Samsung announced two new Blu-ray players last week that have the ability to stream Netflix HD content as well as play physical media.

The devices' streaming ability makes sense. Netflix's existing Roku set-top box and the Xbox 360’s Netflix HD service both have momentum.

But dual-media devices in the past often served to ease the transition between an older form of physical media and a new industry standard. Consider the VHS/DVD players that first hit the market in the 1990s. Those players existed to transition consumers who had large collections of VHS tapes to a shiny new DVD collection.

Samsung's new players don't quite fit this mold. The company is marketing two relatively new forms of media at the same time. Backwards compatibility with standard DVDs is buried in the product spec sheet, not featured as a prominent selling point.

This leads to the question of where HD media is headed. Will the future be based on a physical disk, or content delivered instantly to any home with Internet access? Samsung's devices seem like a safe bet for now, but considering the growing popularity of Netflix HD, Hulu, Apple TV and other streaming HD services, having Blu-ray support feels a bit like the DVD players of yore that included a slot for VHS tapes.