By James Wells

SYDNEY: Samsung today unveiled the pricing and availability of its BD-P1000 Blu-ray Disc Player at an exclusive preview at the appropriately named Blue Hotel at Woolloomooloo in Sydney.

Approximately 1,000 units of the BD-P1000 will be shipped to Australia between 20-25 October for initial launch by Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi stores at an RRP of $1,599.

“Harvey Norman is flagging that 160 of their stores will stock the product, while JB want to be seen as supporters of Blu-ray when it comes as they deal in content and are very strong and heavy in the software side,” said Samsung CTV and home theatre product manager, Brad Wright.

Samsung Electronics Australia – digital AV product manager, Sagar Dave, said the BD-P1000 is the “mother of high definition” with “uncompressed quality that offers five times more content than on a normal DVD”.

The BD-P1000 also features Hypervision upscaling which converts standard definition content such as DVD to 1080p resolution.

Dave said the brand’s partnership with the Microsoft Xbox 360 gaming console does not create a conflict of interest, even though the console supports the rival high definition optical format – HD-DVD.

“Our affiliation with Microsoft is more to do with the screen. Our partnership with Xbox is part of the HD story which has three core pillars – digital television, digital home theatre and gaming.

Dave said that the shipment of BD-P1000 stock was created from a separate production batch and production line that caused initial faults in other markets.

To complement the launch of the BD-P1000, Samsung will also introduce a new 40-inch and 46-inch high definition LCD television with 1920 x 1080 resolution.