We hinted at the arrival of Samsung’s new dual format HD player earlier this month but it’s now official – the company announced that the BD-UP5000 will be released in the US later this year along with two new standalone Blu-ray players, the BD-P1400 and BD-P2400.
According to Reid Sullivan, vice president of Digital AV marketing at Samsung, "Samsung is excited to introduce a new line of high-definition players that will enrich the theater experience at home. In 2007, the market for stand-alone high def players will grow more than 6 times to over 850 thousand units. From the top-of-the-line BD-UP5000 to the entry BD-P1400 to the company's first home theater system with Blu-ray disc playback, Samsung offers a range of products at different price points to suit the growing consumer demand."
The hybrid BD-UP5000 can play both Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs with interactive technologies including HDi and BD-Java. It’s capable of displaying both HD formats at full 1080p resolution using 24/60fps supported by Silicon Optrix’s HVQ (Hollwood Quality Video) upscaling processing. There is also full audio support for the latest HD surround formats including Dolby Digital Plus, DTS HD and Dolby TrueHD. However, early rumours of a low pricing seem wide of the mark with an expected US cost of $1,049.
The two new standalone players are both capable of displaying 1080p content at native 24fps, for a crisper, more cinematic experience. There’s the same advanced HD surround decoding using HDMI 1.3 outputs, which also feature HDMI CEC (Anytime+) technology that means you can control an entire Samsung system using a single remote. There’s backwards compatibility with a full range of DVD and CD formats as well as video upscaling, which can convert standard-definition images all the way to 1080p.
As far as we can see, the difference between the two is that the BDP-2400 features HVQ processing while the BD-P1400 doesn't. The BD-P1400 will be available in September priced at $549 while the BD-P2400 arrives in October priced at $649.
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