Unlike its predecessors, Panasonic's latest DMP-BD50 Blu-ray player incorporates what the company has dubbed "BD-Live," allowing it to access online interactive content. It also boasts Viera Link (Panny's version of controlling your other components through HDMI connections), and an SD card slot for playback of video or pictures.

On the audio side, it has onboard decoding for the new sound formats that are on HD discs, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio, hallelujah. The new Uniphier video processor was developed in conjunction with the Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory pro video mastering facility. Price and availability were not mentioned.

Moving Blu-ray cabability into the home of Joe Sixpack, the SC-BT100 is the first HTiB to include a high-def player. Like its big brother, you also get an SD card slot.