Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Are we doing ourselves 'no favours' re: S/H M Equipment ?

I was seriously considering another external VP to replace my Crystalio VPS-2300 (now that I've moved from SDI to HDMI sources).

My requirements list for video processing is:

1) Excellent cadence detection.
2) Ring-free scaling.
3) Jaggie-free de-interlacing for SD sport.
4) Judderless NTSC film.
5) EDIT editing to trick 576i over HDMI from a SkyHD box.

Only the forthcoming Lumagen RadianceXD will actually do all of the above for a Princely �2900.

However, having seen what the VXP processing in the JVC HD1 can do with DVD, I'm holding back. The internal HD1 processing covers #s 1-3. A newer HD DVD player with 1080p24 output would be a �500 option to achieve #4. Which only leaves #5 which is a nice-to-have but not worth spending a fortune on.

Times change and I think the days of the expensive external VP are numbered.

What Meridian should do, as per above, is upgrade existing G98/G91s at a reasonable price for "disgruntled" owners.

George,

I'm pretty sure that Meridian players never showed up in the benchmarks. I always found that odd.

To the entire subject and the Toshiba XA2, the fact of the matter is that fan of Meridian were doing themselves 'no favors' when they bought these overpriced, buggy units in the first place. I'm glad I never jumped in. Loving my XA1 and SB3, and I have about $6k left over to boot. And both products actually work as advertised.

I remember seeing the 596 in the benchmarks a few years back. Unless I was looking at a different benchmark...just looked at the entire list and its not there. Wierd!

Ron

The times are changing.
Perhaps the rule book has been re-writen.

Time to tidy things up on the site.

I haven't looked, but are other makes of equipment missing in a similar way?

Cheers, Chris

I'm pretty sure the 800 and G series players were never there, and I always thought "Now isn't that interesting."

this is fine in theory, but unrealistic in practice. what are you really willing to pay to have your G98 upgraded?

for $1K you can get a brand new, really amazing disc player that'll kick ass and take names.

would you spend $500 to upgrade your G98? would you spend $1000?

could they make money on these upgrades?

the dealers surely won't like the idea, right?

doody.

I'm pretty sure the 800 was there, it was a benchmark that stacey often compared against. They also reference Meridian in almost every review. G series might have never been on the list.

By the way the HD-DVD XA2 can be bought for US $397.00 these days.

I don't regret buying the 598 a bit. I bought it as a demo with full warranty for $3000.00 in 2003 used it for 3 years and sold it for $1250.00. There was a bug on one disk, I forget the issue, but I contacted Meridian and they immediately gave me a hot fix. It played flawlessly everything I ever put in it aftetr that. My only gripe was that it always had to be on while using other sources, so I could not leave a DVD in it. My only regret is I didn't look into SqueezeBox sooner.

I'd spend about 50% of the original G98 purchase price to gain the latest technology with the Meridian build quality. This would also not be unreasonable given the s/h pricing issues.

Dealers wouldn't like it? Well, sorry, but it's the loyal customers that need to be kept "on-side" from the Meridian point of view. Are you saying that Meridian dealers have such little brand loyalty that they would encourage their customers to buy another brand? Anyway, the dealers could be in the loop on this for a percentage. If you were a dealer, 20% of the upgrade cost is better than 20% of the cost of an alternative low cost player.

If you are saying that upgrades make no sense, then this makes the 800 series even more irrelevant.

Yes George, you are correct.
I did search for the posted link today, but couldn't find it.


Holtz'.

Aren't we all still thinking with existing "Meridian user" heads ..... for this company to thrive we need to figure out what new product Meridian produce that will fly off the shelves. Upgrades just won't help them grow their user base.

I like the suggestion that Meridian borrow a major manufacturers unit (which appears to be cheap and perform very well) and add not only their cosmetic sheen and user interface to it but also a "next" level of quality .... but the key to this will be to sell them for �1-2k not �3k plus, that way the units should fly off the shelves.

Trouble with that is our market for 5xx G and 8xx will fall off a cliff .....