Harman Kardon has been around for a long time. Most of use will recognize the name from the speakers the firm has produced for computers and home theater for years. The company also makes car stereo speakers and other products as well.

Harman Kardon has announced that it will be releasing its first Blu-ray player this month. The device is called the BDP 1 and will sell for $499. For that amount of loot, you get the same basic features you expect in a new Blu-ray player including HDMI 1.3a out, RJ-45 connectivity, and support for BD-Live and BonusView.

Harmon Kardon is jumping into the Blu-ray market with its first player, the BDP 10. It has all of the features you want in a Blu-ray player. Like BD-Live and Bonus View capabilities for online content, advanced audio codec support, 1080 / 24p playback, plus USB ports for DiVX and JPEG display.

It also features HDMI 1.3a, Ethernet, coaxial and optical audio outputs plus two-channel analog audio outputs. The BDP 10 has only been announced for Europe so far, but it should show up everywhere else in the next few months, including the US. It will cost you about €700 (or $940).

If you have dropped big bucks on your big screen 1080p HDTV and Blu-ray player but are still rocking with the plain vanilla 5.1 surround sound you are missing half the coolness of many Blu-ray movies—the HD sound. Sure Dolby Digital 5.1 sounds pretty good, but wouldn’t you rather get the Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio goodness form your Blu-ray titles?

To do that odds are you are going to need a new AV receiver and Harman Kardon announced a nice one recently called the AVR 354. The 354 features decoding for both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master audio and an on screen graphical menu and a new iPod dock called The Bridge II. The iPod dock allows docking of the iPhone and most other iPods and shows the iPod video, images and menu screens on your TV.