Juno:

Look inside the 800 and tell me what can stay.

MPEG-2 decoder? Sure, but you also need one that handles H.264 and VC-1. All of the High-Def capable decoders contain MPEG-2 decoders. No need for redundancy here.

Video processing? What works for 480i doesn't necessarily work for 1080. That probably has to be replaced.

Audio codecs? DD and DTS are bare minimum support. Beyond that there's TrueHD, DTS-HD and DTS-HD Master Audio. So the audio processing has to be redone, with more decoding horsepower.

Software? BD-J and new navigators for Blu-ray have to be created.

Encryption? Need to add AACS and BD+.

Many of these are available "off the shelf" for blu-ray. Meridian didn't use off the shelf for a large portion of the 800 spinner.

So what's left from the original chassis? Power supply and HDMI outputs are about it.

At which point, the "cost effective" portion becomes moot. I'm not saying it can't be done but I am saying I don't see the value in it.


Surround Music Fan/Computer Geek/Curmudgeon in training.
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