Blu-Ray player? Recommendations?

[Radioguy41]

What's the least expensive way to get into Blu-Ray? Recommendations?

 

[dfergie]

Moved to Blu-ray, you can get one of the Magnavox players at Wal-Mart for under $200 or the Sony BDP350 for under $300 at same place...

 

[Hemi 6.1]

I got a Philips 7200. I love it.
But Blu Rays don't really impress me. I'm Fine watching a regular DVD.

 

[JimMcC]

I got a Philips 7200. I love it.
But Blu Rays don't really impress me. I'm Fine watching a regular DVD.

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You love it, but it doesn't impress you. That doesn't make sense.

 

[teachsac]

Panasonic BD60 is a good choice for under 300.

S~

 

[Hemi 6.1]

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You love it, but it doesn't impress you. That doesn't make sense.

I love the player, Not the Format. I play regular DVD's 90% of the time in my Philips Blu Ray.
Blu ray is over rated and over priced. If you like Animation sure Blu ray is for you.

 

[HiDefRev]

Blu-Ray

I have the Magnavox Blu-Ray in my den. It works just fine. It is Profile 1.1 which is fine with me, as I seldom use the BD-Live functions on my PS3. For the money it's hard to beat.

 

[KAB]

I love the player, Not the Format. I play regular DVD's 90% of the time in my Philips Blu Ray.
Blu ray is over rated and over priced.

:up:up:up:up:up:up:up:up:up:up:up:up
I am just thankful I did not spend near what some people have. BD will never become the dominant format unless they cut the movie prices in half, and I don't see that happening.

 

[dfergie]

Remember guys, no format wars...

 

[KAB]

Remember guys, no format wars...

Discussing only BD.

 

[jvc]

Discussing only BD.

By "no format wars", I think he meant that there's nothing to motivate them into lowering prices. That's exactly why I hated seeing HD DVDs go away. Competition is a good thing. It motivates to make hardware better, and keep prices down. Stopping HD DVDs was really stupid, IMHO.

Prices may come down after awhile. Players are less than half the price they were. You can always pickup used BD movies fairly cheap...........

 

[dfergie]

Prices are actually much cheaper than I would have thought 1 year ago... I was a reluctant Blu-ray convert and can tell no difference between it and HD DVD in PQ on any of my sets, but can see an improvement over broadcast HD for sure...

 

[Bobby H]

By "no format wars", I think he meant that there's nothing to motivate them into lowering prices. That's exactly why I hated seeing HD DVDs go away. Competition is a good thing. It motivates to make hardware better, and keep prices down. Stopping HD DVDs was really stupid, IMHO.

HD-DVD movies were just as expensive as the Blu-ray discs. The only time HD-DVD got "cheap" was when the format was officially killed and the movies were put on fire sale.

The biggest half-truth (or outright lie) being told by so many in this argument is the cost of DVD movies. The stories are always spun to make it sound like the standard price for DVDs is only $5 or $10. What a crock!

The folks quoting DVD to BD price comparisons need to try listing prices of NEW releases on DVD. Absolutely nothing debuting on DVD for the first time is hitting store shelves at single digit loss leader pricing.

Quantum of Solace is a pretty good example. The bare bones DVD cost roughly $20. Not $10 or $5 like many would like to believe. The 2-disc DVD of Quantum of Solace was commanding $24-$26 depending on where you shopped. The Blu-ray version had everything from the 2-disc DVD, but with all the stuff in high definition. It carried a $29.99 price in stores like Wal-Mart, Sams, etc. but was introduced at a $25.99 (or even lower) sale price. Overall, it was common to see the Quantum of Solace BD carrying only a $1-$2 price difference with its 2-disc DVD counterpart.

The only areas where price differences between Blu-ray and DVD are pretty huge is in the area of catalog titles. Even in that case, a lot of catalog movies on Blu-ray have been pushed well below the $20 level. There's even quite a few available for $15.

 

[televisionarchives]

I got a blu ray player for $125.00 after rebates and selling my blu ray disc. How? About a year ago Sony had a promo for the PS3. I got $200 back for the 40 gb ps3 plus 5 blu ray disc. I sold the disc and at the end it cost me $125 for the PS3. I think Sony has some kind of deal now if you open a sony card.

 

[bhelms]

...I think Sony has some kind of deal now if you open a sony card.

That's how I got my BDP-S550 for $274 delivered last fall. At the time the new card discount was $150 on your first purchase. The 350 would have been $168. Paid off the card in full when first due and will probably never use it again. In the meantime that 550 is serving me quite well, especially for the price.

 

[theoak]

The upconversion has gotten better too. I purchased an upconverting DVD player (can upconvert to 1080p) in 2007. It did a pretty good job on DVDs on my 1080p LCD. Last year (2008) my wife got the Magnavox BD player for $129 on Black Friday. I find it upconverts DVDs even better. This is the only way that I would be "Blu". Otherwise, the players and content is too expensive. The wife did purchase a handful of blu-ray discs at the time. That is all I have ever played. I have been contemplating a NetFlix membership to get Blu-Ray content; however, we can barely keep up with what we are watching now. In addition, I am currently subscribed to the free HBO and Starz with Dish for 3 months, so I am recording movies quite a bit in preparation when all of the series finish their runs here in about a month. The player itself works great, I have no complaints. The Blu-Ray format however is still too expensive for me ...

 

[jvc]

HD-DVD movies were just as expensive as the Blu-ray discs. The only time HD-DVD got "cheap" was when the format was officially killed and the movies were put on fire sale.

I know. But what I'm saying is, if both were still around, They would both probably be cheaper by now. But since BD has the monopoly on high def dvds, they're in no hurry to lower the price. If people quit buying them, then they'll lower the price.

 

[Radioguy41]

Thanks to everyone for your insight. It narrows it down a bit for me and will save me some research time.

 

[jayn_j]

I know. But what I'm saying is, if both were still around, They would both probably be cheaper by now. But since BD has the monopoly on high def dvds, they're in no hurry to lower the price. If people quit buying them, then they'll lower the price.

People have short memories. BD prices are coming down faster than DVD prices did in their first years. It took 6 or 7 years for DVD to start taking a serious bite out of VHS. And it took that same amount of time for both players and discs to come down to competitive prices. As late as 2002, DVD discs still commanded a $5 premium over VHS sell through releases, even though they cost significantly less to produce.

 

[navychop]

The Digital Bits seems to think there will be sub $150 BD players this year.