Onkyo trots out its debut Blu-ray player

Having backed the wrong pony by launching an HD DVD player just before the whole HD DVD party crunched to an end, Onkyo has quickly got its HD plan back on track by launching its first Blu-ray player.

That player is the DV-BD606, a £400 machine with features that include a v1.3a HDMI output (for Deep Color support); BonusView compatibility for such goodies as picture-in-picture playback and video commentaries; bitstream output of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio formats as well as PCM output of decoded 7.1-channel audio; Burr-Brown DACs; and an SD card slot via which you can play value-added content tracked down by an internet-connected computer.

Obviously this latter convoluted bit of SD card business is basically a fancy way of saying the BD606 is only Profile 1.1 compatible, not Profile 2.0. In other words, it can't access BD Live content directly.

We have to say we really think that it's about time all Blu-ray players met the Profile 2.0 standard. But to be fair, Onkyo is hardly alone in sticking with Profile 1.1 for the time being. And as we've said before, BD Live so far hasn't exactly been the dog's danglies in the quality department. So we guess we can forgive the lack of Profile 2.0 support if the deck's basic performance turns out to be a bit on the tasty side.