Panasonic BD-Live player's price tag shrinks

The DMP-BD50, Panasonic's entry-level BD-Live player, has still to be officially released, but has surfaced several times online at various price points. It has again appeared, at its lowest price yet.

Panasonic's first BD-Live Blu-Ray machine premiered at CES this year, showing off the extra features that can be obtained by connecting a Blu-ray player to the Internet. At the time, there was no launch date or price, but Panasonic told BetaNews that it would be watching how the market changes before deciding on anything.

The device received an initial price of $699.99 back in May, but the company was vague with its release information, projecting only "Spring" as its launch date.

With no further details, spring eventually passed and enthusiasts were left waiting and wondering. Then, the device briefly appeared for sale on Circuit City's site for $429.99.

The DMP-BD50 has emerged once again, this time on Amazon with an MSRP of $299, and selling for only $276. At that price, it is the cheapest out-of-the-box BD-Live enabled player (with no firmware upgrade needed) on the market.

High-Def Digest reported in October that the popularity of BD-Live proved to be unexpectedly high, when BD-Live servers were overwhelmed by the amount of traffic related to the release of Iron Man. Even with increased bandwidth in preparation for the release, many users were still unable to access bonus content.