The Philips BDP7501 Ultra HD Blu-ray player is now shipping in the US, although it appears Amazon is the only place to get it so far. The retailer is selling the UHD BD player for $399, but notes the product is “in stock but may require an extra 1-2 days to process.”
Amazon is also offering a copy of Warner Bros.’ Creed on Ultra HD Blu-ray with the purchase of the Philips BDP7501 for a limited time.
The Philips BDP7501 is only the second UHD BD player available in the US, following the $399 Samsung UBD-K8500. If you can wait, Microsoft’s $399 2TB Xbox One S will release at the end of August. And, Panasonic’s DMP-UB900 is expected to ship in September but with a much higher suggested retail price of $699
The Philips Ultra HD Blu-ray player supports 4k video at 3,840 x 2,160 resolution, a peak video bitrate of 100Mbps, HEVC (H.265) codec for 4k, and MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) for 2k playback. For color range and contrast, the BDP7501 supports the BT.2020 color gamut, 10-bit color, and 1,000 to 10,000 nit contrast range with HDR.
Supported audio formats include Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MasterAudio.
The BDP7501 comes with built-in WiFi 802.11ac and MIMO antennas, and features smart functionality to run apps like Netflix and YouTube (with 4k streaming).
Ports include one HDMI 2.0a with HDCP 2.2 output, one HDMI 1.4b for discrete legacy audio output, one USB, and Ethernet.
Hah! That is so funny. Just recently tossed my Toshiba HD DVD player with about 30 movies. What else are they good for?
I still have my HD-DVD player and my beta max. I will wait this time around.