Olevia to market BD player?

[gadgtfreek]

Taiwan Kolin to produce BD players, says paper

Taiwan Kolin, a Taiwan-based maker of LCD TVs and electrical home appliances, will start production of Blu-ray Disc (BD) players between the third and fourth quarter of 2008, with pick-up heads and chipsets to be supplied by Sharp, according to the Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) newspaper.
The BD player will be sold in the Taiwan market at below NT$30,000 (US$977). In addition, Taiwan Kolin will produce the BD player on an ODM basis for Syntax-Brillian, which will market it in the US and other markets under its Olevia brand, the EDN cited Taiwan Kolin president Frank Lee as saying.

 

[allargon]

Interesting...this is a company that never bothered to enter the DVD standalone market.

My guess is that this will be another Funai clone. However, they may surprise--especially if Broadcom comes out with another reference.

 

[nonrev]

For $1000 this thing better not be a 1.1 clone of the BD30!!!

 

[navychop]

The Olevia brand won't carry a third of that price, and could damage the Syntax-Brillian brand name (which most haven't heard of anyway).

I suppose the day must come for third and fourth tier companies to produce BD players, but I don't look forward to it. I'm more interested today in features and quality. The race to the bottom in price will not help. I still remember an early VHS player I had, built like a tank. Outlasted several subsequent players. Cost a lot more, but was worth a lot more.

 

[diogen]

...especially if Broadcom comes out with another reference.

I think the pioneers - Broadcom and Sigma Design - might be missing the boat again (have you looked at Sigma's stock price lately - SIGM?).

Have a look at the short history of the DVD player market
http://www.satelliteguys.us/hd-dvd-blu-ray-war-zone/114565-short-history-dvd-soc-players.html

And now the same has been done for BD, by Panasonic
Panasonic Announces Single-Chip Signal Processing LSI for Blu-ray Disc Players -- Tech-On!

The product, the MN2WS006, will combine a front end to read the signal from the BD, and a back end to convert this into AV data.

Uses exactly the same terms as Amir's post about DVD linked above.
What took the DVD industry some 5 years was accomplished in two for BD.

I think those real SOCs will be used in low-cost players from China...
The $99 BD players are much closer than you might think. Whether this will be akin lipstick on a corps - is a different question.

Diogen.

 

[gadgtfreek]

I think the pioneers - Broadcom and Sigma Design - might be missing the boat again (have you looked at Sigma's stock price lately - SIGM?).

Have a look at the short history of the DVD player market
http://www.satelliteguys.us/hd-dvd-blu-ray-war-zone/114565-short-history-dvd-soc-players.html

And now the same has been done for BD, by Panasonic
Panasonic Announces Single-Chip Signal Processing LSI for Blu-ray Disc Players -- Tech-On!
Uses exactly the same terms as Amir's post about DVD linked above.
What took the DVD industry some 5 years was accomplished in two for BD.

I think those real SOCs will be used in low-cost players from China...
The $99 BD players are much closer than you might think. Whether this will be akin lipstick on a corps - is a different question.

Diogen.

Good read, I missed that one.

Ive seen it mentioned, that due to the pressure to get to sub $99, quality(PQ too) was slightly sacrificed with DVD players. DO we feel this is going to happen again, then we'll all be looking to Oppo, etc... to produce a $200-$300 BD player to keep some of us happy?

I've also read that CE's actually lose money on the $90 dvd player, dont know if thats true or not.

 

[diogen]

If anything, the BD player market will give even more options in differentiating a particular player from the competition.

Meridian will have one you'd need to take out a mortgage if you want to buy it. And a non-name Chinese sweatshop
will produce one for $50. With Denons, Philips, Oppo to Apex, Olevia in between.

The only open question remaining is the licensing: how much will it be and how strong will it be enforced. Keep in mind,
BD player makers pay two stacks of those fees: DVDs and BD. And since the DVD fees are charged by DVD Forum, the party
that lost the format war, don't expect any discount in that amount.

On the other hand, to get the most from BD you almost have to get a new AVR. If you go this route, the player can be made much cheaper.
You don't need neither processing circuitry - audio and video - in the player, nor any DACs. Make a player with 3 connectors: DVI, SPDIF and HDMI.
All the Reon, Realta and other high-end processing can be done in the AVR that will be fed from the player over HDMI.
DVI+SPDIF - as a low-end option connecting to older AVRs or directly to TV. Or you can have an adapter converting HDMI to DVI+SPDIF.
Add an RJ45 for BD-Live. It can be smaller than a MacMini.

In other words, make the player a pure transport: pick up the bits from the disc and send to the AVR as-is. Using SOC. Nothing else.
Such a player can be $99 today if this f*cking company which name rhymes with "pony" and their gang wouldn't be so greedy...

Diogen.

 

[gadgtfreek]

In other words, make the player a pure transport: pick up the bits from the disc and send to the AVR as-is. Using SOC. Nothing else.
Such a player can be $99 today if this f*cking company which name rhymes with "pony" and their gang wouldn't be so greedy...

Diogen.

And this would be fine with me.

 

[navychop]

Interesting point. Toshiba will get DVD royalties on every BD player. I suspect every BD player will play DVDs for the next 10-20 years, probably for the entire BD product lifetime. So Toshiba does not really lose out on that side of the DVD royalties (players), assuming my understanding that they receive such royalties is correct. Sure, they lost out on a new revenue stream, and any DVD disc royalties that don't apply to BDs (if they get those too), but they'll still get good money for many years to come.

Funny, Toshiba could lose big if downloading really does eat into optical discs big time.