LG Electronics is building some anticipation among tech bloggers over its upcoming BD300 Blu-ray Disc player, which will allow streaming movies and other content directly to home TV screens with a Netflix subscription. Netflix said it has about 9.3 million subs.

There is one Catch-22: Although the LG player will play Blu-ray discs in 1080p, it will not be able to stream content from Netflix in a HD format. (Not yet, anyway. The new units will be open to periodic middleware and software updates, similar to other next-gen CE products such as PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.)

Netflix already permits its subs to instantly stream a growing menu of movies and TV shows to their computers at no extra charge, some of which appear to come close to HD quality.