Samsung to Release Dual-format HD Player

There are few things more annoying to a home theatre geek than an unnecessary format war, like the one currently raging between Blu-ray and HD DVD. It’s a war that was started by a bunch of greedy companies who couldn’t settle their standards before going to market, so they brought two near-identical formats out to customers to see what would stick. In effect, that means that the technology is there for people to start adopting a new format to get HD quality movies on discs in their homes, but in order to do so they need to take a risk and go with one format over the other. That means that if they choose wrong they could be stuck with the equivalent to a Betamax player within a year or two, which is something no one wants to deal with.

Luckily, some of the more consumer-friendly electronics companies have decided to take pity on lowly customers and offer them a product that lets them stay on the format war’s sidelines yet still get the benefits of HD discs. Samsung just announced their upcoming Duo HD player (BD-UP5000), a player that will fully support both Blu-ray and HD DVD. It’ll be out by the holidays, allowing you to enjoy movies in HD without worrying about wasting money on a doomed format.

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