Samsung's Duo Gets Re-Priced

by Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 9/7/2007

Denver — Looking to stay competitive with LG’s recently announced second -generation dual-format HD disc player and other premium Blu-ray players, Samsung is announced at this week’s CEDIA Expo that it has reduced the price of its forthcoming first dual-format Blu-ray HD DVD player from the original $1,049 to a $999 street price.

“We are keeping a very close eye on the pricing ratio between premium and sell-through single format players,” said Reid Sullivan, Samsung digital A/V marketing VP.

Samsung’s digital audio marketing manager James Kiczek presents the HT-BD2 Blu-ray Disc home theater system at CEDIA Expo.

The

BD-UP5000 Duo HD player

, which still has a vague “fourth-quarter” estimated time of arrival, will feature all of the mandated and many of the voluntary standards in both the Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD formats, including HDi-based Web-enabled interactivity on the HD DVD side.

Sullivan said Samsung is looking at special holiday promotions to push the deck, but details will be announced later.

On the Blu-ray side, the player features include BD-Java interactivity, and an Ethernet port enabling firmware upgradeability for possible additional feature enhancements.

The high-end player will include Silicon Optix’s HQV video processing technology, and will output high-definition formats including 1080p.

In other announcements, Samsung set the price on its mammoth 70-inch 1080p LCD TV at a $40,000 suggested retail. The set, which is part of Samsung’s 93 series, is due to arrive in “the fourth quarter.”

The unit uses LED backlighting connected to a system — recently re-dubbed “SmartLighting” — that produces improved black level and contrast performance. The system, which employs 64 banks of LEDs that are precisely dimmed and brightened at rapid intervals to generate deeper blacks, boasts a 500,000:1 dynamic contrast level.

SmartLighting will also be featured in the company’s 81 series LCD TVs due this fall. Those models will include the 40-, 46-, 52- and 57-inch screen sizes.

Samsung is also showing for the first time, here, what it is calling the industry’s first home theater system with an integrated Blu-ray Disc player.

Model HT-BD2 ($1,499), which is due in December, supports all of the advanced multichannel channel surround codecs up to 7.1 channels, and include five tower speakers, two satellites and a subwoofer.