Gizmo Lovers Blog » Dealerscope

Panasonic To Ship Tru2Way-enabled VIERA HDTVs This Summer

MegaZone — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 22:04:18 +0000

A couple of months ago at CES Panasonic was one of the vendors showing off Tru2way, nee OCAP, products. At the time I focused on their ‘portable DVR‘, which I still think is a poor idea. But what I didn’t mention at the time were their Tru2Way CableCARD HDTVs, which they said would be out later this year. Well, based on reports in Dealerscope and Home Theater Magazine, it looks like they’ll be true to their word. Panasonic will be introducing Tru2Way to their PX80 720p and PZ80 1080p VIERA plasma line-ups in the second half.

The first generation of CableCARD TVs, which were all unidirectional, didn’t sell well and they’ve faded to just a few models left in the market. The hope is that the new generation of CableCARD sets, with Tru2Way, will succeed where the first generation failed. With Tru2Way the TV will have all of the functionality of a non-DVR cable STB – support for Switched Digital Video (SDV), OnDemand, PayPerView, on-screen program guide, etc. It will completely replace the cable box while providing all of the same functionality, unlike the first generation which only allowed access to linear content – no SDV, VOD, PPV, EPG, etc.

In theory, Tru2Way-enabled TVs could also offer DVR functionality, either with built-in storage or an external add-on. The cable MSO could push down OCAP-based DVR software, like TiVo’s software for Comcast, to provide the DVR functionality. But that would require support in the hardware, including encoding chips to handle the analog channels. (Note that I’m talking in general here, there is no sign of the Panasonic sets having any such features!) This would all be easier with a complete digital system. Once NTSC is phased out (less than year from now), the last obstacle will be the lingering analog cable channels. If a cable MSO went 100% digital, or at least offered digital simulcast of all their channels, it would be possible to provide DVR functionality without any encoding hardware. You’d simply need to save the signal as-received, and then play it back later – and the playback hardware is already in there, of course. (This is how satellite DVRs work today, they’re 100% digital. And there are some cable DVR models like this as well, for areas where the system is already 100% digital.)

ZatzNotFunny also covered this today.

Sub-$200 Blu-ray Players In Time For The Holidays

MegaZone — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 01:49:09 +0000

I’ve said it myself several times, I expect to see Blu-ray players with sub-$200 MSRPs on shelves in time for the holidays. We’ve already had sub-$300 MSRP players announced, due by mid-year. As more and more players hit shelves, especially more low-end players, the lower bound on the price will come down. I don’t know if we’ll see any sub-$100 sale prices this year, like we did on HD DVD last year, but I wouldn’t be too surprised. But I fully expect sub-$200 MSRP pricing on some low-end decks, and that we’ll see sub-$100 prices in 2009.

And I’m not alone, the Blu-ray Stats New Log had a post last week about chip makers Zoran and Mediatek planning to join Broadcom and Sigma Designs in offering chipsets for Blu-ray players. More vendors offering chipsets will help drive down component prices, leading to lower player prices. As the post states:

Ken Lowe, vice president of strategic marketing at Sigma Designs, said itâ€™s widely expected that new Blu-ray players from China and Taiwan will be in stores at prices near $200 in time for Christmas.

And today trade-mag Dealerscope picked up on the story too.

Circuit City HD DVD Player Clearance An Error

MegaZone — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:19:56 +0000

Despite photographic evidence Circuit City says they are not putting HD DVD players on clearance, and that the stores that did tag players with Clearance tags did so in error. Toshiba HD DVD players were being sold at clearance prices as low as $100.04, but this will be corrected and Circuit City will continue to sell the HD-A3 for $149 and the HD-A30 for $199. Circuit City says sales were strong in the past week, unsurprising with the low prices as they’re decent upscaling players if nothing else, and they plan to remain ‘platform agnostic’ for the time being. From Punch Jump via Dealerscope.

Blu-ray Garners Increasing Support, And Marketshare

MegaZone — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 02:18:38 +0000

Dealerscope is reporting that Best Buy plans to promote Blu-ray in stores. Customers who purchase two Blu-ray discs will receive a $10 gift card, those who purchase three will receive a $25 gift card. This will reportedly apply to all Blu-ray titles.

Impress AV Watch reports that Hitachi will be bringing a second-generation hybrid hard drive/Blu-ray camcorder to market. The DZ-BD9H will sport a 60GB drive and support 8cm mini-BD discs, as well as 8cm mini-DVDs (SD recording only). Each mini-BD cal hold about 1 hour at the max 1920×1080 resolution, or roughly 2 hours at 1440×1080 with a reduced bit rate. Via Engadget.

But the biggest news comes from the new figures from NPD Group by way of The Digital Bits. They showed a dramatic shift to Blu-ray in hardware sales. In December Blu-ray took 60.19% of the standalone high-def player sales to HD DVD’s 39.81%, that’s not counting Sony PS3 or Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on sales. And that’s with HD DVD’s general price advantage and player sales. Even worse for HD DVD, for the first two weeks of January that balance has shifted to 69.41% BD, 30.59% HD DVD.

But that’s not the whole story. NPD broke down the ratios for the first two weeks of January. For the week ending January 5th, which mostly pre-dates Warner’s Blu-ray announcement on the 4th, the ratio was a more favorable 51.17% BD, 48.83% HD DVD. But for the week ending January 12th, after Warner’s announcement, the figures are a stunning 92.53% BD, 7.47% HD DVD. Clearly the Warner announcement had a strong impact on the market. It looks like a lot of people who were holding off on making a high-def purchase decided it was time.

I don’t expect that ratio to hold, especially with Toshiba’s price cuts which took effect on the 13th, but I don’t think HD DVD will be able to take the majority. Even with a price advantage favoring HD DVD, BD has been able to steadily gain ground and take more of the market. That growth is one of the factors Warner cited in their decision. Via Blu-ray.com.