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The initial wave of CES announcements are hitting, and we're starting off our coverage with Philips' announcement of a $350 Blu-ray player: the BDP7200. The 7200 brings Bonus View (Profile 1.1) support to Philips' 1080p BD platform.



HDMI 1.3 is obviously supported and Philips expects availability in April 2008.
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  • Cr0nJ0b - Monday, January 7, 2008 - link

    I was talking to a friend, who has a lot more cash than me...and he was thinking of buying a BD or HD player in the next month...but I just told him to wait...either that, or buy the cheapest thing out there so he can at least rent some HD content to watch on his 80" Plasma. The way I see it, he could get a combo player, but then he would have to choose which format media to buy. He would have some BD and some HD disks. Eventually one of those formats would be dead and he'd have a bunch of useless media and expensive content.
  • Rugar - Monday, January 7, 2008 - link

    If he can afford a $40,000 80" Plasma, then I'm betting he's not worried about dropping $1000 on a combo player so that he can watch any movie he wants, in the highest possible quality.
  • Spuke - Monday, January 7, 2008 - link

    If he's got a combo player then why would his discs become useless?
  • Christopher1 - Sunday, January 6, 2008 - link

    They need to drop the price a whole lot before people like me are going to bite and buy one of these players.
  • blwest - Sunday, January 6, 2008 - link

    Especially when there are movies on both formats that people like.
  • Samus - Sunday, January 6, 2008 - link

    So now that BD players are $350, and HD-DVD players are <$200, they should be able to make a decent combo player for $500, right?
  • fesodes - Monday, January 7, 2008 - link

    <$200 hd dvd players? Last I checked the Toshiba HD-A3 cost 299 at bestbuy and 249.54 at Walmart. Just where do you get one for <$200?

  • Anonymous Freak - Sunday, January 6, 2008 - link

    Oh, if only it worked that way...

    Sadly, shabby is right. Combo players seem to be operating under the impression that you take the least expensive of each, then add their prices together, then double that.

    If you recall, the very first DVD +/- RW drives were the same way. It was cheaper to buy a DVD-R drive AND a DVD+RW drive. It took some time before +/- became the standard.

    (Heck, even 'Combo' CD-RW drives that could read DVDs were more expensive than buying a CD-RW and a DVD-ROM drive separately, even after DVD-R came out.)
  • chizow - Sunday, January 6, 2008 - link

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">LG BRD/HD-DVD combo drive $299
    Can be had for even cheaper if you know where to look. Keep in mind, BRD drives were around $600 this time last year with HD-DVD costing $400 or $200 for the MS XBox360 drive.

    There's also a Samsung Combo BRD/HD-DVD set top player just announced at CES for $599. Once these drop to $300-400 they'll effectively end the format war. My guess is that studios will continue to migrate towards BRD, effectively phasing out HD-DVD.
  • Spuke - Monday, January 7, 2008 - link

    $350 is getting there. My guess is I'll have a $100 Black Friday Bluray player later this year.

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