back to article Arcam FMJ BDP100 Blu-ray Disc player

If you’re an Arcam aficionado, there must have been times when you thought the arrival of a Blu-ray Disc player would never come. The brand’s original strategy, to support both HD DVD and BD with a universal player, was shunted off the road when the HD format war came to an abrupt end. A second, BD-only project met a similar …

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  1. Antidisestablishmentarianist

    Very nice

    But I'd still get one of these instead: http://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-bdp-95/

    (Although the Arcam is a better looker)

    1. StooMonster

      Agreed

      That's what I am doing, getting the Oppo BDP-95 firstly because the Oppo has 'Source Direct' for video (key feature of any decent player), secondly because of it's ultra high quality analogue audio output.

      The Oppo BDP-93 is also an excellent model.

      I do wonder why Arcam didn't do a Meridian and simply use Oppo board as the OEM board inside their own case.

  2. Greg J Preece

    A thousand quid??

    There seems to be a lot missing for that amount of money. The reviewer seemed to be apologising for a lot of missing functionality, when I would certainly expect a player costing this much to be missing nothing.

    OK, the ultimate output quality might not be as perfect, but you can get 4 or 5 PS3s for the price of this thing, and look at how much they do (state of PSN jokes aside).

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    Nukular, should of, ATM machine, etc.

    "hoi polloi" means "the people".

    So "the hoi polloi" means "the the people".

    It could also be rendered as "this scribbler knows nothing about Greek, and not enough about English".

    And plus, a grand sterling for a Victrola? You chaps are aware that physical media is obsolete, right?

    1. Spartacus
      FAIL

      "this scribbler knows nothing about Greek, and not enough about English"

      Strictly the translation of 'hoi polloi' from Greek is 'the majority'.

      But as an adopted loanword 'hoi polloi' does not have a translation, as it IS an English word, it is NOT two English words. Its meaning is 'the people' as rabble also means 'the people'. Hence if you are to use the rabble, you should also use the hoi polloi.

      see also Alcohol, a loanword from the Arabic 'al-kuhl' where 'al' translates directly as 'the'.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Slow loading...

    "The remastered Goldfinger Blu-ray from Fox Home Entertainment took a lengthy one minute 14 seconds to bring up the 007 logo" - then I saw the 'Java powered' logo on the rear panel.

    All became clear.

  5. The First Dave
    WTF?

    Price

    This had better give me a better picture than an IMAX cinema at that price!

  6. jason 7
    Stop

    So inside...

    .which £150 OEM BD player board/transport is installed?

    I mean we are paying just for the fancy case here arent we? Thats usual with these sorts of players.

    Arcam etc. cant afford to make their own gear anymore. Very few of them can.

    Some never did.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Multi-region support

    Multi-region support?

    Thought not. NFI.

  8. David Halko
    Dead Vulture

    Does it support Video CD?

    Anyone willing to spend this much money on a new high-end BluRay player most likely has a large library of former high-end media that they find important to retain.

    By 2005, nearly half of all Chinese households had VCD players, so VCD compatibility is an important item to list in any modern review.

    http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-01/12/content_408150.htm

  9. Bad Beaver
    FAIL

    So...

    ... no proper codec support and no SACD playback either. For more than £1000. Thanks, but no thanks.

  10. Some Beggar
    IT Angle

    Magic beans.

    "HD images sparkle with detail and believable, nuanced colour. "

    Could you explain how these details and colours differ in any way at all from those produced by any other decoder?

    If it is decoding the standard digital codecs from a standard BD then the digits that come out of the (standard, digital) HDMI cable ought to be exactly the same as the digits that come out of back of a (standard, digital) bluray player you can buy for 200 quid down at Tesco. The key words here are "digital" and "standard".

    Am I missing some magic beans?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Damn titles

      You're pretty much right - as pointless as a "high-end" HDMI cable.. But they will argue that their components are high quality, so less interference, and they will probably say they have better picture processing (which some people may argue is as bad as an EQ equalizer on old stereos)

      At the end of the day, this will use the same components as players costing a fraction of this price. The only reason people will pay £1k for this, is that they want a box that matches their other over priced boxes.

      1. Some Beggar
        IT Angle

        Processing wizardry.

        If it is doing some whizzy post-processing, the review doesn't mention what it might be. It doesn't even mention what telly it was connected to for the test and what processing that might have been adding. Nor does it give any useful comparison with other kit beyond comparing the loading times with an unspecified Sony player.

        This is a techie website. It shouldn't be too much to ask for reviews to contain the techie info. Sparkle and nuance are, in the nicest possible way, utterly meaningless.

  11. Scott Mckenzie
    FAIL

    Another Fail

    Huge firmware issues as per the amps, random pauses, restarts, no support for 24p etc....

    Oh and the fact, as alluded to above it uses a Broadcom chip as used in many, far cheaper devices.

    Impressively it seems to work better when NOT used in an Arcam system... which is useful.

    Seriously stick to the Oppo, or a high end Sony/Marantz.... the Arcam should be good for CD playback, but if you need that high a quality CD playback, get a stand alone 2 channel system!

  12. YoYO

    Dear Reg, please stop reviewing such high end luxurious consumer products.

    Your readership cannot appreciate a wonderful device that does a world class job of its primary function for a price that sits fairly with its target market. No doubt if they ever inheritted a £10k telly, they'd rush off to Tesco to pair it up with a £49.99 blu ray player on Easter sale. As a connoisseur of many high end consumer electronics, my decision making process is not to simply compare crude a spec list with price. Im sure a lot of those people would be counting the exact number of tinned beans and extra mileage of petrol a cheaper supermarket player would buy you for the price difference. When I buy a high end (luxury?) device, I want it to perform its primary function to a world class standard. That represents true value.

    Sent from my iPad 2

    1. Some Beggar
      FAIL

      Dear YoYO, would you like to buy some efficacious medicinal compound?

      It costs £89 a bottle and it has been tapped against a high end (luxury?) bench. As you are clearly a connoisseur of such high end aqueous solutions, your decision making process will not be to simply compare the crude chemical composition with that of ordinary water. I'm sure lots of "those" people would be wondering why you'd pay a premium for what you could simply pour out of a tap. That represents true intelligence.

      Sent from my Acme hover boots.

      1. YoYO

        The Arcam FMJ BDP100 Blu-ray Disc player was not built for Beggars

        It was built for choosers.

        Sent from my iPad 2

        1. Some Beggar
          Troll

          Adolescent troll is adolescent.

          Sent while trip trapping over your bridge.

  13. Blue eyed boy
    Boffin

    Pardon my ignorance of these matters but

    what's the significance of the connectors labelled with the symbols for yttrium, lead and praseodymium?

    1. StarChild

      Component video

      @Blue eyed boy

      try this ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_video

      specifically, look in the Technical Details section.

      enjoy :-)

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    for a large income and no friends type

    Here's a thought. High end manufacturers bring a product to market first instead of waiting a few years after sony/panasonic/phillips and co do all the hard stuff ,then bring out a product for 10 times the price and made of old anvils.

    1. Some Beggar

      Not enough beans.

      It costs serious research and development money to be an early adopter of technology these days. You can only do that if you're a Sony-sized company. If you are a small concern selling high-end niche products then realistically all you can do is wait a couple of years, buy some off-the-shelf components, and hope that there is enough margin for added value. In the case of amplifiers, this is probably still the case. In the case of digital gear like this (even if you buy into the much mentioned but seldom explained 'jitter' argument), then there probably isn't any margin at all. All you can do is stick on a different badge, a metal box and a high price tag. They become the techie equivalent of the DeLorean DMC-12.

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