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Panasonic and Yamaha have already had their Cedia Blu-ray plans leak out, and we suspect the same may have just happened to Samsung. A new Samsung Blu-ray player, the BD-P2550, has appeared on Best Buy's Web site, and is apparently ready to ship for $500. Although the Best Buy listing is pretty light on information, we were also able to track down the manual (PDF link) for the BD-P2550 online, which reveals that the BD-P2550 will sport 7.1 analog outputs, Dolby TrueHD onboard decoding, a USB port, and an Ethernet port. It's not yet apparent whether the … Read more

Cedia is still a couple of weeks away, but a few rumors are starting to trickle out about what will be announced at the show.

According to Blu-ray.com (which is not the official Blu-ray site), both Yamaha and Panasonic will be announcing new Blu-ray players. Yamaha will reportedly be rolling out the S2900, which will be a Profile 1.1 player and looks to only support Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio in bitstream format. There's no price yet, but we have to imagine it will be relatively affordable given the spec sheet.

For Panasonic, the rumor is … Read more

When it's released in the fall, the LG BD300 will be the first Blu-ray player that will also have access to Netflix's online Watch Now library of streaming movies. But thanks to LG's sneak preview of the product (at its Manhattan press event last night), we have a pretty good idea of what we'll be getting when it hits stores in a few months. … Read more

Samsung was officially the first to offer up a home-theater-in-a-box system with Blu-ray (although Panasonic was right behind), but as you might expect, we found the $1,500 system a little overpriced for what it offered. Samsung has now announced a follow-up budget Blu-ray HTIB, the HT-BD2E, and at nearly half the price ($800), it has the potential to be a far more appealing product. Let's check out the key features, or at least what we know so far.

Key features of the Samsung HT-BD2E:

I recently wrote a column titled, "Is BD-Live Blu-ray's secret weapon--or a bust?" Most readers seemed to think all whiz-bang interactivity features were more busts than secret weapons. And now it appears that a selection of Blu-ray producers speaking at a panel at Comic-Con 2008 feel the same way.

Video Business reports that the panel drew dozens of consumers and that the Q&A discussion, moderated by The Digital Bits' Bill Hunt, was frank and lively.

A few choice quotes:

Producer Robert Meyer Burnett (Shoot 'Em Up) said: "It would be interesting if they wanted … Read more

Samsung released the first standalone Blu-ray player back in June of 2006, and since then the company has continued to release a steady stream of updated models, seemingly every six months. The latest release is the Samsung BD-P1500, and we'll let you in on the most important information right off the bat--it's not better than the PS3. That being said, it has a relatively low price tag ($400), and Samsung has promised to add both Profile 2.0 and DTS-HD Master Audio to the player in the future. Sure, the Panasonic DMP-BD50 already has both of those features, … Read more

The biggest knock against Blu-ray from the beginning has been price, but that hasn't stopped manufacturers from releasing new, expensive Blu-ray players. Although Denon's new Blu-ray player, the DVD-1800BD, is the least-expensive model in the company's line, its $750 price tag means only serious home theater enthusiasts will be giving it a look. The press release was light on details--there's not even a picture yet--but here's what we know so far:

Key features of the Denon DVD-1800BD:

When Panasonic announced the DMP-BD50 at CES 2008, home theater enthusiasts who didn't want a game console as their Blu-ray player finally had a fully-featured standalone player to look forward to. The Panasonic DMP-BD50 promises the two big elusive features: Blu-ray Profile 2.0 and onboard decoding for both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. Tuesday, we attended a demonstration of the DMP-BD50 and learned some new details. Here's a quick glance at the spec sheet as far as we know right now.

Key features of the Panasonic DMP-BD50:

A second Blu-ray home theater system has joined Samsung's product lineup. The HT-BD2S is essentially identical to its predecessor, the Samsung HT-BD2T, but with two important distinctions: the BD2S has small satellite speakers (versus the four tallboy models that anchored the BD2T), and it's available for an even $1,000 (a 33 percent discount off the BD2T's asking price).

Does the downsized price and speaker size make the HT-BD2S more attractive than its big brother?… Read more