Samsung BD-P2500 Blu-ray player packs familiar specs, price

Samsung's upcoming BD-P2500 Blu-ray player promises BD-Live support out of the box when it ships in October, with its IFA announcement revealing identical specs and price ($499) to the Best Buy-exclusive BD-P2550 already on sale. Of course, with HQV video processing and a wealth of audio support including 7.1 analog output and PCM or bitstream audio for Dolby Digital, Digital Plus, TrueHD or dts soundtracks, and DTS-HD HR (after a firmware update) and DTS-HD MA bitstream support, that's not an entirely bad thing. Samsung, Panasonic, it's taken you this many generations to get a satisfactory spec sheet, now what about the price?

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 30th 2008 5:04AM]

It seems it will be one more generation to get a satisfactory price. But is this too late for the blu-ray format?

I'm quite irate at this. By this December, we really need well-spec'd and well-priced players to put under Christmas trees. Blu-ray's already had enough of a bumpy ride as it is (what with a format war and all), is the momentum to be completely lost and blu-ray fall off the rails?

[DrXym Posted Aug 30th 2008 5:45AM]

Holiday season is approach so I expect you'll see the first discounting happen quite soon. I expect the Funai players will be as low as $200 for Christmas.

[hodedofome Posted Aug 30th 2008 9:07AM]

Yeah, but who wants a Funai? We really need a fully-spec'd name-brand player around the $200 mark. Something that can at least bitstream all formats, has bd-live, but doesn't need to have a Reon or anything super special. The Funai players need to be $100 and then you'll see people adopting that never would have before. But who wants to spend $400-500 on a player that will be half that price with better performance 6 months to a year from now?

[DrXym Posted Aug 30th 2008 1:01PM]

The Funai can bitstream, not that it matters to the vast majority of people who will hook up their player straight to a TV with no receiver. But if you want brand name, then Sony are rumoured to be dropping their MSRP at the end of September from $399 to $299 for the S350 so I expect it will selling for a little less than that.

[THizzle7XU Posted Aug 31st 2008 1:34PM]

Best Buy has the Funai for $250 now. Prices are starting to drop :)

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8777344&type=product&id=1204332499513

[DrXym Posted Sep 1st 2008 4:10AM]

A link concerning Sept price drops:

http://hdguru.com/sony-to-drop-blu-ray-player-pricing-in-september-other-makers-to-follow/263/

It seems likely the S350 will be $300 MSRP and the Funai models $250 MSRP from late September. I'm sure that means other models will also get price cuts.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 30th 2008 8:19AM]

Can someone please explain why we needed the "Best Buy Exclusive" 2550 AND the 2500?

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 30th 2008 10:02AM]

So they don't have to price-match. That is the only reason. It is quite common practice.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 30th 2008 5:20PM]

The pricing makes sense. Competition forces lower prices, I got Samsungs Blu/HD combo player for 399. Blu players were dropping then one thing happened... They Won, no competition, so no need to drop prices, especially when you walk into stores and they push onto consumers Blu players and you need to get it now. So people buy it, walk over to the Blu movie section, look and say Holy $^#*, thats ridiculous, it costs 34.99 for Alvin and the Chipmunks, Ill buy one movie and pray the rest drop. They never buy, it sits there, and watch movies on HD on Demand.

If they pay for it, why drop the prices???