Ad: Manage updates with the Download App
ie8 fix

bd+

Samsung debuts new midrange Wi-Fi Blu-ray players

LAS VEGAS--Samsung has announced ultrasmall and superslim Blu-ray players at CES 2011, but the company still makes Blu-ray players look like, well, Blu-ray players. Samsung announced two new midrange Wi-Fi Blu-ray players today, the BD-D6700 and BD-D6500, each featuring Samsung's new Smart Hub content searching software.

Both players have built-in Wi-Fi and can access Samsung Apps, which opens up a wide variety of streaming-media services, including Netflix, Vudu, YouTube, Pandora, Blockbuster, and Twitter. New for 2011 is Samsung's Smart Hub, a unified search feature that looks through all of the streaming-media services for content and also makes viewing … Read more

Samsung BD-D7000 takes Blu-ray ultrasmall

LAS VEGAS--We've seen Blu-ray players get smaller every year, but Samsung just leapfrogged everyone.

The newly announced BD-D7000 Blu-ray player features an ultrasmall design, looking more like an external DVD drive than a home theater disc player. It has a slot-loading disc drive with touch-sensitive buttons along the front.

The rest of its features are similar to other Blu-ray players the company is releasing in 2011. It's 3D compatible and also has built-in 2D-to-3D conversion processing. Of course, most 3D TVs we've reviewed last year can also convert 2D content to 3D, but it will provide buyers … Read more

LG's flagship Blu-ray player has a hard drive, more streaming services, and 3D

LAS VEGAS--At CES 2010, LG rolled out a truly unique product with the BD590, combining a Blu-ray player with a hard drive, allowing for CD ripping and Blu-ray playback from a single box. We awarded it Best of CES in the home theater category, and LG has announced its successor this morning, the BD690, offering an incremental update to last year's product.

The basics are the same, with the BD690 featuring a 250GB internal hard drive, which can store music, photos, and personal (i.e., noncopyrighted) videos. Considering how cheap hard-drive space is these days, we would have liked … Read more

Buying an Apple TV or Roku? Add Blu-ray playback for just $40

Streaming-video boxes have been getting tons of press this holiday season, but it's easy to forget that Blu-ray players with streaming-video capabilities are only slightly more expensive, especially with holiday discounts. For example, Amazon is selling the LG BD570 for just $140 right now (and it was as low as $117 earlier this week), a player that includes Netflix, Pandora, and Vudu, plus it has built-in Wi-Fi.

And if you don't need Wi-Fi, there's even less reason to opt for a streaming-video box over a Blu-ray player. In fact, if you're only looking to add basic … Read more

Hands-on: Hulu Plus on the Samsung BD-C6900

We've looked at Hulu Plus on the iPhone and iPad, which looks a lot like Hulu on the Web, but Hulu Plus on Samsung home theater devices (thankfully) features a completely different user interface. We fired up the Samsung BD-C6900, downloaded Hulu Plus from Samsung Apps, and were up and running in minutes. We're going to focus on the user experience in a home theater environment; for more information about exactly what Hulu Plus offers and how it compares with other media options, check out Scott Stein's analysis.

User interface Hulu Plus on the BD-C6900 looks much different than Hulu on the Web; it's a 10-foot user interface that shows less information at once, but it's easy to navigate with a remote control.

The initial screen has a carousel of featured content and there are several categories to browse from on the bottom, such as "Browse TV," "Recently Added," "Most Popular," and "Queue." If you select "Browse TV," there are several additional filters ("TV Shows with Full Episodes," "All TV Shows," "Networks"), plus the ability to sort alphabetically.

The shows are aligned horizontally--like Netflix's standard-streaming interface--with a photo, the overall user rating of the show, and a short description. Clicking on a show brings up a similar interface, with all of the episodes listed. If you're watching a program and go back to browsing, the video you're watching continues playing in a small window in the upper-right-hand corner, which feels pretty slick.… Read more