Samsung BD-D5100 – Still Making A Strong Case For Blu-ray

BD-D5100 Hardware Check

BD-D5100 Hardware Check

In this day and age of ubiquitous on-demand streaming multimedia, high-volume content downloads (both legal and otherwise, unfortunately), and multi-format network media players, is there still room for the Blu-ray player? Samsung believes so, and with affordable devices such as the BD-D5100, combined with an ingenious new Blu-ray rental service, the Korean manufacturer aims to make Blu-ray entertainment not only relevant, but even more practical for the Filipino HD entertainment enthusiast.

Hardware-wise, the BD-D5100 design is simple and straightforward. As an entry-level offering, it’s basically a little black box built to play Blu-ray discs, DVDs, and CDs. Samsung does throw in bonuses in the form of USB device support (including external and portable hard drives), a fairly versatile range of supported content codecs, as well as some semblance of Internet connectivity in the form of a pre-installed YouTube widget on its main menu. Speaking of which, the menu interface is also simple and easy to navigate, making it easy to learn for first-timers in the Blu-ray game.

Below is a quick summary of the Samsung BD-D5100's key specs:

• Blu-ray Profile: BD Profile 2.0
• Disc Format Support: Blu-ray Video, BD-R/RE, DVD-Video, DVD/DVD±R/DVD±RW, Audio CD, CD/CD-R/CD-RW
• Video Format Support: VC-1, MPEG2, H.264, HD JPEG, WMA, DivX HD, MKV, MP4, WMV9
• Interfaces: HDMI, USB 2.0, Ethernet
• Power Consumption: 19 Watts
• Dimensions: 430 x 190 x 41mm
• Weight: 1.47kg