Samsung has announced a series of firmware upgrades for its range of Blu-ray players, rolling out over the next few weeks.

The BD-P1000 will get new firmware from 25th January, followed by the BD-P1400 on 26th January, the BD-P1200 on 2nd February, and the BD-UP5000 “soon”.

Exact details of the upgrades are sketchy at present, but should ensure the players are compatible with Blu-ray discs they previously had problems with.

All models but the BD-P1000 can be upgraded over the Internet via their Ethernet connection.

Source: Crave

If you’re wondering what “Duo HD” is, or what a “Duo HD Player” does, quite simply it is a single unit player, much like a traditional DVD player, which can play back both HD disc formats (HD DVD and Blu-ray).

Samsung have been on of the first companies to jump on the dual format HD disc player idea, and are using the term “Duo HD” to describe their players. I believe dual format players are a great idea, as some films are only being released on HD DVD, while others only on Blu-ray, and if you don’t want to be restricted to just one format, and a selection of film, a one unit player which can play both HD formats, as well as your existing DVD collection is very useful.
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Great news for Blu-ray fans, Samsung have announced their new blu-ray player for release this May. The Samsung BD-P1500 blu-ray player looks great and very sleek with a black gloss finish, and the internals are just as good, with the BD-P1500 conforming to blu-ray profile 1.1.

The Samsung BD-P1500 is now Samsung’s fourth generation Blu-ray player, and supports full HD 1080p output of Blu-ray discs and up-conversion of standard DVDs to 1080p also. The BD-P1500 has a built in Ethernet port for interactive features and future firmware upgrades.

24p / 1080p is fully supported along with a whole bunch of audio options avaliable via HDMI 1.3 output. Dobly Digital / Plus, 7.1 PCM, Dolby TrueHD, Master Audio, DTS-HD and Bitstream audio output are all supported.