones. It's the same reason some people buy Kias and some people buy Mercedes... or more to Engadget's readership, I'm perfectly satisfied with my 6-year old eMachine while others absolutely have to have the latest Apple product.

Both cars, put in some gas and you'll go where you want to go. Both computers'll let you post on Engadget...

[Zach @ Jan 14th 2009 11:59AM]

Looks like a early 2000+ HTPC case to me. Definitely ugly though. Not as bad as the other one (can't remember the name), which actually did look like VHS deck.

[BenJaminLA @ Jan 14th 2009 12:00PM]

Craig I couldn't agree with you more. Unless this thing has a quad-core bada** processor in it to facilitate ultra fast load times, what the point with a digital signal 1's&0's are just that with a digital feed regardless of the cost of the unit. Audiophiles will talk about 'clipping' but in reality unless you've spent 20k on your home theater's audio system no one could possibly notice even if they tried.

[CraigJ @ Jan 14th 2009 12:52PM]

having written a number of assembly routines to sample and process high speed serial data, I can say unequivocally that the term "clipping" on a digital signal makes no sense.

[letstakeawalk @ Jan 14th 2009 1:40PM]

"Clipping", in regards to music, usually refers to overdriving an amplifier, which can cause damage to both the amp and the speaker.

On the rare occaision we discuss "clipping" a digital signal, it usually refers to the part of the analogue waveform that is discarded when the signal is converted into a digital signal. For example, cutting off the extreme high and low frquency range during audio compression. If the analogue signal is "clipped", or compressed, too much, it can create unwanted distortion in the recording.

[Like_A_Glove @ Jan 14th 2009 12:16PM]

That's the last thing I'm worrying about.

With TVs keeps getting thinner and thinner everyday, if I take one home, I'm afraid the next thing I know will be me, lying on the flood, split in half, all because I accidentally ran into they wrong side of the TV.

[Sterney @ Jan 14th 2009 12:30PM]

What a silly piece of crap

[yp @ Jan 14th 2009 11:06PM]

I think the key thing that people are missing is that the Arcam DVD players not only have very good picture quality but superb sound quality. I own a FMJ DVD player DV29 and it's playback of redbook CD is of better quality than a lot of high quality CD players because of the care that Arcam takes in the design of the chasis, power supply, segragating the audio and video circuitry, etc.

[BluFan @ Jan 20th 2009 2:19PM]

So what exactly is so special about this blu-ray player? Aside from it most likely being expensive, what's the point? Don't get me wrong, I'm all about blu-ray (I'm working with WHV on it); I'm just wondering why it's getting so much press?

[Bill @ Jan 25th 2009 4:07PM]

"I think the key thing that people are missing is that the Arcam DVD players not only have very good picture quality but superb sound quality. I own a FMJ DVD player DV29 and it's playback of redbook CD is of better quality than a lot of high quality CD players because of the care that Arcam takes in the design of the chasis, power supply, segragating the audio and video circuitry, etc."

Exactly. I recently replaced my Arcam DVD player with a Panasonic BD55 and I was surprised how much of a hit the audio took (lossy codecs over optical). This is despite the fact that Blu-ray's higher bitrate is supposed to make even the lossy codecs sound better. My wife (who is usually ambivalent to all things home theater) even noticed the difference when I A/B'd Hellboy 2. looking forward to this player...

[Flesheater @ Mar 25th 2009 8:14PM]

If you buy a player of this type of build quality and then let your tv's dac decode the signal then you are throwing your money away. With a player like this the dac is one of the parts you are spending money on. If you have a high quality tv it will have a good dac but, in theory the dac in the player should outshine any tv for less than 5-10k. There is also some theory about quality of disc read if the power fluctuates the disc speed varies the motor vibrates so some of the data is lost. Part of the expense is better quality power supplies better quality motors and vibration dampening. This being said all of this makes minor improvements but, some are willing to spend more for the relatively small differences in picture and sound quality. If you are happy with what you have why spend more.the car reference earlier is true a Kia will get you there but in a Mercedes most of us will arrive a little more comfortably.