Manufacturers, let me save you some money. It won’t be much, but something is better than nothing. But more importantly you would be helping out the consumers actually spending money on your products. So please, stop including standard A/V cables with Blu-ray players. We don’t need anymore of them, thankyouverymuch. Every household in America already has a drawer full of red/white/yellow cables and plus, Blu-ray players shouldn’t be hooked up with them anyway.
But if you simply must include a set of cables with your players, how about a set of component cables or even an HDMI cable? After all Blu-ray player buyers are probably – hopefully – getting the player to watch high-def content and those simple red, white, and yellow cables don’t provide that last time I checked.
I understand that some companies like Monster Cable and Best Buy might be a little peeved if suddenly they lost some sales of high-margin cables, but don’t think of them, think of us. Think of the thousands of consumers that get duped into buying these incredibly overpriced and unnecessary cables everyday. As it stands right now, a salesmen can easily say you need this $120 HDMI cable because your $150 Blu-ray player doesn’t come with one.
But by simply including a basic HDMI cable, a few less people might get scammed, which is totally a win. Amazon and other online retailers always have HDMI cables for around a dollar so buy up a crapton of those and start stuffing them in with Blu-ray players.
Besides, including standard composite cables with Blu-ray players is sending the wrong message anyway. It’s saying that you, the manufacturer, are suggesting that the player will work fine with them. But it won’t. The player will only output the picture at a 480i signal with composite cables, which is no where near the 1080p capability. It’s an injustice to both the consumer and the Blu-ray format.
It’s true that maybe some people are buying Blu-ray players right now to use with their older non-HDMI and non-component equipped TV sets and they need the red/white/yellow cables to watch the player at all. But I’m sure those folks will get by just fine. Worst case scenario is that they have to make a trip to Radio Shack if they don’t happen to have a set of composite cables laying around.
There’s simply no reason to continue including old cables with a high-def player. Save the money or better yet, include appropriate cables. You do know that component cables can be used as composite too, right?
You’d be surprised how many people are so far behind technologically and not HAVE HDMI hookup, or vga, or even the cables you’re talking about here. Makes it a pain in the ass to play a video on their system.
..and since that component cable is going to end up in the garbage anyway, as it makes no sense to attempt use it; including the right cable to be used (hdmi) in replacement of a phony wanna-be is also the right green-friendly socially-responsible thing to do.
How about USB cables on printers!
I agree!!! It would save the consumer a lot of money and hassle. I hate spending a lot on a cable, but when you buy something like a blue ray you want to use it out of the box!!! It would be helpful! I am sure everyone has their own preference, but I get my cables at http://www.optimization-world.com No one should be spending “Monstrous” prices on cables.
I can just see a review of a future Blu-Ray player on CG: “And, to top it off, they didn’t include any cables! None. Not even a lousy pair of AV cables. WTF , how am I even supposed to use your product?!”
Not every household in America has these cables, Matt.
Not every household can afford a TV or DVD player, let alone three squares a day.
Just a gentle reminder from a tech fan who doesn’t live inside the tech media bubble – there are lots o’ poor people in the US of A.
Are those poor folks buying Blu-ray players? Probably not.
I’m not saying to stop including a charging cable with a new cell phone here.
I’m talking about not including an irrelevant cable in product that’s still considered almost a luxury.
Yet you’re advocating to keep them ‘visually’ poor by including the shit cable – along with running the risk of them getting bent over at Best Buy for a MONSTERously overpriced CABLE.
I think he was just making a point with that comment…
If you can afford to buy a blu-ray player to play high definition content, you probably have an HDTV, almost all of which include an HDMI or component input at the very least. Therefore, there’s really no need for manufacturers to include a non-HD cable with their HD products.
Seriously – LOL @ all the people that posted here like “OMG we dont have A/V cables, please let them stay in the package..:” Using these on a blueray player is like connecting your brand new XBox 360 to a 1960s Black & White TV…
I can imagine the number of people that actually used the av cables then sat there wondering why the quality wasn’t as good as they thought it would be.
HDMI cables are sometimes a nightmare when first setting up a Blu Ray Player. Component would be the way to go then. I could reason that they include the composite cable because it is the safest way to set up a player for the first time.
Yes, it does not make sense to include the cable besides that. Still, those cheap cables that you can buy are terrible sometimes. I throw them in the bin regularly because they’re broke.
I’ll ask them about this issue next time I speak to a salesman from one of the big brands.
There are several manufactures that do include HDMI cables sometimes. These are Philips & Samsung.
Maybe the BDA could better rattle their cages with threats of excommunication.
I have a BD reserved to be used to play Netflix on my PS3, but if Sony really wants more than just a few geeks like me to do this, they had better make one of their highly touted firmware updates to the PS3 to NOT require that I keep a BD in the drive at all times when Netflix is streaming movies down to me. I read where this would be required for a full year into the future before if it fixed — and that is just no good for sure. What are they thinking of?