Rotel Blu-Ray Player

[GaryM]

Are there any plans for a Rotel Blu-Ray Player? Maybe the 15 series?

[hifiguymi]

Maybe next year. Rotel is looking at it but nothing has been decided as of yet. That is per my rep as of a few weeks ago.

Eric

[marky mark]

the rotel rep said the the next half of the 15 series will be out in march or april, that includes a new blue-ray player and a new cd player as well

[GaryM]

Thanks for the Info. I will take a serious look at the 15 series for a possible upgrade from my current 1068 when I see all the pieces in place. GM

[PewterTA]

I'd steer away from making a blu-ray player. I don't think blu-ray is going to be around too long.

I've been reading up on some of the new techs they have out there and to basically be the size of a thumb drive and hold well over 1 or 2TB of data... and produced at the SAME or less cost than blu-ray.

Blu-ray only has another year or two for movies I think... Of course it'll still be used for the PS3 & Xbox360 (as we all know the 360 is getting a blu-ray player).

[hifiguymi]

I'd steer away from making a blu-ray player. I don't think blu-ray is going to be around too long.

I've been reading up on some of the new techs they have out there and to basically be the size of a thumb drive and hold well over 1 or 2TB of data... and produced at the SAME or less cost than blu-ray.
Blu-ray only has another year or two for movies I think... Of course it'll still be used for the PS3 & Xbox360 (as we all know the 360 is getting a blu-ray player).

Where have you read that? Could you provide a link? I do think, long term, solid state memory will be better than an optical drive, but I think it's a ways off before it's affordable.

I do think BD will be around for a while. I would bet it will have a life span close to DVD's run before BD came out.

Eric

[bnieman]

The Future

Personally I think it's a race between solid state and video-on-demand. It's amazing how fast technology progresses. The bottleneck for video-on-demand will be infrastructure as fiber-optic connections are only available to a privileged few.

Regardless. I think there is a good chance Blu-Ray will be the last widely accepted physical form of movie media.

With that said, I would be very interested in a Rotel Blu-Ray player but its price point will be of utmost importance (the price of Rotel's latest upconverting DVD player with HDMI is completely outlandish)

What is everyone out there running for Blu-Ray? I am waiting eagerly for a sub $1000 player with on-board decoding of DTS-HD-MA to join forces with my RSP-1068. I've been eying up the Pioneer 51-FD as it only needs a firmware update...

Cheers,
Bryan

[btf1980]

What is everyone out there running for Blu-Ray? I am waiting eagerly for a sub $1000 player with on-board decoding of DTS-HD-MA to join forces with my RSP-1068. I've been eying up the Pioneer 51-FD as it only needs a firmware update...

I've had many players, and right now, the PS3 is what I use. A great bang for the buck!

[hifiguymi]

Bryan needs a player that has multi channel analog outputs and the PS3 doesn't.

Both the Sony BDP-S550 and the Panasonic DMP-BD55 have multi channel analog outputs and decode dtsHD MA. The decoder in the Sony is pretty good using the HDMI output, but I don't know how good the DACs and analog stage are. I don't have any experience with the Panasonic. I do know that the Pioneer (and the Pioneer Elite) don't have a complete feature set for the analog outputs. The subwoofer is lacking in set up capabilities.

Eric

[bnieman]

Eric,

Unfortunately only the RSP-1069 has HDMI capability, I am restricted to only analog inputs on the RSP-1068 for uncompressed high resolution surround sound.

I've read the picture quality on the Pioneer 51-FD exceeds the Panasonic and Sony and has better DACs, but that's all useless if the DTS-HD-MA decoding is still locked.

I am curious to see what Oppo comes out with, although I've never owned any of their components.

bft1980 - PS3 would be great if I had the RSP-1069! Or some device with quality DACs that could strip the LPCM signal from HDMI and output via analog. If only I was an audio engineer

[hifiguymi]

Since the RSP-1069 is disco'ed you should look at the RSX-1570. Rotel just started taking orders on the RSP-1570 yesterday (and will start shipping them next month) you would be set with any BD player with a Rotel upgrade.

