Naim Blu-ray player?

Posted by: DT79 on 20 August 2010

Sorry if this is a question that has been asked many times before or if there is an obvious reason why the answer is no, but does any know if Naim has any plans to make a Blu-ray player?

Posted on: 12 October 2010 by Neill Ferguson

quote:
Originally posted by lawoftrust:
Neill,

I agree with your entire statement, if only the sound of Linn would compare what Naim offers me...

Hey mate some of the Linn DS stuff sounds pretty good to me the ranges are easier to understand and they have plenty of choices.

Its the dark side but is there any other thing to do at present? You can still get Linn centre channels at least.

Posted on: 12 October 2010 by lawoftrust

A centre speaker is at least something...

Posted on: 12 November 2010 by Billy Rubin

Things may be moving more quickly than you think.

I bought a $99 Apple TV box recently and streamed a HD movie on the first day.

Not only did it play faultlessly but the quality was easily superior to DVD (on a 60 inch Pioneer Kuro top-of-the-line plasma), albeit not *quite* at 1080p Blu-ray quality.

I have a regular broadband internet connection - nothing fancy - and the Apple Tv is connected via Ethernet to my home network.

I think that streaming *has* come of age. Coincidentally, my second, 9 month old Pioneer Elite Blu-ray player broke down a few days after I got the Apple TV (and this was a warranty replacement for the first BDP-HD1 Elite player which failed after 30 months). Although I will replace it (just waiting to see whether or not Pioneer Canada will honour the warranty), doing does not seem as urgent as it would have only a few months ago. With a $8 per month Netflix subscription for movie streaming and pay-as-you-go HD new release streaming from the iTunes Music Store, as well as the ability to stream movies already stored in the iTunes library on my iMac, we're not missing the blu-ray player greatly.

Whilst I don't think that blu-ray is dying, I wouldn't be surprised if Naim don't pursue a replacement for the AV2 / DVD5. The game has simply moved on too much...

quote:
Originally posted by {OdS}:
Regarding blu-ray technology, I think the future is bright. If I'm not mistaken, the blu-ray association plans to keep the current technology untouched for the next two decades (concerning video and audio encoding) to ensure compatibility between old media and recent players as well as recent media and older hardware. Sure enough, the technology surround blu-ray constantly evolves (bd-live and so on), but this doesn't impact the encoding of the movie. The "big boys" add tons of useless features on every new generation of players, but most basic functionalities are left untouched.

Regarding video steaming, well, we'll need a bandwidth of 70 mbits/s to achieve blu-ray quality. This won't happen before a long time in most countries. Then, there's the obvious difficulty for most lambda users to properly set up the steaming client, connect the tv to the net and so on. Whatever Microsoft has to say about it, steaming for the masses won't be a reality before a long time in my opinion (plus, keep in mind that MS decided the blu-ray sucked the day they releasized Sony would put in on their consoles while MS chose to use the good old DVD).

Regarding physical formats obsolescence, well, I'm still waiting for the VHS tape and the vinyl disc to die for good. Heck, you can even buy an HDD recorder with built-in VHS recorder!! Not talking about the CD, which has been "dying" for nearly a decade now.

My point is, I think there's a place for the blu-ray as much as there's a place for video streaming, dvd and even VHS. They'll be there as long as they sell and we know that many people simply don't want to change their habbits.

Posted on: 12 November 2010 by GreenAlex

And you don't even need extra players anymore. If you buy a digital satellite receiver with a linux based system you can stream any format, hook up usb hdds, sata hdds and play full quality blurays.

and on top you get hd satellite tv

Posted on: 12 November 2010 by BigH47

quote:
If you buy a digital satellite receiver with a linux based system

For instance?

Posted on: 12 November 2010 by GreenAlex

any dreambox, kathrein ufs 910,922,912,atevio 700, 7000, ipbox, topfield, vu+...

but only the newer ones also support native vc-1 hardware decoding. but basically all of them support 1080p mkv with dd/dts.

Posted on: 14 November 2010 by TomK

quote:
Originally posted by GreenAlex:
And you don't even need extra players anymore. If you buy a digital satellite receiver with a linux based system you can stream any format, hook up usb hdds, sata hdds and play full quality blurays.

and on top you get hd satellite tv

And this is going to appeal to exactly what percentage of the market?

Posted on: 15 November 2010 by PJT

quote:
Originally posted by Billy Rubin:
Things may be moving more quickly than you think.

I bought a $99 Apple TV box recently and streamed a HD movie on the first day.

Not only did it play faultlessly but the quality was easily superior to DVD (on a 60 inch Pioneer Kuro top-of-the-line plasma), albeit not *quite* at 1080p Blu-ray quality.

