With both LG and Samsung releasing combo players at 799/999; Outlaw would really make a name for itself if they could build a combo HD player under $500?

Rather than waiting for the format wars to continue I think a fair priced combo player would get many folks to get a player and start building a HD collection.

I agree a universal player from an internet etailer would be great but I don't think Outlaw is headed in that direction. I'm waiting for Oppo to take the plunge and build an dual BD/HD-DVD player. I'm enjoying the Oppo 980 and expect a universal player from them would be top knotch.

At this point in the HD format war, I think it would be difficult for Outlaw to get into the disc player market. It is has been quite difficult for LG and Samsung to do it, and they are in a much better position to make such an attempt. Unfortunately, Outlaw needs to stay focused on their processors right now. I've talked to OPPO Digital (a company that is built around making disc players almost exclusively), and they are still not ready to commit to anything as far as either HD format - if any internet-direct company is going to develop a combo player first, it's most likely to be them. Having said that, I think that it would be good to see Outlaw produce a good "jack of all trades" disc player, and the $500 price range would be a good price point to pursue.

Primaz, I would honestly consider two independent HD DVD and Blu-ray standalones over either LG's or Samsung's current combo players. All three have problems, especially the LG BH100 which should have never been released.

- 1080p/24fps support only, most 1080p displays cannot accept 24fps.
- DVD upscaling only up to 1080i, despite having 1080p for HD DVD and Blu-ray.
- Converts all Dolby Plus tracks to standard Dolby.
- Internal decoding for only stereo Dolby TrueHD.
- No HDi support for HD DVD, the player is not approved by the DVD Forum because of this.
- Complete incompatibility (failure to play) with many newer Blu-ray titles.
- Only a 96/24 Audio DAC
- No Audio CD support.
- You can only update the player via a CD-R, despite the unit having an Ethernet port.

The BH100 was a disaster. The BH200 resolves the most egregious of its issues (particularly the lack of HDi support, thus allowing it to be a true combo player), but it also lacks multichannel analog audio output - something that I think is pretty important for a combo player. After all, if you have HDMI v1.1+ support in your receiver or processor, it is still easier and cheaper to get two players. The Samsung is the only combo player with analog audio support.

You know, I wanted a dual format player, but with recent news of Warner Brothers leaving HD-DVD and then the possibility of Paramount leaving, we may see an end to this format was sooner than we think. I'm glad I held off on my desire to buy Samsung's BD-UP5000.

If you look at which companies are on the board of the Blu-ray disc association, is easy to see why it may win out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc_Association

Also, here's a chart of studio alliances.



Personally I don't really care which format wins and I'm not knowledgeable enough to know the technical differences. However, I always thought support for both would have been best and universal players would win... Looks like that's not going to happen.

The Samsung 5000 has ended up exhibiting some odd quirks (TrueHD decoding limited to stereo output, for example), and just as the players have started showing up in any sort of quantity in retail channels they've announced the 5500. When LG announced the BH100 this time last year, a number of us guessed that it might be late 2007 before we saw really stable and feature-competitive combo players. It looks like it might take a bit longer, and if Paramount ever decides to change their HD-DVD stance it's possible that manufacturer interest in developing such players could taper off...

Well I'm glad I didn't buy the 5000. I bought the Oppo Digital 980H yesterday and picked it up in Mountain View. I am very impressed with the picture quality and pretty much feel that it allows me to hold off on an HD player for some time.

The 980H should take pretty good care of you while you wait...

Thanks for the review link and the remote code. I ordered the Avia II DVD disk to fine tune my TV. I was pleasantly surprised to received audio on my TV through HDMI. For some reason I had it in my head that you couldn't receive audio withou HDMI 1.3a, but figured it out when I went to wikipedia. I have the spdif connected to the 990 and haven't hooked up the 7.1 channels yet. I only have two DVD-A discs, so no rush.

It appears that everything is heading blu ray? I heard that most feel when May/June when the last two major studios contracts expire with HDD that if they adopt blu ray the wars would be over? so I guess I'll wait?

Since blu ray is a Sony creation do you think the Sony players will be the best ones to get? I've read many people saying that right now the play station is actually one of the best players? whats your thoughts?

Sony did not create Blu-ray by themselves. The PS3 is probably the most robust player available and is one of the best choices available for a Blu-ray player, but I wouldn't recommend any of Sony's standalone Blu-ray players. Samsung has some decent offerings, but there have been a higher level of performance and support issues with them. Panasonic and Pioneer seem to be doing a little better than the rest for standalone players - I've had good results with my Panasonic BD30. It still wouldn't hurt to wait a few more months to see what profile 2.0 players start to emerge (and to weed out the remaining profile 1.0 players).