Just an FYI. The RSX-1550 is the first to ship (which is happening this week now that are done with QC) of the new 15 Series preamp / receivers. Rotel is doing 100% QC on the first batch of each the RSX-1560 and RSP-1570 now (just like they did with the RSX-1550), and once that is done, they will start shipping. So far all of them have been rock solid and the HDMI is working great from what the people at Rotel have said. I'm looking forward to getting our store demos.

Eric

[bnieman]

Eric,

As much as I would LOVE to get the new 15 series pre/pro, it is much more costly than buying just a Blu-Ray player (even if I sell my RSP-1068)

I am running a RSP-1068 to RMB-1085 (Class D 100x5 ICE amp)... My only thought would be to sell both and get a new 15 series Class D receiver, but I in NO way want to compromise sound quality.

If you could rationalize it for me somehow, I would be much obliged

Bryan

[hifiguymi]

Bryan,

I agree that the RSP-1570 is more that a good BD player, but if you thought of upgrading in the near future, you could get a BD player that did bitstreaming (like the Sony BDP-S350 or Panasonic DMP-BD35) for now and save the money towards the RSP-1570. Dolby Digital and dts wouldn't be all that bad for the short term.

With that said, I bet the RSX-1560 is going to be pretty good. All you would need is a bitstreaming BD player for that as well. I guess we'll know soon enough how it will stack up.

Eric

[bnieman]

I'll be very interested in how the Class-D amps in the 15 series receivers stack up against the dedicated Class-D amps in the 10 series.

I am sure I will be going in for a demo or two at my dealer

[toledoguy]

If you can be patient until early next year apparently Oppo is coming out with a new Blu-Ray player that will have unboard Tru-HD and the other new Codec decoding and output in 7.1 analog. I do not have a blu-ray player myself and have decided to hold off buying one to replace the DVD player until the Oppo unity comes out. I've read nothing but good things about Oppo. It's an internet only company, the reviews are great. A number of people on this Forum swear by it. Their products are reasonably priced

[Blindamood]

If you can be patient until early next year apparently Oppo is coming out with a new Blu-Ray player that will have unboard Tru-HD and the other new Codec decoding and output in 7.1 analog. I do not have a blu-ray player myself and have decided to hold off buying one to replace the DVD player until the Oppo unity comes out. I've read nothing but good things about Oppo. It's an internet only company, the reviews are great. A number of people on this Forum swear by it. Their products are reasonably priced

If you go to Oppo's web site now, you can sign up for email updates on the new blu-ray player.

[gianni]

Going back a few posts: while I agree that eventually VOD may challenge Blu-ray, I think it is more than a year or two before this happens.

Bandwith is the issue not to mention that many outlying areas still lack basic high speed internet of any flavor. I have a pretty fast connection and find that VOD still leaves much to be desired. For one, even the HD movies are HD-lite at best when it comes to video quality. As far as soundtracks go, they are generally even worse as many still lack surround of any type. On average typical SD DVD is better when it comes to sound quality.

The Blu disc may be the last physical format but VOD still has a way to go. Considering how the pricing for Blu is coming down, I don't see myself gravitating towards VOD when I want to watch quality video. I hope Rotel does do a BR player as we are seeing from NAD and many others. As they proliferate, the chances of the format taking hold can only increase. I am ready for something better than SD DVD and so far VOD has fallen way short. Bring on the Blu disc.

[watchnerd]

Importantly (at least to me), the Oppo player is a hybrid Blu Ray / SACD player.

I hope Rotel's is, too.

[bnieman]

I highly highly doubt it will be a Blu Ray/SACD since Rotel has never touched SACD. There is chance it could be a Blu-Ray/DVD-A player though...

Regarding VOD I am in total agreement the current VOD leave MUCH to be desired but again technology advances quickly and right now I live in the Midwest and am surfing the web with a cable modem at 15mb/sec (megabits that is). Cable modems would max out at around 30mb/sec if they weren't throttled and you could push a lot of data through with that much bandwidth.

I for one wouldn't mind waiting 45 minutes to start a movie while it downloaded a chunk of it first if it means DTS-HD-Master Audio and full 1080p

We can't be that far off if the torrent sites serve up all the latest releases as Blu-Ray ISOs (around 25-40GB each)

[Rayda]

I guess currently the pragmatic approach is using a NAS drive to avoid the VOD bandwidth issue, provided the content supplier allows downloads to be stored for retrieval.

