Samsung Ships Blu-ray DVD to U.S.

Staff Reporter -- Electronic News, 6/15/2006

In a confident step forward for the Blu-ray movement in DVD technology, Samsung today announced that it has shipped the industry's first Blu-ray disc player to U.S. retailers, which will be available on June 25.

Samsung said its Blu-ray disc player (BD-P1000), which was originally planned to ship in the spring, will provide customers with the opportunity to view Blu-ray discs on their existing HDTVs. Blu-ray is the next-generation disc format, which, Samsung claims, will offer close to five times the resolution of conventional DVDs, providing the highest picture quality available on the market.

A number of major movie studios strongly support Blu-ray, including Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and LionsGate Pictures, which will release Blu-ray content this month. 

However, Blu-ray technology is not without detractors. While companies like Samsung, Sony, TDK and Philips have all expressed enthusiastic support for Blu-ray, Toshiba backs the HD DVD specification of blue laser technology.

At a January press conference, Toshiba argued that backward compatibility with red laser technology as being key to blue laser DVD player success, pointing out that the average consumer already owns a library of 25 to 30 red laser DVDs. At that time, Blu-ray DVD was not expected to run current DVD disks. 

Samsung said in its statement today that its BD-P1000 is backward compatible and will play both standard DVDs and CDs, in addition to supporting all DVD formats. The company said it will up-convert conventional DVDs to 1080p through the HDMI digital interface.

Seven of the eight major movie studios have already announced titles for Blu-ray, the company added, with the line-up expected to grow to more than 200 titles by year end.

"Until now, there hasn't been a pre-recorded media solution for consumers to take full advantage of the pristine picture their HDTVs are capable of producing," Jim Sanduski, senior VP of marketing for Samsung's audio and video products group, said in a statement. "As the first company to deliver a Blu-ray player in the U.S. market, Samsung has reinforced its commitment to provide our consumers with the most riveting and innovative home theater experience possible."

The player also includes a 10-in-2 multi memory card interface that supports all the major formats including Compact Flash, Secure Digital, XD Picture Card and Memory Stick. Connectivity includes HDMI, component, S-video and composite outputs. Supported audio formats include Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus, DTS, MP3 and 192KHz LPCM.

The BD-P1000 will be available in stores on June 25, at a price of $999.99. To compare, Toshiba has an HD DVD model priced at $499.