When the Blu-ray Disc format was first announced, a feature that industry execs liked to pimp in their PowerPoint presentations was BD-Live. With your player plugged into a home network, we were told, a BD-Live-enabled disc could access all manner of wonders by way of the Internet —things like games and extra scenes and commentaries not included on the original disc. (Think Kal Penn talking up the Harold & Kumar series from his seat in the Obama White House.) But now that the feature has become common on new releases, the reality turned out more like this: You press the BD-Live icon on the disc’s menu and then stare at your TV screen for 5 minutes as the player logs into some remote server. Afterward, you get the option to join a “Blu-ray Movie Bonus Points Club” or download a preview trailer for Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Or — my favorite — an invitation to participate in a survey telling the studio what you want from BD-Live.

Good stuff, studios!

Okay, BD-Live turned out to be a wash, but something interesting happened as we waited for the feature to fully materialize: Blu-ray players transformed into media-streaming dynamos. The addition of Netflix Instant Viewing, CinemaNow, YouTube, Pandora Radio, and other Internet-enabled media has changed what was an ordinary disc-playback device into an entertainment hub. And it’s not just the expensive players that offer such goodies; they can be found on models selling for less than $300 — the LG BD370, Panasonic DMP-BD60, and Samsung BD-P1600 under the microscope here, for instance.

Along with their multimedia/streaming abilities, these players are also equipped with the latest must-have A/V features, including an HDMI 1.3 output, built-in Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio decoding, a 1080p/24 video-output option, and the ability to play AVCHD video shot with high-def camcorders. But because they’re all “budget” players, a few features that come standard on more pricey models have been left out of the mix. For owners of older A/V receivers, the key one will be an analog multichannel output. This basically means that a new, HDMI-equipped A/V receiver is required to experience the new Blu-ray Disc audio soundtrack formats at full resolution. But each player also comes with an optical digital-audio output to convey standard compressed Dolby Digital/DTS soundtracks to older equipment. And on the video side, a component-video output capable of passing up to 1080i-format high-def signals completes the backward-compatibility loop for each player.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention: Each of these models is a Profile 2.0 out of the box (no firmware update required), so you’ll be good to go for both BD-Live and Bonus View features like picture-in-picture video commentaries. None of the players provides onboard storage for BD-Live downloads, so you’ll need to add your own USB flash drive or, in the case of the Panasonic, an SD card. But enough with the overview; let’s move on to the individual players.

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