Upcoming BD 2.0 Players?

[BravesMG]

I've found some of this info scattered in different threads, but I'm having trouble getting a handle on what BD 2.0 players will be released and when.

As far as I can tell, the Panasonic BD50 and Sony Sapphire will both be 2.0 and releasing in the next few months. I thought with the combination of CES and the WB announcement that BD player announcements would be flying around, but it actually seems like I have to dig for any information.

I'd like a BD player that can bitstream advanced audio, and I know that the BD30 fits the bill right now. I don't really care about the ethernet connectivity for the special features, and I'm fine with burning the firmware upgrades on CDs.

Are the upcoming BD 2.0 players supposed to include shorter loading times and less glitches, or do you should I just keep an eye out for a good deal on the BD30?

[Mr. Cinema]

This is from the Sigma Designs insider posting at blu-ray.com about disc loading.

"When loading a disc, lots of things have to happen before the movie is accessible. There are three things being done to speed things up. (1) faster CPUs with bigger memory caches always helps , (2) hardware acceleration for decoding of PNG images, and (3) optimizing software code in the player.

For BD-J performance, that is heavily dependent on CPU performance and software optimization. For example, BD-J performance on our current chip has increased substantially just doing software optimization."

I believe all of the players announced at CES will contain Sigma's newer chips, which should result in better handling of Java discs. Firmware updates should be able to help out the Panny BD30.

The majority of players announced were 1.1 units. I would say we'll have much more 2.0 players near the holiday season. Samsung, Sharp, Phillips all announced new 1.1 units. I think Sony is offering up 2 Sapphire models with 2.0 features.