I have a regular broadband internet connection - nothing fancy - and the Apple Tv is connected via Ethernet to my home network.

I think that streaming *has* come of age. Coincidentally, my second, 9 month old Pioneer Elite Blu-ray player broke down a few days after I got the Apple TV (and this was a warranty replacement for the first BDP-HD1 Elite player which failed after 30 months). Although I will replace it (just waiting to see whether or not Pioneer Canada will honour the warranty), doing does not seem as urgent as it would have only a few months ago. With a $8 per month Netflix subscription for movie streaming and pay-as-you-go HD new release streaming from the iTunes Music Store, as well as the ability to stream movies already stored in the iTunes library on my iMac, we're not missing the blu-ray player greatly.

Whilst I don't think that blu-ray is dying, I wouldn't be surprised if Naim don't pursue a replacement for the AV2 / DVD5. The game has simply moved on too much...

My home broadband connection still stalls watching 360kbs you tube, so there is no way I would even comtemplate streaming any sort of movie over the internet.

Posted on: 25 November 2010 by TomK

quote:
Originally posted by Billy Rubin:
Things may be moving more quickly than you think.

I bought a $99 Apple TV box recently and streamed a HD movie on the first day.

Not only did it play faultlessly but the quality was easily superior to DVD (on a 60 inch Pioneer Kuro top-of-the-line plasma), albeit not *quite* at 1080p Blu-ray quality.

I have a regular broadband internet connection - nothing fancy - and the Apple Tv is connected via Ethernet to my home network.

I think that streaming *has* come of age. Coincidentally, my second, 9 month old Pioneer Elite Blu-ray player broke down a few days after I got the Apple TV (and this was a warranty replacement for the first BDP-HD1 Elite player which failed after 30 months). Although I will replace it (just waiting to see whether or not Pioneer Canada will honour the warranty), doing does not seem as urgent as it would have only a few months ago. With a $8 per month Netflix subscription for movie streaming and pay-as-you-go HD new release streaming from the iTunes Music Store, as well as the ability to stream movies already stored in the iTunes library on my iMac, we're not missing the blu-ray player greatly.

Whilst I don't think that blu-ray is dying, I wouldn't be surprised if Naim don't pursue a replacement for the AV2 / DVD5. The game has simply moved on too much...

What kind of connection do you have? What speed? Mine is nominally 20Mbps, I suspect way faster than average in the UK and there's no way I could do this. When I run benchmarks I get something between 2 and 17. I believe blu ray max is 40 Mbps so we're miles away from this being achievable over here, and I suspect in many other parts of the world. Especially when half the town wants to watch hi def. All this talk of streaming hi def movies is no more than pie in the sky for most of us.

Posted on: 26 November 2010 by {OdS}

quote:
Originally posted by TomK:
I believe blu ray max is 40 Mbps so we're miles away from this being achievable over here

this is for the video only. you need to add 30mbits/s for audio, which makes it even farther unachievable for most people.

Posted on: 26 November 2010 by GreenAlex

well, 70mbps might be a bit much, but then again anyone who gets hd satellite tv knows how good it can be and those use far less than that

plus, who said it had to be live online streaming? why not download it and stream it locally through a gigabit lan?

@tomk:
well, sure, people who don't know their options will always chose the easiest. that's why apple is so popular despite being, well, not exactly the best there is. marketing is everything nowadays and good sheep are worth billions

Posted on: 26 November 2010 by TomK

GreenAlex,
My original point was that you're addressing a very small part of the overall market and I stand by that. Just how many people on this board know what you're talking about, never mind the overall population? Last time I looked most folk here didn't even have cable or satellite. My mother loved her movies and bought loads on VHS and latterly on DVD. I'd guess she bought more movies than the average punter but she loved being able to slot a tape or disk in and play it right away. She'd have laughed at the idea that she had to get onto "that Internet thing" just so she could watch a movie. And there are millions like her who don't have the slightest knowledge of or interest in "streaming" or "gigabit lans". Until all that is hidden deep down in the UI we're miles away from it being something the general public will be interested in.

And in this country at least for the foreseeable future downloading a hi def movie, even it is compressed appropriately, is still going to take a while.

Posted on: 27 November 2010 by GreenAlex

OK, that is true. But we are talking the future here. Not the present.
And the key markets for new technologies and their viability are in Asia and the US.

But you are right. Right now, although in Germany we have 100MBit/s internet in a lot of places, hardly anybody is willing to pay for it and the average is something like 6Mbit/s.

Key to such a feature will of course be ease of use. So basically Apple will have to decide to make some kind of iPlayerHD that will take care of everything with just one push of a button

But that is quite a while to go before something like that will be able to replace discs. But I do think it will start to appear in a few years.

Posted on: 27 November 2010 by TomK

Agree entirely