Cambridge to join Blu-ray market with 640BD

Cambridge Audio -- better known for its speakers and receivers -- is on the verge of joining the market for Blu-ray players, say reports. The company is preparing the 640BD, a Profile 2.0 player with HDMI 1.3 output, as well as surround-sound decoding that supports all major formats except for DTS HD Master. Cambridge says the format is too processor-intensive for its hardware, though a bitstream can still be fed through to a compatible receiver.

The player upscales video to 1080p, and should have other features such as 1080p/24 support, an Ethernet connection, and various analog video and sound outputs. TWICE writes that the player should ship in February or March of 2009, at a cost of about $995.