Hello AVS Blu-Ray Forum Gurus,
First, a little back story...
After 4 years of tears, choice words and great frustration my Samsung Blu-ray player has finally given up for good. I had originally purchased a BD-P1400 back in 2007 and it failed spectacularly within 14 months. 2 months of back and forth with Samsung support yielded a replacement BD-P1600 and about 5 years off my lifespan. The '1600 had been passable up until this last weekend when it simpy stopped responding. I've never been more DONE with a manufacturer product line as I am with Samsung disc-based products.
I'm not in the market for a replacement Blu-ray player OR equivalent PC-based system. My requirements are as follows:
- play Blu-ray discs
- stream local MP3 & FLAC media content from a QNAP TS-219P NAS (important!)
- CD playback
Optionally I'd like to:
- try out some DVD-A and SACD content
Other Equipment
I have a Roku XDS that I use for Netflix, Pandora, Amazon video, and a pile of other apps/channels that I actually use pretty regularly. The Roku doesn't have DLNA capabilities and I can't be asked to plug in a thumbdrive for music playback when I have a 1.5TB archive of the stuff sitting in a NAS.
I also have:
Onkyo TX-SR875 Receiver
Pioneer Kuro KRP-600M PDP monitor
My #1 candidate for a standalone Blu-ray player is the Oppo BDP-93 which I believe would satisfy all my requirements above, including the optional ones, so long as I can get a DNLA media server up and running on my NAS. I like the idea of an "everything just works" standalone
My question is whether I should go the standalone route with the Oppo or consider putting together a Media PC with Blu-ray drive and software. I know that a PC would give me easy access to all of the NAS media shares and have the bonus of allowing web browsing from the couch if I had such an inclination.
The question is whether I can get to Oppo BDP-93 performance levels with a Media PC or if I should just go with the best standalone player for the money? Is there another standalone player I should be considering? I would only consider a brand that has a solid track record for firmware support as my experience with Samsung is almost unmentionable.