Hey Dave,
Nice Teardown as always..
I'm in the Home Automation and AV industry so of course back in the day I installed a few of these. Of course a flood of competing models I can't begin to remember replaced it nearly instantly. We for a long time settled on an LG model that played everything, Blury HDDVD and CD/DVD/Burned Both etc. Interestingly a lot of early Bluray players couldn't play Burned CDs or DVDs.. Can't remember if the HDDVDs had similar issues.. But might be why so many lasers.. Anyway.
I was posting to tell about that "OLD SCHOOL CONTROL RS-232". Although RS-232 is old school.. (my school certainly as I'm old) It's not old in the AV industry. It's still common to find it on high end anything AV because it is preferred as a control method by integrators. Many devices these days that have a serial control protocol do not have a port but instead support a usb dongle, or some have a 3.5mm stereo jack that is RS-232 (sometimes unlabeled because of shame). For a long time (around 2008, if memory serves) many manufactures (samsung and LG especially) Would have a Serial port, but label it for service only. Which was a lie, they would respond fine to established control protocols for other similar tvs with one exception.. Power On. This is because in the cheaper TVs they couldn't meet energy star while having the main processor running and would have IR implemented on a low power uController, but Serial on the main. THIS SUCKED in our industry, so after years of screaming at them on mass at every CediaEXPO they relented and often now have a option in the service menu to 'listen to serial when off'... which means don't turn all the way off actually.. These days about a third of the products I integrate still have to be controlled IR (the worst), a third SERIAL (always best) and a third IP (might work great might suck) . You'd think IP would be nice.. but it isn't. Many problems.. stupid drivers.. broke ass shit mostly, some exceptions. SERIAL for the win.
To explain how prevalent Serial control still is.. Not including Automation gear but just AV equipment (TV's Recvs Projectors, Sources) controlled by automation gear, the House (yes house) I'm currently finishing has 11 IR controlled devices, 10 TCP/IP Controlled Devices, and 16 Serially controlled devices. There's many things controlled by relays, and steam power too. Including a horn and a search light. but those don't count.. The whole lighting system is controlled by IP or DMX (through serial) .. all 234 Lighting loads (68 RGB color changing) . Thats Loads not fixtures.. Load is like what you would, in a normal house, control with a light switch some of the loads in this house are 1000watts. Also about 40 Zigbee devices..
So.. Just saying. Was not 'old school' on AV gear in 2006.. still isn't.. Soon might be.. If IP becomes better implemented on more things.
-Matt