It's been quite some time since the gloves were thrown out in the HD DVD / Blu-ray war, and after much smack talk from both sides, we still aren't seeing a clear cut victor. The biggest winner thus far seems to be the almighty mediator, which of course, LG holds an exclusive claim to at the moment. Sure, Samsung has denied and rekindled rumors of a combo player in the past, but according to an article at Stor-Age, the BD-UP5000 might not be such a pipe dream after all. If allegations prove correct, a "Duo HD Player" could hit the market as soon as July 2007, and aside from playing nice with both formats, the player would be cosmetically similar to the BD-P1200, support both BD-Java and Advanced Navigation, handle HDMI 1.3 and the latest audio formats, and will sport DCDi processing. There's no word on pricing just yet, nor any way to tell if Sammy is really ramping up for a hybrid release or not, but we'd sure love a little summertime competition in the two-faced-player arena nonetheless.[Via HomeTheaterBlog]