Last month, I reported that the latest Blu-ray player from Samsung, the BD-P1500, would be delayed until June, but EngadgetHD is reporting that some units are showing up in Wal-Mart stores. 

Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray Player

The price tag reads $348, which is a nice price for a new model. Unfortunately, as is the case with so many Blu-ray players (see Panasonic's and Pioneer's recent announcements), there are caveats to watch out for.

In the case of the Samsung, those caveats include the fact that it won't be able to play BD-Live content out of the box (it will be available at a later unspecified date), and it will never play the DTS HD Master Audio lossless audio format.

In my original Journal post from last month, the former was known, but the latter was a question that was not answered in the press release.

I came across this post on CNet that says that Samsung is likely to release the BD-Live firmware update around October. While it's nice that Samsung is at least planning to support the feature (unlike the pricier Pioneers), I can't help but wonder what's taking them so long? Even though the Blu-ray format is supposed to more than just Sony, it would appear from Sony's release of BD-Live support for the PS3 in early April that Sony's engineers know more about the format and their hardware than Samsung does.

On top of the fact that it can't do BD-Live out of the box is the fact that Samsung is thumbing its nose at the higher resolution DTS formats as well. The CNet article mentioned previously says that Samsung has no plans at all to support the lossless DTS HD Master Audio format, and is promising the lossy but still better than DTS-on-DVD DTS HD High Resolution audio format for some later, and also unspecified, date.

One after another, Blu-ray manufacturers continue to make the Sony PlayStation 3 the most attractive Blu-ray player on the market!