DVD wasn’t a success until that first Christmas when players were available for less than $40 and Blu-ray’s success probably weighs on a similar price barrier. Chinese manufacturers are certainly here to help and prices are slowly dropping to the Wal-Mart-acceptable level with the AMEX Digital BD-P1 as the latest no-name player that might be headed to the retailer. On paper, it doesn’t look terrible.
The BD-P1 has HDMI 1.3, Ethernet, DTS-HD, Dolby TrueHD and the standard assortment of outputs. The MSRP is set at $199 but you and I both know that a sale sticker will be slapped on the box as soon as it hits US retailers – hopefully.