Samsung Puts Lovefilm Streaming On UK Blu-ray Players

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Call this one for the “probably should have thought of it sooner” files, but apparently, the folks out at Samsung have seen the value of adding Lovefilm streaming capability to their Blu-ray players sold in Great Britain.

Of course, you’ll need to be a Lovefilm subscriber at the 5.99 pound sterling level or greater to get access to it (about $9.61 US, which is slightly more expensive than Netflix but in the ballpark), but once you’ve got that subscription in hand, you’ll then be able to make use of the appropriate widget on Samsung’s Internet@TV service to stream movies direct.

This isn’t the first time someone’s gone this route, of course–Playstation 3 users, as well as Sony Bravia TV owners, have been able to stream from Lovefilm for some time, and of course the Amazon acquisition has changed things quite a bit–but Samsung is a pretty big deal in Europe. As it turns out, Samsung Blu-ray players reportedly make up about a quarter of the entire European market, which is naturally going to give Lovefilm a serious foothold in same, and probably put the kibosh on any of Netflix’s plans to expand into Europe. After all, it was just a month ago where Netflix was discussing its expansion plans, but with Lovefilm looking to take up that much of the market fueled by Amazon’s dollars, well, it sure doesn’t look good for Netflix to get much of a toehold in the European market. Not that there aren’t plenty of other markets for Netflix to expand into–Asia, I’m looking right at you–but the issue remains.

For its part, Samsung says it plans to put out more apps throughout 2011, which is no surprise given how well their app store has been doing of late, but this is really only a peripheral issue. It poses some interesting times ahead in what I’m still convinced will be the next format war: physical vs. non-physical media.