While Toshiba might not be jumping into the Blu-ray fray anytime soon, at least some of the companies that supported HD DVD have made the switch. We last saw Integra promoting a high-def optical disc player (of the HD DVD variety) around this time last year; fast forward to now, and it’s delivering its first Blu-ray model.

Integra’s first entry into Blu-ray is the DBS-6.9 Blu-ray player. It features BonusView but no BD-Live, but we know that picture and audio quality are still the main reasons for trading up to Blu-ray.

That’s where you’ll get the goods with Integra’s full 1080p at 24 frames per second, with Deep Color capability and HDMI 1.3a for your bitstream output of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.

There’s also a front-panel SD card slot, legacy DVD upscaling to 1080p, and playback of CD, Video CD, CD-R/RW, DVD+-R/RW, DivX, WMA, JPG and MP3 discs.

And at $600 suggested retail price, the DBS-6.9 is even $500 bucks cheaper than Integra’s HD DVD entry from last year. Plus they’ve put out a slew of receivers in between, so you can maximize your Blu-ray discs.

Arlen Schweiger - Managing editor of Electronic House Magazine

Arlen contributes product news items to electronichouse.com along with his role on the print publication. Got a tip? Send it along!