Let's design the ULTIMATE Blu-ray player

[tron3]

Ok, some of you are saying the PS3 is as perfect as it gets. While the design ideas here could go into the PS3, or PS4 , the idea is tweak what we want most from a standalone blu-ray player. Hopefully the right people see this and builds us a killer unit.

You audio guys fill in the gaps as I know little about it.

* Blu-ray recorder / VHS definately has potential for me personally. But not the main thrust of this thread. <specs withheld>

Stand alone Blu-ray ideas and desires:

* Faster warm up times
* Faster load times. 15 seconds and under for even BD-J like POTC.
* Dual HDMI 1.3 / Multi output. Why not hook up to two tv's?
* USB port for flashing firmware, etc.
* RJ45 for internet connection. Mostly for firmware updates.
* Better upsampling, and upsampling through high def component cable. Not all of us have HDMI yet.
* Smaller footprint. No more than 12" deep. Can't fit an S300 on my computer desk because 13"+ is too big for my set up.
* Even larger firmware memory for future updates.
* Skip to menu / Skip to movie options

* Improved bit rates if the below comes into use.)
* 1440p potential
* Plays BD75 or BD100
* Plays BD33's, BD66, etc

[Dynamo of Eternia]

To hell with larger memory for firmware updates... I say they need to work very hard at getting to a point where we no longer need firmware updates.

Blu-Ray is great in many ways, but this is my main beef with the format. Too many firmware upgrades are needed just to get some discs to work.

A player needs to be made to some kind of finalized specification that will not change there after.

Even if and when HD-DVD is defeated and eliminated, I really can't see the general public at large jumping on Blu-Ray over regular DVD if they have to keep updating their player just to watch newer movies. That's just ridiculous.

[tron3]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

To hell with larger memory for firmware updates... I say they need to work very hard at getting to a point where we no longer need firmware updates.

Blu-Ray is great in many ways, but this is my main beef with the format. Too many firmware upgrades are needed just to get some discs to work.

A player needs to be made to some kind of finalized specification that will not change there after.

Even if and when HD-DVD is defeated and eliminated, I really can't see the general public at large jumping on Blu-Ray over regular DVD if they have to keep updating their player just to watch newer movies. That's just ridiculous.

Firmware updates are an important part of this technology. Without the new copy protection encryption, Fox may never have released new movies, instead of just delaying them. If they can crush piracy once and for all, we can start to see better prices. Those stupid filmed bootleg movies won't offer much competition. Studios are tired of losing money to these guys.

Once they iron out what the specs should be, the firmware updates will become fewer. Telling them to come up with "something" and just live with it is reverting back, not moving forward.

You sound like you took a sip of the red kool aid. NEXT!

[bhampton]

Already been done,.. Ps3.

(Sorry,.. felt compelled to say that.)

-Brian

[stockstar1138]

the ultimate blu-ray player would be this

Can decode, TrueHD, PCM, DTS HD MA
Load time under 1 min,
Profile 2.0
And all for the lovely price of $249.99

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by tron3

Firmware updates are an important part of this technology. Without the new copy protection encryption, Fox may never have released new movies, instead of just delaying them. If they can crush piracy once and for all, we can start to see better prices. Those stupid filmed bootleg movies won't offer much competition. Studios are tired of loosing money to these guys.

Once they iron out what the specs should be, the firmware updates will become fewer. Telling them to come up with "something" and just live with it is reverting back, not moving forward.

You sound like you took a sip of the red kool aid. NEXT!

Copy protection is all well and good, but not when it comes at the expense of convenience of the legitimate paying customer.

That BD+ copy protection that Fox wanted was expected to take 10 years to crack through. However, it has already been cracked through.

The reality is that piracy isn't going anywhere. And most any copy protection that they come up with, the bootleggers will find a way through. They aren't going to eliminate the bootleggers, just slow them down a bit. But the result may well be people who are willing to pay for the legitimate product getting annoyed, and not jumping on board with Blu-Ray in full force.

In essence, the studios will likely lose more money from the honest customers who choose not to buy into the format because of the complications, and the money they supposedly "save" from slowing down the bootleggers won't be enough to balance it out.

This has nothing to do with "drinking the red kool-aid" (which I assume is some kind of HD-DVD reference given the use of the color red in that statement). This has nothing to do with HD-DVD.

For the purpose of this arguement, let's assume HD-DVD is already gone and defeated, and now it's just a battle between Blu-Ray and regular DVD. The frustrations over the BD problems will still be there. If they want to overtake DVD, they not only have to push the benefits of the quality of the format, but they have to make it AT LEAST as convenient to use as regular DVD. If they don't, then many people will either not jump on board with the format, or will want their money back afterwards when they discover the issues.

