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Universal Player
Samsung
On September 2005, Samsung announced their work on a dual format player that
would support both HD DVD and Blu-ray in the same unit. At that time, Choi Gee-
Sung, Samsung’s consumer electronics chief, indicated that the unit would be made
available during 2006.
Likewise, Samsung representatives at CEDIA 2005 confirmed the effort, but did not
specify how they were planning to deal with the two different discs, nor it was clear if
there will be two different laser pickup hardware pieces.
Three months later, Samsung confirmed a change of direction. Samsung’s North
America senior vice president of marketing, Peter Weedfald, stated: “The rules that
govern the organizations touting the different technologies currently bar
manufacturers from combining the two standards into a single drive”.
An analyst from iSupply, Steve Kovsky, reported that a Japanese CE manufacturer
expressed: "Technically it is possible, but at this point, it doesn't look like it will
happen, which is a shame, because it will hinder adoption."
Adding to the subject of how Samsung could address a dual format Mr. Weedfald
commented:
“The conundrum is that you've got two different camps. You've got licensing issues,
you've got trademarks, you've got copyrights" he said. "You can't just be on the
Blu-ray side and say, 'We will put HD DVD in there', and the reverse is true.
Samsung may make a separate line of HD DVD players to complement the Blu-ray
players it plans to release later this year. This would allow Samsung to support both
formats, although not in a single product. The company, however, does not have
current plans to do so”, he said.
In June 2006, Samsung confirmed again that they had no plans to release a
universal player for both formats in 2006 or early 2007, while Korean executives
indicated, “Samsung has the ability to produce such a player, but does not have the
intention to actually do so”. Du-hyon Kim, an assistant manager in Samsung's home
platform product planning group, added:
“We are considering a player that can play BD and HD-DVD, a universal player. We
can't say when we might introduce such a player. If we launch a universal player,
the decision would be made at the end of this year or early next year. Samsung has
no intention to join the HD DVD player market, but if market trends are going to HD
DVD or to a universal player, then we are going too. We are concentrating on Bluray.
However, although Samsung has communications and alliances with Toshiba on
standard DVD products, the two companies have no formal licensing agreements on
HD DVD, but we want to make clear that Samsung is ‘fully committed’ to Blu-ray”.
However, in April 2007, Samsung announced their plans to release a Duo player that
would be able to play HD DVD and Blu-ray discs, the player will be available by the
holiday season of 2007. The BD-UP5000 would also support the interactive
technologies of both formats (HDi and BD-Java).
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