Introduction

It has been some time since Yamaha manufactured a hi-def disc player, either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray.  Instead Yamaha has been offering upscaling DVD players such as the S1700 and the S2700.  Now that the format war is over and Blu-ray is the declared winner, this is no longer true.  Yamaha has created the BD-S2900, their first Blu-ray player.

The BD-S2900 is a profile 1.1 player that plays 1080p24 source material, and outputs in bitstream format, all of the latest sound formats including Dolby TrueHD and dts-HD Master Audio.  The BD-S2900 has a full set of analog connections as well as a host of digital connections, including HDMI 1.3, so it can be used with just about any receiver or display.   As a profile 1.1 player, it is Bonus View (pip) capable, and also features an SD card slot that’s used for JPEGs, MP3s, or Virtual Package content.  The BD-S2900 won’t play VCD, DIVX, WMA, SACD, and DVD-Audio and it doesn’t have an Ethernet connection, so it isn’t able to connect to the internet to download firmware updates, or BD-Live material.