If you don't have an excellent HD TV, you may not discern the difference between Blu Ray and regular DVD. I can't hardly tell the difference with very good eyesight (sub-Medicare age) and experience assessing image quality. Much content is available in both DVD and Blu Ray. Some newer stuff can be just Blu Ray, some older stuff can be just DVD. You don't know if having Blu Ray opens any doors for you, until you start seeing a lot of content you want that is unavailable in DVD. There are many ways to get streaming content from over the internet to a TV to watch, there's nothing special about using a disk player to do it. Other choices that can be easily connected to your TV include a PC, a smart phone, and a TV with the same built-in capabilities as your proposed disk player. Wifi= network signal transmitted using radio waves. Ethernet= same network signal transmitted using a wire. If your Wifi reception is adequate ( and 1.5 or 3 megs is very slow and undemanding unless your interior walls are made of stone or concrete), there's no technical advantage to using one over the other. I only glanced at the details, but the Samsung's capabilities are very normal and vanilla. Nothing special and nothing missing from what everything else does. Using a notebook isn't the same as streaming video, unless you'/re using the notebook to stream video. Simply web surfing is VERY undemanding of bandwidth. Put your laptop where the player would go, and try a video steam. How does it work? When an internet connection is sub optimal, all the streaming sources will automatically downgrade the image quality to avoid herky-jerky playback. So with a slowish internet connection, it'll usually work but the image will not be as clear as with more bandwidth. Streaming movies using either Amazon or Netflix doesn't require a Blu Ray player, they have their own systems. Amazon streaming is free with a $79 annual Prime account (free 2 day shipping and other bennies), Netflix is about $9 or $10 per month. They're competitors and don't have the same content. Streaming media is more popular than ever. Unless you really love a movie, most people would rather see something new instead of something old for another time.

A follow up to share what I learned. The Smart HDTV is now working and delivering streaming movies to our bedroom via the WiFi. The only wires to the HDTV (Vizio) is the house A/C electricity. 1) Don't change the WiFi password in a router using the WiFi interface, use a Ethernet interface. This is based on experience with 5 year old Netgear (low end) Router still 54 mb capable 802.11n? I tried and the Router ended up locked up. The password change may gone astray in any case the Router could not access the internet for connection to either the Ethernet or the WiFi. Lights on the Router showed both the Internet and WiFi okay. I replaced with a newer Netgear which supports 150 mb and has more Internet based features. 2) My Smart HDTV (all?) does provide for inputting all keyboard characters via an on-screen keyboard(s). I got in trouble because the number only input on the hand controller made me decide to change my Router password to all numbers, which I did on the new Router. Still better, much faster putting in numbers from the channel keypad than to use the "Hunt and Peck" on screen keyboard. The (my) HDTV does not have a touch screen so one has to click the pointer around the keyboard to pick out inputs. This into my view only after I entered the all numeric password and hit the "OK" - the next screen was the subject keyboard - which I no longer needed, but did need later when logging onto Netflix. The operation involves being in a data field, input any leading numbers (best) from the hand held keys then hit the "OK". An on screen keyboard then appears. If nothing more is needed, i.e., all numbers, click down to the "Enter". Side benefit: then new Router specifies Windows 8 compatibility - the old one was XP, maybe Vista qualified and some older Routers have problems with newer OS. The HDTV showing a Netflix movie had no detectible breaks (buffering?). I thought maybe that is because of the new Router, as my W8 computer had (and still has) some breaks in Netflix streaming, not sure about other services. The W8 laptop still exhibits this problem. One last start up issue on the HDTV. After logging on to my WiFi I pushed the Netflix button on my controller and Netflix started to load but failed. I started over again, it failed again. I then tried the Amazon application and it too failed. I then when into "chat" with Netflix technical support (they came on quickly) after the exchange of information on the situation on my end the support person typed, try youtube, so I did, and it come up/worked. I typed back the smart HDTV must be learning or youtube is more fault tolerant, No response, but I then tried Netflix and it worked and continues to work.

I just spent a little more time on the netflix site, and I agree that the quality of the downloadable stuff isn't spelled out clearly. I have comcast cable and they have some SD and HD movies that are truly on demand and start pretty much right when you select them. There will be a delay in downloading content off the netflix site, it seems like it could be 10-15 minutes. Not sure of that though. The netflix print, to paraphrase, says something along the lines of "the quality of your movie will depend on the speed of your internet connection. At 3mps, the quality will approach that of a DVD." I have a fast connection so I should get the best they have to offer. But that tells me it won't be HD (1080 or 720), and that it may barely be DVD (480). So yes, I take from that that the downloadable stuff on Netflix isn't HD. And with a fast connection you just might get DVD, which is 480. What's standard-def TV, something like 320, right? And VHS tapes were 240? I guess the good news for me is that my projector has a pretty decent upconverter in it, but the question begs as to how well it can upconvert what I download from netflix. A plus for me is that if the picture quality isn't great at 133", I can choke the projector down to display a smaller picture and improve quality. There are a variety of boxes you can use to download content from netflx. Personally if I was going to get a box I'd probably go for a blu ray player. But my wife wants to be able to also play games for the kids, so we'll probably go with PS3 or Xbox, more likely xbox. She wants to get dance dance revolution for my daughter! I don't have a real good feel for just what movies netflix has available for download. They claim 12000 out of their offerings of 100000. We were very happy with netflix when we just used them for discs years ago. We switched to blockbuster more for the kids, they liked being able to go into the store and pick up a DVD (a couple free in-store pickups per month) on their way home when they were having friends over. But blockbuster has gotten away from that feature, and blockbuster always seems to send discs in the que out of order. Makes it tough when you're watching a series. So I guess what it comes down to is that we're changing back to netflix for the DVDs via snailmail. At this time we look at the downloadable content as bonus stuff, and an excuse to get an xbox, and by getting an xbox it will allow us to watch bluray and work on our dance steps via DDR. One big slippery slope! But I do have a bit more head scratching to do...

Thanks! I'll look for the episodes. I've missed hearing a page for 'Doctor Bob', and the chickens, and the Swedish chef -- bork, bork, bork! (Can't say I've missed Ms. Piggy. LOL) Henson was a *genius*. Ooooh! Love that ringtone, cwnev! That should brighten everyone's day.