The rout is on for Blu-Ray

Swell.

I have "updated" my Samsung 1400 in January and February (every 30 days). I can go up to the Blockbuster and pay $4.50 to rent the latest Die Hard in BluRay to see if it will play now that I have done two firmware updates. If it still does not play do you think Samsung or Blockbuster will refund my money? Never had this problem with any Toshiba HD-DVD player.

On the heals of Warner Bros. decision to go with Blue-Ray, it appears that a knock-out is close at hand....

Blu-Ray article from Slashdot (http://slashdot.org/)today;
Samsung Sued Over "Defective" Blu-ray Player

"Anneka notes that, although both Netflix and Best Buy threw logs on HD DVD's funeral pyre today, things are not all going Blu-ray's way. A Connecticut man is suing Samsung, the maker that brought the first Blu-ray players to market, over its "defective" BD-P1200 player. The lawsuit seeks class-action status. The problem is that the Samsung BD-P1200 is a "Profile 1.0" player that can't play some Blu-ray discs and Samsung has no intention (or ability) to upgrade these players via firmware."

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080211-samsung-sued-over-defective-first-gen-blu-ray-players.html

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9062002&intsrc=hm_list

I wouldn't throw out my HDDVD player just yet. Sony is a strong company and much like Microsoft in this instance. I think HD DVD is a better product in many regards in the long term, much better capacity vs. BluRay which is based on a different algorithm that requires a lot more capacity to deliver the same product (video as the primary data source). While HD DVD video requires significantly less capacity to carry the same quality video signal, leaving a lot more room for other sources (such as full or higher resolution audio).

The movie company's may like the security of the BluRay better because it requires multiple steps and processing of the code, which is very complicated and much more difficult to success implement. I think that the press on this is driven more by the corporation behind BluRay than the consumers and media providers outside of BluRay control and influence.

Additionally, with additional considerations to copy management and content play management of BluRay, I think it is safe to say that being an early adopter of BluRay may pose a real headache as these issues get resolved, as we have seen with the initial BluRay disc spinners.