Marantz is joining the Blu crew in 2008 as well, with a high-end Blu-ray Disc player, the BD8002. And actually, high-end doesn't even cut it. Marantz is calling this player "ultimate quality" with built-in Silicon Optix processing for superb DVD upconversion, and the press materials indicate internal decoding of both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.

Also of interest is that while the player is specified to be profile 1.1, which means it is compatible with streaming PIP interactivity, it also features and SD card slot and the literature indicates it can also download additional features via the Internet. It's not officially stated as being BD Live compatible, but that sure makes it sound like it is.

Price will be $2,099 and release isn't pinned down any further than second quarter of 2008.