Onkyo drops HD DVD player...

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet

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Lotus,

quick question on the Meridian HD DVD player. I just emailed Bob Stuart of Meridian asking about their support of HD DVD and if they had plans to release a combo or BD player as well. He wrote back and said that at this time they've not announced a product for *either* format:

"Thank you for taking the time to write to me. I am not sure where you read this, but Meridian has not yet made any announcements about for which, if any, formats it will build players. Certainly the battle still rages!"

What exactly is the source that's indicated that they are releasing an HD DVD player? The above comment was from Bob Stuart himself in an email to me this morning.

http://media.meridian-audio.com/pres...ddvd-ces07.pdf

They say it themselves, and they had to because the HD PRG let it slip in their own release that Onkyo and Meridian were working on players. Meridian didn't want that announced and were a little ****ed off about it. They don't like information being out before they're ready. The player at that point wasn't near production and from what I hear may still be a year away, but they may have a prototype at CES.

So the HD DVD PRG let the cat out of the bag. Bob got upset, but then admitted they are working on high end players with MS. The key word there is "players," and i'll say nothing more.

[DaViD Boulet]

Thanks!

funny that in spite of that press release he was so coy about a forthcoming player in his email. Maybe Meridian would rather save up the thunder for CES.

[kennyt]

I think theirs more thunder at CEDIA, CES is so overgrown, many things get lost in it's shear size.

[deacongreg]

Originally Posted by kennyt

I think theirs more thunder at CEDIA, CES is so overgrown, many things get lost in it's shear size.

All I know is, I`m very excited that Meridian has entered the game. I`m sure their player will be the bomb, like the rest of their products.

[DaViD Boulet]

funny that in spite of that press release he was so coy about a forthcoming player in his email. Maybe Meridian would rather save up the thunder for CES.

That's a good possibility. Also, that press release Lotus links to is almost a year old. Things can change, and Meridian's support of HD DVD, BD, or both, may have evolved during this time in a different direction that the press-release (from a year ago) would indicate.

My personal bet is yours: that Bob's comments to me were more about holding back information to keep the thunder for a venue like CES. Though in his email he was clear to state that Meridian hadn't picked sides in this format war. Maybe we'll see dual-format support from Meridian.

[DaViD Boulet]

Onkyo is NOT dropping their player: the italian magazine got it wrong:

http://www.avmagazine.it/news/sorgen...naio_2678.html


translation:

http://translate.google.com/translat...hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Tecnofuturo, Italian distributor of Onkyo products, has called us this morning to tell us that the Japanese brand has not stopped the production of reader HD DVD DV-HD805 and that starting from January / early February 2008, the reader will again be available in stores. The news had reported that there was the result of a misunderstanding linked to the first delivery extremely contingentata the player and now it remains to be understood if the reader will remain identical to the model Toshiba HD-XE1 or / and will be repositioning price after the Christmas holidays.