AfterDawn: News

Pioneer moves on to third generation Blu-ray player

Pioneer will be releasing a third generation BD (Blu-ray) player in October, for a suggested retail price of $1,000.

The BDP-95FD improves upon earlier incarnations of Pioneer players with the inclusion of the audio technology DTS-HD.



Other than the inclusion of DTS-HD, the unit will be very similar to their second generation DBP-94HD, including the expected price. The older model already includes 1080p playback at 24fps plus internal decoding of Dolby TrueHD.

Although Pioneer has yet to drop any of their BD player prices below $1,000, the company's management believes this is a good niche market for them.

“It’s definitely more expensive than the competition, but we are delivering a player that is delivering an uncompromised experience,” said Chris Walker, Pioneer’s senior manager of product planning and marketing. “In the past, our players were superior in picture quality, and now we can really say the same about the audio experience. We are giving you exactly what the director wanted you to experience from the picture and now audio standpoint.”

Sources:
This Week In Electronics
Video Business

Written by: Rich Fiscus @ 6 Sep 2007 7:00

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• 6 comments

• hughjars

  When you cut out all the flannel & PR speak this is just another (expensive) 'profile 1.0' Blu-ray player being rushed out to beat the (new) Nov deadline for 'profile 1.1' compliance.
  
  It's just shifting stock that will be guaranteed not to be able to play the profile 1.1 or profile 2.0 discs and the 'advanced' features they claim Blu-ray offers.

  6.9.2007 08:14 #1

• monkey83

  Quote:We are giving you exactly what the director wanted you to experience from the picture and now audio standpoint.What a hypocritical thing to say. They should have been offering that right from the start with the first gen players. And they wonder why the adoption rate has been slow... maybe if they put out the players with all the proper features instead of buying a first gen one only to have to buy a new one in a year or so to get the additional features that it should have had in the first place.

  6.9.2007 08:39 #2

• plutonash

  I'm going to take a wild guess and say they sold less they 3,000 of these total. Lower the price you greedy bastards.

  6.9.2007 08:42 #3

• ChromeMud

  All this Profile crap isn't helping Blu-Ray that's for sure.
  Early adopters won't be too happy.
  It's a bit like Directors Cut Extended Edition with Extra deleted scenes.A damn scam.
  It's like, I'll wait for Profile 3.15b,that will support movies with Deep Colour but won't play on older machines...s'all a joke really!
  May aswell burn the Blu-Ray format altogether and rename it Beta-Ray because the hardware is always in beta.

  6.9.2007 10:15 #4

• Unfocused

  Quote:good niche market for them.
  If they don't lower the price, it is going to be a dead market pretty soon. The BetaMax players (while technologically superior to VHS) cost a considerable bit more than the VHS players when they came out. Even when VHS player prices dropped, BetaMax refused to do so.
  
  Quote:definitely more expensive than the competition, but we are delivering a player that is delivering an uncompromised experienceMy wallet will deliver an uncompromising experience to me if I decide to go with a $200 HD player over a $1000 Blu Ray player.

  7.9.2007 12:12 #5

• borhan9

  this is soo worth the price tag pioneer products are 100% reliable in my book.

  10.9.2007 16:59 #6