In time for the Holiday's, the HD-XA2

[Rob Tomlin]

Originally Posted by JimPullan

I'll be receiving here at my store the Pioneer Elite Blu-Ray Player around the first of the month and will certainly check it out in detail. As a consultant to my customers before their purchase I am compelled to share and enlighten them to all the present offerings from both camps, the hardware, the specifications, the software, service and support and allow them to make a well informed purchasing decision.

As far as I can tell, even the Pioneer Elite falls short of what everyone here on the forum has been complaining about, regarding the spec's of the Blu-Ray Players, and at a higher premium price for the same or less features as the other Blu-Ray Players here now or 'coming soon'.

I frequently mention Sony only because they are at the 'core' of the BDA, and they are the number one manufacturer on this planet of video products, carrying alot of weight and influence here in the US and worldwide. Every other manufacturer falls in behind Sony, with Samsung being in the number two slot.

So now we (forum members) simply wait and see 'who' will introduce that 'nirvana' machine. Any guesses who ? and when ?

Jim

Jim raises good points.

You guys who think these first gen Blu-ray players are going to be perfect are going to be disappointed (and I am leaving the Samsung out of this discussion).

It has already been confirmed that these players won't even be able to play the uncompressed audio tracks, and this appears to be something that can't be corrected later with a firmware upgrade. This was mentioned in the WSR interview, where it was said that "the chips just aren't available".

I will be much less inclined to shell out $1000-1200 for a BD player that won't play the new audio formats than I would $400 for one that does (after firmware upgrade). That's a hard sell.

Second gen can't get here fast enough.