OFFICIAL "HELP ME CHOOSE A PLAYER" THREAD: Can't decide? Start HERE. - Page 342

Thanks Mike for helping. As far as the inputs since I have 4 HDMI inputs on the Denon 2309CI I don't need analog ports. With D* I go right to the 60 sony TV HDMI and use optical feed from D* to the Denon for sound. On my $10 Tosh HDDVD I use HDMI to the Denon and then HDMI to the HDMI input on the Sony TV. So when I add the Blue Ray, I will just plug it in HDMI into the Denon and program the Harmony remote.

My laptop has a HDMI port and I have a 15ft cable that goes to the Denon but the laptop has a standard DVD drive and not a Blue Ray.

My wife and I are not very tech savvy so we need KISS.

When I try to compare the LGBD590 it appears that it has more wireless connection technology like DIVX and VUDU already built in and it has a hard drive for storing vidio's. Since my Denon 2309CI has a HDCP enabled HDMI port as well as optical ports, I am not sure what I need.

All of the new technology boggles my simple brain and I need help

Hi,
i'm lost here lol , i'm looking for a multi regional blu-ray player. Is there any?? or i MUST use a chip to unlook it??
i've heard that Sony BDP S570 IS a multi regional but i couldn't confirm it. Any suggestion will be good
thank you

I haven't checked into the matter for a while but the conventional wisdom used to be that there is no problem in finding multi-regional DVD players but multi-region BD players are non existent. I have used this website for information on particular players. http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks

Hey everyone, I just purchased a new 50" Pioneer Signature Elite 101FD Plasma as well as a new Pioneer Elite VSX-32 A/V Receiver and need a new higher end Bluray player to replace my outdated Sony BDP-S350 Bluray. I can wait a few months if someone knows of a specific model that is coming out that fits my needs. I want something with a high end video processor (Anchor Bay for example) as well as one with a high end audio processor (burr-brown for example) and one that has built in Wi-Fi. This last requirement seems to be what is preventing me from finding (in my limited research) a current player that has all of these things under $1,000. I would love to match my setup with a Pioneer Elite Bluray however it appears that the current gen is made by Sharp and not up to the standard I would expect. Please let me know if there is a Bluray model currently available or soon to be available under $1,000 that you would recommend that fits my minimal criteria. Thank you in advanced!!!

The OPPO BDP-93 is "coming soon". Complete specs are not known yet but you can see a preview by following the link the first posting here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1278530

I forget if the price has been announced, but it is expected to be about the same as the BDP-83 (now out of production) which was $499.

There will be an OPPO audiophile player after that; I don't know the schedule or price.

-Bill

Actually, you probably don't need any of the things you mentioned.

(1) Unless you're very close, 50" isn't big enough to make out the small amount of difference between DVD upscalers. Anyway, you can just set your Sony to output 480i and let the very good scaler/de-interlacer in the 101FD handle it.
(2) Your Pioneer Elite AVR has excellent DACs built in. Trying to bypass them by running analog from the player would introduce another layer of noise (the non-digital connection) as well as screwing up the AVR room correction. Best to stick with HDMI and let the AVR handle all the sound.
(3) A $50 wireless bridge will turn any player with ethernet into a wireless player. It can also connect other nearby devices to your wireless network.

The only thing you might want to change is the lack of steaming services in the S350.

hi guys,

dumb questions abound in my post, apologies noted prematurely.

i have a 55" samsung LCD i bought a year ago and a panasonic bd60 blu-ray player. now i am looking into getting a wireless BD player that does netflix. i have a few questions:

1. are most of the netflix shows/movies that are downloadable actually in blu-ray format?
2. how many netflix shows/movies do they have available--all of them? some of them?
3. what is a great all-around player i should look into getting? just by default i was looking again at panasonic and saw the dmp-bd85k. would that one be good or is there a better one/deal?

i don't need anything real fancy, and in fact it doesn't even have to be wifi if there is a better deal out there currently. i am more concerned about if the netflix streaming is actually in blu-ray format and looks as good as a disc, and how many titles are available. thanks for the help.

