Harman Kardon BDP1 Single-disc black Blu-ray Disc player

Enriching the Blu-ray experience

Okay, so Blu-ray Disc's Full HD 1080p video and 7.1-channel studio-quality audio are the perfect match to your HDTV and surround sound home audio system. But what about the rest of your multimedia lifestyle? You know, things like gaming and chatting online, watching movie previews, and downloading ringtones. Well, thanks to its BD-Live functionality, Harman/Kardon's BDP 1 Blu-ray player caters to all of your multimedia needs. Once you've connected the BDP 1 to your pre-existing internet connection using the player's RJ-45 ethernet port, and plugged in a USB flash-memory device using the front-panel USB port, and loaded a BD-Live equipped Blu-ray movie, you're ready to discover the world of BD-Live interactivity. Download deleted scenes, shorts, or trailers for all your favorite movies. Participate in online gaming. Chat with other BD-Live users. You can even download ringtones for your phone! An all this is in addition to Full HD video and audio.

It's all about the blue ray, seriously

We're not joking; Blu-ray Disc technology is really based on a blue ray . . . well, a blue laser, to be exact. While DVD technology uses a broad red laser to encode and read information off of an optical disc, Blu-ray Disc technology uses a much narrower blue-violet laser. By simply using a finer laser, Blu-ray technology is able to fit dramatically more information on the same disc used by DVD. How much more information, you might be wondering? Try: five times as much info. As it turns out, this is more than enough space for both Full HD 1920 x 1080p video and 7.1-channel studio-quality audio. And by "more than enough" we mean that there's still room left over for a plethora of bonus features, including deleted scenes and director commentary. All on one disc — the Blu-ray Disc.

But what about my DVDs?!!

Whoa, settle down just a bit. We realize that all this talk about HD video and audio kind of starts to make your DVD collection sound a little, well, obsolete. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. In fact, the Harman/Kardon BDP 1 Blu-ray player offers a bit of good news for your beloved DVD library. Using built-in video processing, the BDP 1 is able to upscale the standard definition video on your DVDs to HD 1080p levels when you use the player's HDMI output to connect to your HDTV. Upscaled DVD video is DVD tailored to your HDTV.

What's all this about HD audio?

By and large, the HD 1080p video offered by Blu-ray Disc is this technology's most salient characteristic. What many people don't realize, however, is that Blu-ray offers both an HD video and an HD audio experience. Here, "HD audio" means "7.1-channel, studio-quality surround sound." DVD technology, as it happens, also offers surround sound audio, but this 5.1-channel audio is compressed, that is, some of the audio information has been removed so that the audio can be fit onto the DVD disc. While you still get surround sound with DVD, some of the tones and textures of the original sound have been left out. Blu-ray Disc audio, on the other hand, brings you the full audio experience, just as the director intended — all 7.1-uncompressed-channels of it. Now, in order to enjoy this audio on your home theater system, you are going to need to decode that HD audio signal into a form that can be used to power your speakers. Here's where Dolby TrueHD and dts-HD Master Audio decoding technologies come into play. Facilitating your HD audio experience, the BDP 1 offers bitstream audio output of Dolby TrueHD and dts-HD Master Audio encoded audio via HDMI. In a nutshell, the BDP 1 allows you to send the encoded HD audio signal directly to a Dolby TrueHD or dts-HD Master Audio-enabled receiver for high-fidelity processing and decoding.

Beyond Blu-ray and DVD

Harman/Kardon's BDP 1 doesn't limit itself to Blu-ray and DVD movies. Not even remotely. First off, the BDP 1 is fully capable of playing CD, CD-R, and CD-RE audio. Further, support MP3 and WMA audio lets you listen to music encoded in these formats, whether from CD (MP3 only) or from a USB device connected using the BDP 1's built-in USB port. Finally, the BDP 1 allows you view slideshow presentation of all your digital JPEG photos when you connect them using the USB port.