With the upgrade applied, and a Netflix account, current owners of these Blu-ray players will be able to instantly watch any movie or TV title from a growing library of more than 12,000 movies and TV shows from Netflix (BD-P2500/BD-P2550) and music from Pandora (BD-P2550). The BD-P2550 will also get a BD-Live firmware update today (the BD-P2500 already supports BD-Live). Later in the month (October 30), both players will get a firmware upgrade to support decoding of DTS-HD High Resolution Audio. No word yet on DTS-HD Master Audio which is currently only supported on both players via bitstream output. [update - 1/2/2009: Samsung's latest promise was onboard DTS-HD HR and MA decoding by the end of 2008, but that didn't happen - stay tuned as this still may come in a future firmware upgrade].
In addition to Netflix movie access, the BD-P2550 will be able to stream music though the Pandora music service allowing owners to discover new music and stay up-to-date with their favorite artists. The free Pandora service allows you to select artists you like and uses your preferences to generate a custom internet "radio station" that broadcasts your chosen artists as well as others that Pandora's proprietary learning algorithms think you might also like. I tried it out and found that its recommendations were spot on based on my predilection for 80s techno - it was like a mixed tape I would have made for my girlfriend in 1987 (shhh... don't tell the wife).
Both players already include best-of-breed DVD upconversion to high definition resolution via on-board Silicon Optix HQV processing as well as 7.1-channel analog audio outputs. Now, with the addition of Netflix and Pandora support, they present a strong feature set that is currently unmatched by any other Blu-ray Disc player.
Where to Buy:
BDP-2500:
