Samsung had nothing to share on the future of Blu-ray during CES, but it turns out that they do have new Blu-ray players planned for 2014. Three new Blu-ray players will launch, the BD-H6500 being the most interesting addition. Last year’s flagship player will carry over in 2014.
3 new Samsung Blu-ray players
The most feature-packed of the bunch is the BD-H6500. It upscales Blu-ray and DVD to 4K resolution – even though your 4K TV does the same – and obviously also supports 3D Blu-ray.
It has TV apps from Netflix, YouTube and more depending on your region and is built on Samsung’s Smart TV platform. It has built-in WiFi, DLNA as well as AllShare Cast and AllShare Play that allows you to stream content from a smartphone or tablet onto the TV screen. Other notable features include a quick start function and a CD ripping feature that can “rip” the content of a CD onto a USB hard drive.
If you opt for one of the cheaper BD-H5900 and BD-H5500 players you have to do without Samsung’s Smart TV features. Instead, these players offer TV apps from the "Opera TV store" that has nothing to do with Samsung’s Smart TV – an odd decision indeed. The design of two cheaper Blu-ray players is fairly similar to the BD-H6500.
The BD-H6500 is available now in the US
and in Europe. Last year's top model, BD-F7500, will carry over in 2014 as the flagship model.
Samsung launches 3 new 2014 Blu-ray players
