Which Blu-Ray to buy?

The PS3 owners will be here soon with their victory flag but I would go with the Panasonic DMP-BD30 if I had to get one today.
It's 1.1 profile and Panasonic has good customer service, which is important when you are an early adopter of HDM.

The PS3 is supposed to be updated to profile 1.1 but we have yet to see that update.

Jetblack, you say you have been researching it for awhile so have you learned about the different profiles available to the format and which profile will best fit your needs?

Current players are mostly profile 1.0, profile 1.1 players will have more storage space and enable picture in picture features, profile 2.0 players will have even more storage space plus internet connection and web enabled functionality.

If you want to future proof and make sure you have all these features you should look for a player that gurantees compatibility with profile 2.0

To me, the DLNA network media playback capabilities of the PS3 put it so far ahead of a stand alone player. This is a significant feature set.

Even if you don't game, the PQ and AQ of the Panasonic and PS3 are excellent. You can't go wrong with either player. I own the Panasonic DMP-BD30 and have been extremely happy with it's performance. The difficulty integrating the PS3 with my universal remote is what ultimately pushed me to the Panasonic. The wife would have balked at needing to use 2 remotes.

Searching would be a good place to start...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...ght=standalone
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...ght=standalone
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...ght=standalone
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...ght=standalone
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...ght=standalone

Ok getting ready to buy myself a blu-ray player and wanted to know which is a good middel of the road one to pickup . i don't need top of line not going to cheap out neither figure spending about 300 to 500 range.so which one will fit my needs?? Also my receiver is a pioneer VSX D608 has optical in but is not HDMI. being it's a older receiver it will do 5.1 and DTS decoding will this work with the blu-ray players. thanks for any info ahead of time.

Without HDMI in the receiver you will have to use your anaolg ins for the high rez formats (Dolby Tru HD). The new Pannasonic only does bit stream to HDMI inputs. The Panasonic BD10AK decodes Dolby True HD and sends it though the analog outs (and also uncompressed PCM).

The Panasonic DMP-BD30 is probably the best decision for how far along it is - it will bitstream TrueHD/DTS-HD MA, and it will be Profile 1.1 compliant through a firmware update. Samsung's BD-P1400 has been seen for $300 recently, so I suppose it's a contender at that price. Alternately, the DMP-BD10 is the best decision if a HDMI 1.3 receiver is not in your future.

I bought a SAMSUNG BD-P1400 back in October and I'm farily disappointed in it and wouldn't recommend it. Very slow load times and overall very temperamental. At first it would just stop during dvd playback (as if I hit the stop button) which was fixed with a firmware upgrade. Now I have one bluray that will not even play because Tech Support at Samsung claim it's a "known issue" that will be fixed with the next firmware release. But to my surprise there are people on this forum that have the same model and it plays ok. Maybe some have had better luck than me but the production date on the sticker on the unit says "sep 07" so it's not like it was one of the first off the production line. But there was no way to know of these issues before I purchased. If I could do it again I would go with another brand for sure.

ps3 is a viable choice if you are looking for a networked player with most of the features. The one major drawback that I've heard from standalone-preferences is the ps3's bluetooth remote requirement. If you don't mind that, the ps3 has optional features that do make it interesting like movie trailers, game demos, and some simple fun games to entertain you ($5-$10 arcade-like games). Load-up time is also significantly faster on the ps3 from anecdotal evidence here.

If your set for a standalone, the Panny is the best to get unless your looking for a dual-format one.

-Splints

I would wait until CES 2008 in early Jan. Likely to be some decent product announcements then. Perhaps many more profile 1.1 players or even 2.0.