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With HD DVD officially having been declared a dead format, this news should not come as much of a surprise, but Samsung has officially killed off the BD-UP5500 combo player. The BD-UP5500 was originally introduced at CES this past January and seemed to be a dead product right from the beginning.

In a statement from Samsung they seem to feel that it still remains a good product, but not really a needed product. According to Samsung that while it “remains a practical solution…the window of opportunity is smaller than it was before. In light of recent announcements, Samsung will not introduce the BD-UP5500 Duo HD Player.”

Current owners of HD DVD media may need to start looking for a replacement to their current movies, possibly sell them off on eBay and move over to Blu-ray. HD DVD set top players that are new seem to becoming far and few, with most manufacturers having already discontinued producing any new models. There are still a few in the market, one other from Samsung, the BD-UP5000 (of course this is also expected to hit the dead pool shortly) and two models from LG, who have announced they plan to continue moving forward with dual-format players.

Samsung is also expected to release their dedicated Blu-ray player, the BD-P1500 sometime in the spring of 2008.

Via [Crave]