The Funai player which was first reported yesterday will be marketed under the Sylvania brand name. As soon as the show officially starts we'll find out the specs and profile.
This is good as most people in the U.S. don't recognize the Funai name.
Everyone here is familiar with Sylvania, however.
Name recognition definitely helps with reliability assumptions.
IT will be a profile 1.1 player.
The Funai US press release shows it as a profile 1.1 player with HDMI 1.3 and shows the player with a Sylvania logo on it.
You can see in this press release that it is profile 1.1 and has the Sylvania badging.
Doesn't look too shabby either.
http://funai.us/BDPrelease010208.pdf
I somehow doubt that Sylvania has more brand recognition than Funai. I know that Disney's Electrical Parade uses their light bulbs, and that's about it.
I would like a stand alone to give my PS3 a break but I don't think this will be it. I like quality and Sylvania just doesn't do it for me. If it's a decent player though it will be good for Blu b/c like an earlier post stated, people will go for the cheapest price first. I also worked in retail electronics and it was the same way even 10 years ago. I'm hoping that new Panny player isn't going to be too out of range.
The Funai player which was first reported yesterday will be marketed under the 
