Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Official CES 2010 Announcements (no speculation please)

Using CinemaSquid, just did a quick current check

** Total of 8,886 Bluray discs Titles available worldwide (which would usually include about 4-6 Regional or Marketing versions of the same Movie, so possibly about 1,750 Titles

** Total of 214 Blurays available which have 7.1 Native on the disc (i.e. about 2.4%)

** Total of 54 Blurays with 6.1 Native Audio on the Disc

Sadly agree with latest comments but think (hope?) there's still much (some?) we don't know. Certainly M know their installed base and have modeled our (customers) reaction to the upgrade plan/price list. I don't see why they would want to create a two tier customer base, effectively segmenting the many old product users from the very few newest of customers.JimK

Thanks a lot Frank for your time and effort. So v6 is a new foundation- I am happy and sad (upgrade $$ will be pretty high then). My 3.3K G91 is toast

More fun in March when upgrade pricing is published

Cheers,
Kishore

I don't think there will be any debate between 861 vs G68 now. Finally 861 can really differentiate itself once again.

Very dissappointed G68 won't get apodizing, so much for good things will come for those who wait. Who was it that said that? Bob? No way even if I had an 861 would I pay $20K-ish to upgrade it, that's out my budget.

It wouldn't be so bad if the HD621 had SPDIF input. It's a kludge to get two channel through an HD621 and who knows how much HDMI harms things. Who was it that said HDMI is very harmful? Bob?

So much for the 5500 getting upgraded. Who was it that said that? Bob?

Yet, if that logic holds, somewhere around $20K for an upgrade, who is going to bother to do it - and then from M's perspective, why bother to offer it? If it is either cheaper, or a wash, to sell one's current 861v4 and then buy a new 861v6, offering an upgrade makes no sense.

In that context, perhaps there is some kind of 'insider' upgrade price, or some credit back for older boards. I just don't see asking north of $8K or so with any kind of realistic expectation that many folks are going to do it. Pure conjecture on my part (not speculation, this is a speculation-free thread, after all), so we'll see what develops.

Also, I wonder if M will continue to make versions of the v4 boards (IA45, ID20, etc.).

Lastly, I guess Frank's report puts to bed any chance of M making a Bluray player anytime soon.

I don't think anything has been said which implies the *new* G68 and *new* G61R will never get apodizing, and there has always been a single G68 firmware for all variants.

However, I think the Meridian we knew and loved is truly dead. I am quite staggered that Meridian has hung 90% of its existing customer base out to dry. Either exceedingly brave, exceedingly naive, or exceedingly arrogant.

I cannot believe it that simply all must be changed.
Unless they sort of give it away to me for a decent price, i cannot affor to pay like 3/4 of the unit cost for a upgrade.

That would mean stay with current version, or dump the lot and start over.

Also looking at the picture, the C00 card looks 100% the same, so why not change that over to USB when you re-do everything..
All of my new PC's not even have a serial converter any more.

Ronnie,

Instead of spending $20k you could do:

take the 2- channel SPDIF signal from any source -> route it through Gefen DVI+SPDIF to HDMI converter into HDMI -> HDMI into HD621 -> Speakerlink on 861.

I am using this set up for apodizing my Sooloos signal since last March, it is night and day on the sound quality. Apodizing is really game changing good!

Total "upgrade" cost: �200.

Mirek

Mirek. We know that the apodizing implementation is different in each different product due to architecture and available MIPS. The reference implementation for two channel has, to date, been the 808i.2 (apparently). It remains to be seen how the 861v6's apodizing compares. Using the HD621 is a workaround (which I currently use to great effect) which probably doesn't match the quality of the 808i.2's implementation. And that is the problem if you want the very best.

It could be that this is a marketing decision and not just a technically necessary one.

Offering an upgrade for the 861v2/v3/v4 will impact sales of the 861v6.

http://www.blu-raystats.com/Stats/Stats.php?OrderBy=Title&Audio=7.1


And a lot of it is garbage.

But this does not take away from the fact that this is a strange decision from a company who always put 7.1 on the spot.

We will see how this all works out. I cannot believe a Meridian dealer will have an easy choice explaining this to a potential customer. Even if he is not going to use 7.1. Apart from the fact that he has to buy another pricy 'box' to able to use HDMI capable sources. And that he has to make sure that those are not 'bitstream' only.

It was already dead the moment the investors took over. I am still wondering why nobody wanted to see this. I commented several times on this, but was never taken serious. I hate to say this, and I hate to be right, but I said so. There were so many signs, it was hard to ignore.

My vote goes to exceedingly stupid.