MANCHESTER SHOW 2010: World launch of Arcam FMJ BDP100 Blu-ray player
Updated 16.10.10
Arcam's long-awaited BDP100 Blu-ray player finally gets its world launch at the Manchester Home Entertainment Show today.
The £1000 player had originally been due on sale in August, but has suffered several delays in its development. An optional 3D upgrade will be offered next year.
Our photographer is busy snapping away in the Arcam room right now, so we'll bring you more pictures of the player in our show picture blog later today.
And if you can make it to the Manchester Home Entertainment Show this weekend you can save a whopping £555 on the FMJ BDP100 Blu-ray player when bought with its AVR500 multichannel receiver, normally £3554.90 together but available at the show for £2999.95.
This and many more hot deals are available for this weekend only. Check out our news story for more big hi-fi and home cinema savings.
Published 08.07.10
This is Arcam's new BDP100 Blu-ray player, on sale late next month at £1000.
Part of the FMJ range, and available in either black or silver, the player is Arcam's first foray into Blu-ray, and it's planned that an optional 3D upgrade path will be offered next year.
The company says the machine offers very fast disc-loading – way faster than Denon or Pioneer, the company says – and very quiet and stable high-definition video.
But most of all Arcam claims the BDP100 is designed to get the best from CDs as well as Blu-ray and DVD software.
It uses high-quality 24-bit digital-to-analogue conversion from Wolfson, coupled with a linear phase Bessel filter, and high-precision re-clocking of data from the main decoder, resulting in reduced jitter.
Follow whathifi.com on Twitter
Comments
'Fraid so. No multi-channel analogue outputs, and a lost sale to me.
I hope arcam have not overlooked the fact that many people will require multi channel analogue outputs to pair this kit up with older style amps????
@ Jarra: And Oppo are going to build an new BD player from the ground up to focus on audio ability so that too will be worth waiting for.
Overall as a DVD139 owner I can't help but feel let down by the Arcam BD playee. It's not a Universal player for a start, it IS made in the good old PRC just as was feared and not in England which I think is a shame for British manufacturing as Arcam were the last semi-major manufacturer of disc spinners and there is no ABT scaling/deinterlacing hardware for SD discs - apparently it uses a Broadcom chip.
Now whilst this may be ok and fly through all the test disc cadence tests etc I wonder if the real-world picture on screen will be as amazing with less revered hardware onboard? Time will tell. I'm curious how the direct channel to screen Arcam are plugging can make up for the lack of top-end scaling when TV's themselves are not good scalers (scaling is always better carried out closer to source we were told endlessly when DVD's first started to get up-scaling hardware).
I await the WHF review. But I don't think my DV139 is in any danger of moving on....
The Oppo 93 comes out in November/December.....just as ghood at half the price.
I spoke with a distributer. It won't play SACD. It terms of CD quality, he said it is better than the Arcam CD17, but not as good as the CD37. Whatever it is, it will be a improvement over my 10 yr old Arcam MCD. I pray it is not as problematic my AVR500.
I maintain, this looks like a cheap mid 80s CD player. I'm sure looks will be deceiving though.
@jitensmerchant - 1) likely not, 2) likely yes (someone will figure it out) and 3) maybe (hope they do, but it doesn't affect me). In other words, I have no idea...lol.
We are Arcam dealers in the USA and the distributor knows less than that. I have one on order for myself, they said "late September" - we'll see. Using it in a 2 channel setup with digital out only to an external DAC (not using analogue).
@TrevD - I hope it's the univeral spinner we've all been waiting for too!
@manicm and @vinod_david - I think it looks fine...not flashy and besides it's available in silver...
@Ronald Archibald - you can't buy a Porsche for the price of a Vauxhall Corsa
@alex cook - I want one too. Hurry up and build the damn thing!
No SACD for this player, you'll need to look at the new Marantz & Denon machines for that
The three main questions are:
1. Will it play SACD's?
2. Can it be made region-free for both Blu-Ray and DVD?
3. Does it have two HDMI outputs?
Finally!! I do prefer to system match, and have been waiting for this since I got the AVR600 June last year. Hope its worth the wait, and glad to hear the 3D version is an upgrade as I have no interest in going that route. Please be the universal disc spinner I long for to complete my set up.......... Look forward to reading the review
Interested in the 3D option, will that mean they will also release an upgraded AVR500/600 to handle HDMI 1.4?
I wonder if DVD can be made region free and if there will be a Blu Ray work around? I hope so.
lets hope its not plagued with issues like the avr600
Hmmm... possibly a cat among the pigeons...
I think Arcam have brought all the manufacturing back to"in house". Look forward to the review.
Yeah, JD's not gonna be too happy about this dull slab of metal.
What! very expensive. Boring looks. Thanks team for the news.
I want one so much! don't think I'll manage to persuade my wife though - do you think you could give some away in the next comp?
Steep price but very exciting news indeed!!
Nice! No restraint, restraint....
But @ �1000 I'm thinking they must be making it in China surely? After all the DV135 was �900 on it's own as the bottom of the range of their DVD players. The DV139 was (and still is) �2000!