1. None. Most are SD (480i) (about 10,000), some are HD (720p or 1080p) (less than 2,000). The HD ones aren't anywhere near blu-ray bit rates, but the PQ is still quite good if you have a fairly fast connection. Netflix streaming HD is better than DVD but not quite as good as blu-ray.

2. About 12,000 are available for download, but I don't think you'll be impressed with most of the titles available. The newest and best stuff is still disc only. You can see the current downloadable titles HERE. The list is constantly changing as new titles are added and old ones are removed.

3. The 85 is a fine choice, but can't currently do Netflix at 1080p. Only the PS3 can at the moment. I have a panasonic 65 and a PS3, but still do most of my streaming on the panasonic because it's more convenient to use (you have to press a button on the PS3 controller to exit netflix for some bizarre reason).

Personally I stream quite a bit, mostly Starz content (Netflix currently has all Starz content available for streaming) and recent TV series. $10/month is still a heck of a deal even if there are only a few good titles available for streaming.

great, thanks for the info. based on all of that, it sounds like it may be worth waiting for their netflix online to be a little more robust before i buy a player, not to mention at least waiting for a player that can support the higher resolution.

The system is quite robust. I read that netflix streaming accounts for 20% of all internet traffic at certain times of the day. So it works fine for millions of people.

I also expect most current players will be able to do 1080p with a firmware update just like the PS3 did. So if you wait until everything is perfect you'll be waiting forever, plus the titles you may have wanted to watch will be gone. Just sell your old players on ebay. I've upgraded players at least half a dozen times in the past 2 to 3 years because something new always comes along (now we've got 3D to contend with).

A standalone streaming box like a roku is a little more future proof, if that's your main concern. Blu-ray won't change nearly as much as streaming.

I need help looking for a new blu-ray player, i currently have a samsung BD-P1400 (very old i know) and i am always having playback problems with it so i think it is time to move on. i am looking for something i guess max $200 range 3D is not needed because i probably wont be buying a new tv anytime soon but amazon VOD i would like for sure if they have players with that. i hook my player up to an onkyo HT-R580 reciever so it needs to be able to do HD audio too. any help would be appreciated as i dont follow all the blu-ray tech too much, basically just looking for a pretty decent player that is out right now

I also have the samsung 1400 & I got tired of the playback problems so I got the Pany 85 & I like it so far (although the 1st I got was a lemon).

There are over 30,000 Titles available for Instant Watch download. The recent posts showing only 10,000 or so is incorrect. I know it isn't their total DVD selection of over 120,000 but in a year they have increased Instant Watch Titles from less than 20,000 to over 30,000. I think it is pretty robust.

http://www.thenowhereman.com/netflix/

i also have a ($250 refurbed, 2 years ago) samsung bdp1400 which has actually been pretty trouble free but my $60 (new) sylvania bdp is even better, faster loading anyway, and no problems at all. go figure...

Sorry may have missed the answer Im looking for , that is a BluRay Player that actually allows you to connect up to your NAS (Lan cable) and stream as well as play BR movies? Im not talking Netfix,YouTube, etc

Search for DLNA. That's the standard for accessing files over local networks.

-Bill

i am not entirely convinced of the firmware being updated to include the capabilities of 1080p. panasonic didn't add the capability of live netflix streaming to my bd60, even though it has internet access. they opted to sell a new unit entirely and make more money, so i don't see why they wouldn't do that with a 1080p player. maybe i am being paranoid, but i just don't trust that a firmware update will pull through. to date, my panasonic firmware updates have all been completely useless in the eyes of a layman.



so it is or isn't worthwhile? sorry i got a little confused between posts.

i don't watch a whole lot of tv. i just like to watch a few shows, mostly hbo/amc series, occasionally. there are some other mindless sitcoms i watch. if i rent them from netflix i can have them delivered in blu-ray. that seems less convenient but more preferable with a good television than just downloading them in lesser quality. i guess the question then is how often would you be bored and just decide to download something randomly from netflix...i don't know the answer, but i can tell you i rarely even scroll through my cable listings. so i am not sure how much patience i would have with 30k+ titles that are not in 1080p quality. know what i mean?

