Marantz displays Blu-ray player
For some reason, CEDIA was surprisingly lacking in big HD DVD/Blu-ray news. One of the Blu-ray announcements was that Marantz, a highly respected consumer electronics company, was supporting Blu-ray with an early 2008 Blu-ray player.
The Marantz BD8002 is scheduled to retail for $2,099 in the first quarter of next year, and closely resembles the previously announced Denon player. This is no surprise because Denon and Marantz are both owned by parent company D&M Holdings (D&M standing for Denon & Marantz, of course). Both players sport the same form factor, same Silicon Optix Realta chipset, same v1.1 spec, same MSRP and same price point.
While it’s always nice to see another company supporting high-definition optical media, I’m more interested in finding more options in multiple categories (including price) than finding the same player with different names on the front to fulfill different distribution channels.
I have a pile of literature from CEDIA on my desk to go through, and I’ll find the more interesting new products and achievements to deliver.
