Time and again, we wonder whether online video will undermine Blu-ray, so Panasonic is covering its bases with a player that handles both.
Amazon Video On Demand streaming is being added today to Panasonic’s range of Viera Cast-enabled Blu-ray players and home theaters released in 2009. The company’s Viera Cast online media portal already includes content from YouTube and Picasa, plus Bloomberg News and weather.
Owners of the DMP-BD60K, DMP-BD80K, DMP-B15, DMP-BD70V Blu-ray players or the SC-BT200 or SC-BT300 home theaters can get Amazon streaming today by registering the player with Amazon Video On Demand. Videos are added to a virtual library that can be watched from any Viera Cast device, or on a computer.
This isn’t a totally unsurprising move. Panasonic has supported Amazon content since April, when the company added Amazon Video On Demand to its Viera Cast-enabled plasma HDTVs. Several HDTVs, such as Sony’s Bravia, can also connect to the Internet for media streaming. Amazon, meanwhile, has been building its so-called HD library with streaming video, plus movies for rent and TV shows for rental or download.
Still, Panasonic’s addition of Amazon content is another significant step in the evolution of Blu-ray players. Increasingly, they’re becoming content hubs instead of dumb boxes for optical media only. Last August, LG’s BD300 became the first Blu-ray player to stream Netflix movies. Samsung followed suit in December with two Netflix-capable Blu-ray players of its own. LG also plans to add support for movies from CinemaNow and videos from YouTube in this year’s Blu-ray players.
It’s almost as if, were Blu-ray to die off as a media format, you could still use the player for other things.
