Yamaha's new BD-S2900 player

What is the first to come to mind when people hear the name "Yamaha"? Probably a very quick and aggressive Japanese motorcycle or at least that is the case with yours truly. But the company is also one of the most famous names of A / V product market, as it has come up with a very solid variety of speakers and receivers over the years, so there is really no surprise that it has decided to jump on the Blu-ray bandwagon as well.

Unfortunately, Yamaha plunder in this particular market segment has not exactly been very successful, at least in terms of the company's latest model is concerned. And it is because the BD-S2900 Blu-ray player, launched just a few days ago, giving what can only be described as standard features, while the retail trade for a completely ridiculous price.

Like most other products before, BD-S2900 can output 1080p via HDMI in 24fps and even 12-bit Deep Color compatibility, to be able to deliver the 4096 shades of each of the three primary colors for a total of 68.7 billion possible colors. It also offers some upscaling capabilities through Chroma Upsampling engine.

In addition, high-bit rate audio signals (Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS HD Master Audio and DTS HD High Resolution Audio) are fed directly from the player to the receiver (via an HDMI cable) without conversion to PCM. The unit also offers support for BONUSVIEW features such as Picture-in-Picture and Virtual Package.

Using the BD-S2900 remote control, users can view an alternative picture of the main picture, with compatible Blu-ray discs. In addition, the BD-S2900 can eject the secondary audio. Virtual Package allows viewers to combine information from a Blu-ray Disc with content on an SD card to enjoy additional multimedia and interactive opportunities as they become available.

But as mentioned earlier, the BD-S2900 does not have the exact number of things that would have made it really competitive, namely, support for BD-Live and an Ethernet connection. In this way, the unit cannot perform firmware upgrades and cannot access the online content available for some discs. And the worst is behind us ... this thing sells to the high price of 1200 dollars, which could make you a PS3 and a decent HDTV to watch Blu-rays.