Audio Video News

Reports circulated around the web today that Samsung has canceled the release of its upcoming high-end Blu-ray Disc player, the BDP-2400, and that its BD-UP5000 Blu-ray/HD DVD combi player will be delayed until December. And this is not all bad. Let me explain.

The Samsung players were both planned to be released before the October 31st deadline, after which all Blu-ray Disc players must meet the hardware specifications for at least BD-ROM Profile 1.1. You can learn more about these specs here. And according to Samsung's reps, neither player was slated to conform to this spec, which calls for 256MB of local storage and secondary audio and video decoders for Picture-In-Picture based interactivity. Discs with these features have already been announced.

So, it's difficult to think that these enhanced hardware specs don't have something to do with this. But if these players are delayed, yet have greater functionality when they are released, I think this will be better for consumers and for the Blu-ray Disc format in the long run. The fewer hardware limited players that are out there the better, as far as I'm concerned.

We've asked Samsung for an official reaction and haven't received it yet. We'll keep you posted if something comes in.