BD-P1500

Roundup: Three Blu-ray players for less than $300

During the 2008 holiday season, we found plenty of affordable Blu-ray players to recommend under $300. Fast-forward a couple months, and we're surprised to find that many of those players are either discontinued (Panasonic DMP-BD35) or are no longer discounted.

You can still get a few Blu-ray players for a bargain, but you'll have to give up some features to get under the $300 mark. None of these players have multichannel analog-audio outputs and they also lack onboard decoding for DTS-HD Master Audio. That being said, most people won't have any complaints with the Blu-ray image quality … Read more

Samsung BD-P1500 catches second wind

We reviewed the Samsung BD-P1500 when it first hit the market in May 2008, and while we mostly found it to be a solid Blu-ray player, we couldn't give it our full recommendation because it lacked Profile 2.0 and had some disc compatibility issues.

Since then, the BD-P1500 has received several firmware updates and its price has plummeted online, so we decided to take another look at the player. Those firmware updates have made it Profile 2.0-compatible and its disc compatibility problems seem to be fixed, as it played all the discs we tossed at it. It'… Read more

DTS-HD decoding delayed on Samsung Blu-ray players, Master Audio coming by end of year

Samsung has put out some pretty good Blu-ray players, but the company needs to setup an RSS feed to keep buyers up to date with the constantly changing firmware plans. We got a note from Samsung this afternoon explaining that the firmware update adding DTS-HD High Resolution decoding to the Samsung BD-P1500, BD-P2500, and BD-P2550 has been delayed until the end of the year. That means owners will have to live with standard DTS soundtracks for a little bit longer if they don't own an HDMI-compatible receiver with onboard decoding for DTS-HD Master Audio.

On the upside, Samsung … Read more

Name brand Blu-ray players break the $200 barrier

EngadgetHD has been keeping a close eye on the prices of Blu-ray players, and recently noticed that both the Samsung BD-P1500 and Sony BDP-S300 have fallen below the $200 mark at certain stores (RadioShack and Amazon.com, respectively.) This is right in line with previous reports of falling Blu-ray prices, and while the BDP-S300 is pretty old, the BD-P1500 is currently Samsung's most recent Blu-ray player. In many ways, these cuts are more important than the budget players we've seen from Insignia and Memorex, since for many people it's a lot easier to drop $200 on Blu-ray … Read more

Samsung BD-P1500 reviewed

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

Samsung BD-P1500 will be 'BD-Live ready,' but won't decode DTS-HD Master Audio

Samsung announced the BD-P1500 back at CES 2008, but our enthusiasm for it has always been tempered by the fact that the original announcement pegged it as a Blu-ray Profile 1.1 player. Well, Samsung made the BD-P1500 a little more interesting this morning by announcing that the BD-P1500 will be "BD-Live Ready" when it's released in June (pushed back from its original May release date). This means that the BD-P1500 won't be BD-Live (also known as Blu-ray Profile 2.0) capable when it's released, but owners will be able to update the BD-P1500 via … Read more

Samsung continues Blu-streak with BD-P1500

Samsung has been one of the most aggressive manufacturers in the Blu-ray market, releasing the very first player, the BD-P1000, and then following it up with the BD-P1200 and the BD-P1400 relatively quickly. The BD-P1500 is the next product in the line, and it looks to be an incremental improvement on the mostly well-reviewed BD-P1400. One of the biggest upgrades is that it's Blu-ray Profile 1.1 compliant, which means it can play back the "picture-in-picture" features available on some new Blu-ray discs coming out this year. The other important upgrade is soundtrack support, as the BD-P1500 … Read more