Samsung to release Universal HD player

[Darksaber]

Seoul, Korea - April 13, 2007 - Samsung Electronics Co., LTD., a leader in consumer electronics and digital media technologies, and the first company to introduce a Blu-ray disc player will introduce a dual format High-Definition (HD) optical disc player in time for the holidays.

Samsung's Duo HD player (BD-UP5000) will fully support both HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats and their interactive technologies, HDi and BD-Java. With the Duo HD consumers can enjoy additional studio content such as trailers, director's comments, more elaborate interactive menus and behind the scene footage. The new Duo HD joins Samsung's next generation DVD line-up which includes Samsung's second generation Blu-ray player available at retail this month. Together, these two models offer the consumer a strong line of High-Definition players to match Samsung's award winning, and best selling, line of HDTVs.

"We welcome Samsung's Duo HD player as another solution in the marketplace that will help reduce consumer confusion and buyer hesitancy towards HD media," said Ron Sanders, President of Warner Home Video. "This is an innovative product that can move us closer to mainstream consumer adoption of HD technologies."

"We are very pleased to announce the upcoming release of our Duo HD player. Consumers are hungry for more HD content but are currently confused about competing formats. Samsung's Duo HD player will allow consumers access to every HD movie title available regardless of the authoring format. Samsung is committed to making life simpler through technology and will market next generation DVD products which will satisfy the consumer and market requirement. This is a big win for the consumer.

As a member of the DVD Forum and contributor to the DVD Industry, we recognize that both HD-DVD and BD formats have merits. As such, we have decided to market a dual format player. Samsung is flexible to market a stand-alone HD-DVD player whenever consumers demand it. Our main concern is not technology but consumer choice" said Dongsoo Jun, Executive Vice President of the Digital AV Division at Samsung Electronics

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[Giletus]

Its good to see a multi player,the main reason I have not decided on which type of disk to use was because I was waiting to see which type would be used for the norm.

 

[EastCoasthandle]

Yeah but for how much? I was happy for 2 seconds until I realized that this can cost as much as a Blue Ray player for your HDTV. The idea of a dual HD/BR becomes mute real fast when it cost more then $300

 

[jocksteeluk]

should manufacturers all make dual HD capable players the battle for the next gen format could be won by which ever consortium creates the best value/ price recordable media, id expect this to go the same way as DVD and DVD-Ram but one thing is for certain the consumer will be the winner since there will be two competing format vying for the same customer.

 

[Zalmann]

This is great. I am expecting the rest of the industry to follow suit over time, just as once upon a time you bought either a DVD+R burner or a DVD-R burner, and the appropriate media, now pretty much all DVD burners support both formats. This will be good result for the every day consumer.

 

[WarEagleAU]

I was hoping, when the two sides were in talks some time ago, they would reach a consortium of some sort. It would have been nice to see the BD capacity with the HD's current laser manufacturing. This would have led to cheaper initial production and better quality with one format. I'm sure prices wouldn't have sky rocketed either. However, it didn't happen that way and perhaps now, we consumers can profit from this. Competition leads to price cuts and better products. Capitalism at its finest. I'm glad Samsung is bringing a hybrid player to the market. This is great PR for them as its playing to both sides. In case one side is not the heavy seller, it can still make a profit with its players. I love this.