How cheap by Christmas?

At this point the only one available will be the Samsung, and currently it is slated to be $1049

A used LG Super Multi Blue for $ 699 via ebay.

Who the hell still pays MSRP ? What I'd like to know is street price, and I bet with the 2nd gen LG coming out right at the same time, we'll find a dual format player (not counting the crippled 1st gen LG) for $899 max. street price, possibly even $799.

I bet we see that Samsung for $800

I hope so.

I'm looking forward to getting a used one in a year for half price.

I higly doubt it will be found for less than $900 maybe even $950 whenever it gets released.

Why would they slash prices when they are the only ones in the game? Just makes good business sense to make money on it while they can.

LG is also in the game, and they just cut the price of their dual format player by $200.

The LG unit is a piece of you know what and everyone knows it. And knowing that, they STILL have it priced at $1000.

Umm... no it's not. I have one and I'm very happy with it. Does it lack a few features, yes. But that doesn't make it a POS. What it does do, it does very well. Besides, by the time everything is said and done with all of the final specs and features of both formats, I would be willing to bet that the more features a player has, the more expensive it's going be. Especially for the next year or so.

But the price of it dropped. There is going to be competition between the two dual format players for the slightly lower price even though the Samsung has all of the HD DVD features. If a 3rd dual format player is announced at Cedia and released in time for the holidays there will be just as much competition for the dual format player part of the market as there is for the single format player.

Three would be a charm IMO. LG would have to get the HD DVD side up to spec, and I think the positive trend toward dual-format would be on the move.

I sometimes think Toshiba should have a go, ironically it would be their Trojan-horse.

I agree a 3rd one would help, but Sammy has been harping about their 3 new players for a month and a half, especially the dual player. Don't you think is another CE was doing it they would have said something by now? Maybe not. I guess we will see.

I think many people on both sides are going to be disappointed by CEDIA.

I see your point Woodshed, but I hope the opposite is true.

In the aftermath of the M$/Paramount/Dreamworks announcement, DF are much more desirable. Sammy would stand to sell a lot more units and make a lot more money with a more appealing price.

OTOH, I don't think they'll move many stand-alone BD players at all. Why buy into either side (alone) if you haven't already?

I agree...the LG is garbage. I bought it and found out it doesn't even play PCM through HDMI... Took it back immediately...

That doesn't make it garbage. The LG does have a little thing called a... I dunno... a digital coax out? Maybe you've heard of it? You people kill me.

Back to the topic.

Does anyone know anything about price drops DF players. Someone in another thread boldly proclaimed that the LG was going to drop to $599 some time in Sept. I asked him to back it up, but I got no response.

Waiting for the affordable DF player. See no reason to buy into either side at this point.

My LG BH100 dealer claims they are moving BH100s as fast as they bring them in. As long as this is the case, no reason for LG or even their competitors to drop the price of Dual format players very much. And maybe it IS expensive to build a dual format player.

I don't know about HDMI, but 5.1 uncompressed PCM and TrueHD via the analog 5.1 outputs sounds pretty good. And I'm getting very good results with the DTS core track via Coax digital output. Can't say I'm real impressed with DDplus but that might be a player issue.

+1

For my money, this ridiculous format war has rendered all single format players obsolete. The first manufacturer to announce a full-featured DF player that costs less than the price of two SF players will have my attention.

May I amend?

The first manufacturer to announce a full-featured DF player that costs less than the price of an entry-level Blu-ray player will have my attention.

That's the key and sweet-spot to launching a dual-format war that has any legs. It's got to offer more than simply HD DVD; and still be a cheaper alternative to moving to Blu-ray (which the HD DVD camp is not going to do at current prices).

1+1 has to equal 1.5 in price, not 2 or 2+.

I hear you Popcorn, but I'm looking for the manufacturers to at least *announce* something that may be a bit higher than you'd like, so that the street prices can begin to get reasonable. Until that happens, I won't buy in.

IOW, I don't need it to be $199 before I jump, but I need to feel confident that it *will* get to $199 so that J6P will get in the game (someday) and my investment won't go to waste (hello SACD/DVD-A).

Video Game players.