It's a very simple reality.

[jbenn]

Just go ahead and add 802.11n wireless networking capability for those software / firmware upgrades.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Just to reply further to other aspects of this whole thing...

Originally Posted by tron3

* Faster warm up times
* Faster load times. 15 seconds and under for even BD-J like POTC.

I agree with both of these. The faster the better.

* Profile 1.3 - What ever that is.

I agree to the extent of having all stand alone players be of some ultimate, and hopefully finalized profile specification, thus helping to make the players as compatible with as many discs as possible.

* Dual HDMI / Multi output. Why not hook up to two tv's?

Well, I guess there would be nothing wrong with this option, so long as including the additional port doesn't increase the price of the player.

However, to me I don't see this as being very practical.

I mean, wouldn't you have to control the player from the room that it is in? If you are in another room with another TV, the remote isn't going to work from there. So, you will have to start the movie up, and then just let it go. You can't pause it, stop it, or change the disc without going into the room where the player is actually at.

Granted, there are really sophisticated systems for people with a lot of money that might be able to make the player operational with the remote from any room that they choose to set up accordingly. But if someone has THAT kind of money, why not just get a second player? It would be much more efficient. The single player/multi-room set up is like going all of the way around the earth just to get across the street.

On top of which, for anyone who has a family and lives in a multiperson household, wouldn't it just be easier to have a player hooked to each TV incase one person wants to watch a movie in one room, and another person wants to watch a different movie in the other room?

Even for people who aren't super rich, if they can afford 2 or more HDTVs, then I don't see how buying an additional player would be much more of a stretch (esspecially since the cost of the players will continue to drop).

* USB port for flashing firmware, etc.
* RJ45 for internet connection. Mostly for firmware updates.
....
* Even larger firmware memory for future updates.

Well, I've already stated my position on the need for firmware upgrades, however if they are going to continue to be a reailty, then the more options that are available for them to make them as convenient as possible would be preferable.

*Better upsampling, and upsampling through high def component cable. Not all of us have HDMI yet.

I agree with this (even though I do have HDMI). It will even make things more convenient for anyone who has an HDMI capable TV, but have all their ports used, but also have Component as an option.

However, if I'm not mistaken, wasn't a big part of the reason why HDMI has become more of the Hi-Def wiring standard, and the subsiquent lesser support of component cables by Blu-Ray players all for the purpose of copy protection and making the movies harder to replicate? If that's the case, then I would think you of all people would appreciate the HDMI standard based on the big stink you just made over the need to prevent piracy, even if it is at the expense of convenience to the legit customers.

* Smaller footprint. No more than 12" deep. Can't fit an S300 on my computer desk because 13"+ is too big for my set up.

The smaller the better, I can agree to this.

* Skip to menu / Skip to movie options

Isn't this kind of pointless, though? I mean, what you are essentially proposing is creating a menu that asks if you want to go to the menu or go to the movie.

This really doesn't make it any faster to start the movie. Clicking on "skip to movie options" really isn't any more efficient than a disc that goes straight to the menu with the "play" option highlighted as a default. In fact, all that this does is make it create an extra step in getting to the extras on the disc if that's where you want to go.

*Improved bit rates if the below comes into use.)
* 1440p potential
* Plays BD75 or BD100
* Plays BD33's, BD66, etc

So long as none of it interferes with compatibility, then I see no problem with any of that.

[theknub]

Originally Posted by tron3

Ok, some of you are saying the PS3 is as perfect as it gets. While the design ideas here could go into the PS3, or PS4 , the idea is tweak what we want most from a standalone blu-ray player. Hopefully the right people see this and builds us a killer unit.

You audio guys fill in the gaps as I know little about it.

* Blu-ray recorder / VHS definately has potential for me personally. But not the main thrust of this thread. <specs withheld>

Stand alone Blu-ray ideas and desires:

* Faster warm up times
* Faster load times. 15 seconds and under for even BD-J like POTC.

* Profile 1.3 - What ever that is.

no such thing in terms of player profiles. what i think you mean is hdmi 1.3. in this case, we want profile b (i believe). this includes the ability to bitstream hi def audio as well as deep color. also, i want the ability to decode internally all audio codecs.

* Dual HDMI / Multi output. Why not hook up to two tv's?

go for it if u want, but it doesn't seem too practical to me. on the other hand, what does is having an hdmi input and an integrated hard drive and burner. basically, make my blu-ray player a dvr and give me the ability to burn whatever i want.

* USB port for flashing firmware, etc.
* RJ45 for internet connection. Mostly for firmware updates.

