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Just two of the several new BD players announced recently at CES 2008.

First is from Phillips and supports Profile 1.1. It comes in cheaper than the PS3 making it the cheapest standalone BD player on the market when released.

Since the beginning of Blu-ray, standalone, dedicated Blu-ray players have been a tough sell. The Sony PlayStation 3's built-in Blu-ray drive delivers excellent video quality, loads discs superfast, and it costs less than or the same as standalones. And it's also an HD gaming system with media streaming functionality. Sure, some people refused to use a game console in their home theater, but for everyone else, the PS3 has been a no-brainer buy for those who want to go Blu.

Finally, Philips has broken the PS3 barrier with the $350 BDP7200, which is the first Blu-ray player we've seen with a list price lower than a PS3. Like all other Blu-ray players at CES, the BDP7200 is a Profile 1.1 player, which means it will be able to play "picture-in-picture" commentary tracks available on some new Blu-ray discs in 2008. The rest of the specs are pretty standard, offering 1080p output at 24 frames per second and Deep Color support--the latter is basically useless as there are no Deep Color Blu-ray discs released or announced.

The BDP7200 is scheduled to come out in April.

Clicky.


The second is from Panasonic, and will be the first Profile 2.0 (BD Live) machine available.

Over the last few months month, Panasonic has put itself in the lead of the technological race between standalone Blu-ray players. Back in October, it released the first Profile 1.1 player before the deadline for the specification even hit. Now Panasonic is leapfrogging its competitors again with the newly announced DMP-BD50, the first Blu-ray player to be Profile 2.0 compatible--also known as BD-Live. This means the DMP-BD50 will be able to handle any special features on future Blu-ray discs that utilize an Internet connection, similar to what has already been done on HD DVD discs like Blood Diamond. That's not so much of a big deal right away--we're not aware of any discs that utilize BD-Live features yet--but it's nice to know that it's as future-proof as you can expect right now. The rest of the specs look pretty solid, too. High-resolution soundtrack support is excellent, with onboard decoding for DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD. Panasonic also seems to hint at 7.1 analog outputs, mentioning that it can be matched with a 7.1 channel amplifier for full 7.1 sound. (We'll update this post when we get more information). Pricing and availability isn't released yet, but we hope to the see the DMP-BD50 earlier rather than later.

Clicky.

The Phillips one interested me the most, as if it comes out over here at that kinda price, thats about £180. Not too bad for people who want to get into the Blu-ray format, but dont want a PS3, which many dont.

[Jarrak]

You've got to admire the way the BD camp has managed it's CES operation, even without the pre-emptive Warner move it's clear on a hardware front the show is certainly blue. Factor in Warner and it's makes Stalin's purge of his opponents look like kids play


Surprised but quite pleased Sammy have announced another dual player.

[Badbingo]

The price for the Phillips will be more in the order of £300 or lets say £299 . We always get ripped on dollar pound conversions why should this be any different?

[paulr2006]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Badbingo

The price for the Phillips will be more in the order of £300 or lets say £299 . We always get ripped on dollar pound conversions why should this be any different?

If it's $350 it will more than likely be £349! we usually match them £ for $ & to be honest I would not like anything with the Philips name on it given their reliabilty & lack of Customer support!