As rumored, Samsung has rescheduled the launch of its Blu-Ray DVD player from May 23 to June 25. Samsung said its manufacturing lines are ready to go, but it wants time to complete compatibility testing with test Blu-Ray discs that product manufacturers and content providers won't have ready until late in April.

Samsung is able to afford its delay in part because DVD players based on the rival HD-DVD format are also delayed, reportedly for the same reason - the lack of film studio content. The same hitch factored into the delay of Sony's PS3 game console, which also plays Blu-Ray discs.

Samsung said it still anticipates the $999 BD-P1000 will be the first Blu-Ray player to launch at a national level in the United Sates.

Samsung also confirmed the addition of two new features to the player: a native 1080p output via HDMI for Blu-Ray software titles that are digitally mastered in 1920 x 1080 resolution,  and up to 1080p upconversion of conventional DVDs through the HDMI digital interface.

Additionally, the multi memory card interface was modified to support Mini-SD and Memory Stick Pro Duo formats.