* Better upsampling, and upsampling through high def component cable. Not all of us have HDMI yet.

not going to get upsampling over component. sorry. from my understanding, it mainly has to do with copyright stuff and the like. over that kind of connection, it is too easy to steal or pass something off as being hi-def (even if it isn't)

* Smaller footprint. No more than 12" deep. Can't fit an S300 on my computer desk because 13"+ is too big for my set up.
* Even larger firmware memory for future updates.
* Skip to menu / Skip to movie options

* Improved bit rates if the below comes into use.)
* 1440p potential
* Plays BD75 or BD100
* Plays BD33's, BD66, etc

i don't see this happening because they would then have to change the spec. changing the spec = everything we have becoming obsolete. why do that? now, the ability to read bd75, 100, or 200 is very welcome.

[TaxiDiver]

Didn't I read somewhere that 1080p and 1440p are indistinguishable with the human eye?

[theknub]

taxi, that would be untrue as there are many contributing factors such as screen size, source material, and viewing distance.

if u were ten feet away trying to view a 20" screen, yes... indistingushable.

if you are sitting 4' away on a 100" screen i'm sure you will see a difference.

[SpikesBluBlooded]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

To hell with larger memory for firmware updates... I say they need to work very hard at getting to a point where we no longer need firmware updates.

Blu-Ray is great in many ways, but this is my main beef with the format. Too many firmware upgrades are needed just to get some discs to work.

A player needs to be made to some kind of finalized specification that will not change there after.

Even if and when HD-DVD is defeated and eliminated, I really can't see the general public at large jumping on Blu-Ray over regular DVD if they have to keep updating their player just to watch newer movies. That's just ridiculous.

You make too many assumptions regarding firmware. HD DVD fanboys have been touting their "finalized" spec since conception, but when talk of a 51G disc being a reality surfaced, the "finalized" spec wasn't going to be good enough. And I'm sure there's some early adopters of DVD out here that can attest that its spec wasn't finalized up-front either.

Updates are improvements. In this particular case, the software is beating the hardware to market. Kinda crappy, but so be it. My movie experience is getting better with each update and I'm happier for it. And there are quite a few people out there ready to adopt hi-def as soon as this war has been decided, because hi-def is the future, and after seeing what hi-def media looks like on thier hi-def TV, they're ready to ditch their DVD player in a heartbeat. I did.

[bhampton]

Hi,

I just remembered one of the things new Blu Ray players could have that would get me to trade in my Ps3...

The option to directly pick out and start the movie file giving priority to the audio files you prefer. DVD players have this ability. On one of my old DVD players if I put it a disc and then stoped the automatic playback and then pressed play it would jump right into the movie. This is a feature I would love to have.

The PS3 could also get this via FW update as well.

-Brian

[tron3]

Originally Posted by TaxiDiver

Didn't I read somewhere that 1080p and 1440p are indistinguishable with the human eye?

That is 25% more pixels. PAL is about 33% more pixels over NTSC and supposedly very noticeable.

I can tell to a degree the difference of 720p vs 1080i just in terms of clarity, but I can never see how progressive is better, though I prefer it.

I guess there is a point of diminishing returns at even higher resolutions. 1440p would be a great projector spec since they tend to get blown up to even greater sizes.

[ikbradley]

Ultimate Blu-ray player is a slimline PS3 with IR capabilities and sold for $99.

[almy]

I can live with the load time for a Blu disc, but I'd like to see "instant start" for standard DVDs and CDs. Also, my (retired) Pioneer regular DVD player had a thing called "last memory play" that stored in it's memory where the last five titles played were stopped. You could stop a disc half-way through, press the appropriate button, and return to that exact sport months later. - no matter how many other titles you watched in-between.

[w_tanoto]

Originally Posted by bhampton

Already been done,.. Ps3.

(Sorry,.. felt compelled to say that.)

-Brian

+1. PS3
it plays games, runs linux, etc. but it lacked something audio-wise

[gufazi]

1. All the things mentioned so far

2. Holds 400 discs

3. High interaction with the internet, i.e. you load a disc you own it enters that disc in a database stored on the player, along with cover art, actors, directors year, etc. Maybe links to imdb, reviews on blu-ray.com, etc.

4. On screen interface

[victorvondoom88]

Take everything the ps3 has/can do and add:

1. Full support of all HD audio tracks DTS-HD MA and DDTrueHD

2. Dual HDMI outputs (would come in handy for me projector and TV)

3. 7.1 Analog outs (for those who have receivers with the ins and aren't old enough to justify replacing).

4.Profile 2.0 Now! and the ability to upgrade if ever necessary.

[Vlad44]

1. all the things mentiomed above

2. fully adjustable GUI skins with ability to show/hide DETAILED service info (codec, time, chapter, etc).

3. JOG/DIAL control handle. really miss it since panny nv25 vcr.