UK’s First Blu-ray Player Breaks Wallets September 05, 2006

Read more DVRs , Gadgets , Home Entertainment , Peripherals , Storage , TV

The UK is about to get its first dedicated Blu-ray disc player next month but you may have to sell an organ, or two, to afford one.

The Samsung BD-P1000 will play content at various resolutions including 720p, 1080i or the full high-def 1080p. The machine has been on sale in the US since June but here’s the rub: it costs around £400-500 there but is expected to cost the guts of £1,000 here. Even Europe will be getting it cheaper at around £675.

If you’re still undaunted, here’s some more info. It will read BD-RE,BD-R,BD-ROM,DVD ROM,DVD RAM, DVD-R-RW+R+RW, CD ROM and CD-R/RW discs. It will have the expected HDMI input, along with component and the inferior S-Video hook-ups. There is a memory card reader, funky menu system, DVD upscaler and support for plenty of surround sound formats including Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus and DTS.

If you can wait a month, rival Toshiba will be launching its £400 HD-E1 HD-DVD player with the higher-end HD-XE1 arriving for Christmas for around £600. Roll-up folks! It’s time for ‘Pick Your High-Def Format’ - the game show.

Or, you can have sense and wait a year for the dust to settle, prices to drop off a cliff, lots more high-def movies to arrive and players to get a whole lot better. – Martin Lynch

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