If the SKY-type satellite providers are anything to go by, this works when downloading to their own devices (which of course you must purchase/subscribe to and also put up with their often limited codecs, etc) where they allow the download to be stored for a set timeframe and then automatically deleted. Still a compromise, but then how many times do we really watch the same movie we've purchased in hard copy (disc) form . . .

[imbeaujp]

On my oppinion, Rotel will not release a BluRay player because the bluRay market is too small and not really growing up as expected.

Good Standard DVD player with state of the art upscaling circuit give impressive results ! Why go bluRay ? Of course if you have a 120" screen, hi definition is important but on a standard 50" flat panel, a well masterised Std DVD give the same result if you are seating 7-8 foot from the screen...

[Allegiance]

On my oppinion, Rotel will not release a BluRay player because the bluRay market is too small and not really growing up as expected.

Good Standard DVD player with state of the art upscaling circuit give impressive results ! Why go bluRay ? Of course if you have a 120" screen, hi definition is important but on a standard 50" flat panel, a well masterised Std DVD give the same result if you are seating 7-8 foot from the screen...

I totally disagree, I have a PS3 with a Samsung 40inch M8 1080p LCD and there are big differences in PQ and especially SQ. Have you tried Blu-Ray for yourself in your own setup?

[Nolan B]

On my oppinion, Rotel will not release a BluRay player because the bluRay market is too small and not really growing up as expected.

Good Standard DVD player with state of the art upscaling circuit give impressive results ! Why go bluRay ? Of course if you have a 120" screen, hi definition is important but on a standard 50" flat panel, a well masterised Std DVD give the same result if you are seating 7-8 foot from the screen...

I 100% disagree

[wz2p7j]

Blu-Ray vs Upscaled Standard DVD

Agree and disagee. Some upconverted standard DVD'd look pretty darn good, some look pretty darn bad. On the other hand, I have some older movies that were recently released on Blu-Ray and I was rather disappointed with the PQ. Newer movies that were probably engineered with a later release on Blu-Ray in mind usually look stupendous, no way can 480p upconverted 1080i or p compare. Just my 2 cents. I should add I only have about 5 Blu-Ray discs in my collection so far, so my experience is a little limited. Chris

[NMG]

I totally disagree, I have a PS3 with a Samsung 40inch M8 1080p LCD and there are big differences in PQ and especially SQ. Have you tried Blu-Ray for yourself in your own setup?

Agree 400%. Audio improvements aside, the difference in PQ between regular DVD and a Blu-Ray on my TV is astronomical. To add some additional context, I'm also a guy who tends to think that the benefits of bi-wiring, high end cables and expensive speaker wire are miniscule or non-existent, LOL

[Ken49r]

On my oppinion, Rotel will not release a BluRay player because the bluRay market is too small and not really growing up as expected.

That may be due to the fact consumers are not willing to give up the older TV yet. Especially if they purchased only a couple years ago. HDTV's have only come down in price the last year or so making them affordable to a bigger market. Also those that purchased 720p/1080i may feel going Blu-ray does not offer an advantage if they do not have 1080p.
I really thought if the economy would not have gone in the tank this Christmas season would have sold a lot more 1080p TV's. We'll see.
Blu-ray is growing though. I can tell by the local Blockbuster store I visit. The Blu-ray section has grown and more and more movies are off the shelf.

Don't know why Rotel would not offer Blu-ray in it's next Video player since they added all the latest HDMI decoding in the new RSP-1570.
Also if and when Blu-ray 3.0 (audio only) enters the market the demand from Rotel will be even greater. I bought Dave Mathews and Tim Reynolds "Live at Radio City" last night and the Dolby TrueHD (96khz/24bit) was just amazing.

[gianni]

I just hope that even though the roll out and implementation of BR has been disappointing, those predicting failure of BR are wrong. Not only is there the improved PQ, but BR holds promise for a high res audio format that may take hold where SACD and DVD-A failed to. Other than hobbyists, few people were interested in the high res audio formats. Now if it can be incorporated into BR players average Joe is buying anyway, it stands a better chance.