Link This |
Email this |
Blog This |
Comments (0)
Sub-$200 Blu-ray players...for Canada
January 10, 2008
There are reports from the Daewoo Electronics booth at CES that the company plans to start selling a $199-$299 BD player in Canada. Blu-ray.com says they in fact saw the prototype but it seems unclear when it will actually launch in the country, and whether it will also be distributed to U.S. retailers. But a $199 Canadian-priced player translates to a cool $196.69 in U.S. dollars according to Thursday's currency exchange rates. If these sorts of players do hit shelves in our neck of the woods, that can only be positive for BD adoption.
Over the holidays, several BD set-tops got priced below $300, including Samsung's current model. But most of the BD manufacturers are readying bigger and better players for 2008, and carry the price tags to match. Samsung's first picture-in-picture player will start at $399 - good, but not great, if Toshiba continues to sell its $299 picture-in-picture enabled HD-A3. Panasonic's Anthony Jasionowski told me at CES that the spring 2008 bow of the DMP-BD50, their upcoming BD Live player, will come in at higher pricing than their current Profile 1.1 model, the $499-starting DMP-BD30.
Although BD is looking more and more formidable, there is likely to be some lingering format war confusion as Toshiba players are still available. And those pesky $100-200 upconverting DVD players also might prove some competition for Blu-ray hardware uptake. So cheap BD players should be some great format ammunition.
Posted by Susanne Ault on January 10, 2008 | Comments (0)
