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The player takes full advantage of high-definition displays, playing content at native 720p, 1080i or 1080p video resolution. It has a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) output, which provides an uncompressed, digital audio/video interface through a single cable, and is designed to enable users to easily connect the Blu-ray player to their existing home televisions.

It also

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offers full 1080p output via HDMI, to provide the best available resolution and up-conversion capabilities in order to optimise the playback quality of standard DVDs, and will also decode standard multi-channel audio.

'Samsung's Blu-ray player will be the first available to consumers, and we will continue to innovate it,' said Geesung Choi, president of Samsung Electronics' Digital Media Business. 'Samsung is demonstrating its leadership in driving the next generation optical format.'

Sony, which first developed the Blu-ray technology, said last week, that the first players and movies will be available outside the US and Japan from October.

Samsung said that the BD-P1000 will be compatible with 50GB BD discs, having fixed a problem that prevented it from playing the double-layer discs.

The player currently sells from $700 upwards in the US; UK pricing has yet to be announced.