I concluded my original post with the statement that, even though the library is mostly junk, there are still enough gems to make the $10 subscription worth while. I don't have any premium channels, so it's nice to be able to get HBO, Sho, Starz, etc. series via streaming or disc. Even though streaming is lesser quality, I doubt you'll be able to tell much difference. I recently streamed Pushing Daisies and it looked quite good, even at 720p.

The vast majority of titles aren't on blu-ray anyway and likely never will be. It will be a long, long time before we can get everything instantly in 1080p, so may as well enjoy the thousands of titles we can get now. Otherwise you'll be waiting forever.

The bottom line is it's essentially free if you have a player and a netflix subscription, so it's a no-brainer. You actually have to go out of your way to find a player that doesn't stream.

Already asked in the BD-C6900 thread, but no response yet, and since this is the o-n-l-y BD player with Hulu, thought I would try this thread also. Sammy updated the firmware over a week ago, and I was curious if it fixed the Hulu issues ppl were having, and how well ppl like the Hulu app? Thanks

Sony 470 has hulu, and it's cheap. Check out the deals thread. Reports in the sony thread are that hulu+ works fine. We're getting close to BF, so the deals will only get better.

Recently purchased the Panasonic 54 V10, Onkyo 1007, monitor 70,60,40 and looking for a nice Blu ray.
Not really sure where to start. I want something that would compliment the above and not be the weak link but I don't want to spend a ton of money by buying duplication of what the TV and AVR can do.


Would like to keep it around 400$ but I say that only because I don't know what I should be looking for.
What should I be looking for?
What questions or habits should I ask myself to help decide?

I do know quality of the movie is extremely important.
Would like to stream/netflix or ?
Load or start time really isn't an issue.

Another question(s) - do all Blu rays play DVD's? Do they play them as well as dedicated DVD player? Do Blu rays play CD's?
Thanks

I'm looking for my first BD player and would like some advice. I'd of course been looking at the Oppo BDP-83 for a long, long time but I don't think I can justify the spend. Besides the Oppo's great blu-ray performance I was attracted to the speedy playback and the superior handling of regular DVDs.

Current setup:
Sony KDL52W5100
Pioneer VSX-23
X-Box 360 Elite

Considerations:
1) $200 or less

2) Player should do a GREAT job with regular DVDs. I use the xbox for DVDs but it is noisy and the picture is only so-so.

3) I already have Netflix and Amazon streaming through my TV, so unless the BD player can provide better picture quality I don't care much about streaming options. If it does have streaming, I don't care about wireless connectivity because I already have ethernet cable in place.

4) Reasonably fast performance. Doesn't have to be the fastest but not a dog.

Are there any players that will stream mkv, avi, or mov from a device on the local network?

Any affordable 3d player with good upscaling?

My BDP-S350 is Dead, Zed.

i bought a samsung c7000 plasma tonight.

im going to be using the ps3 a blu ray player.

my question is how the PS3 stacks up in PQ compared to other players? also, will i notice a significant difference if i buy another player?

I think I'll throw my hat into the ring here as I am unable to make a decision being "every" Blu-ray player seems to either have a fatal flaw, be ridiculously expensive or be out of production. I figured I might as well query the experts...


What I'd like to have in order of importance:

1. Superior Sound, Video Quality (BR.)
2. Good build quality.
3. DLNA.
4. Dual HDMI.

What I don't need:

1. Analog anything.
2. DVD upscaling.
3. Universal disk player.
4. Nice remote.
5. Apps.

Caveats:

1. Under $500
2. Available before December 1st.

Not on the list, but actually most important is reliability.

I would have probably jumped on a new feature rich Samsung, but after reading the massive list of Blu-Ray skip or won't play issues and the firmware nightmares, I basically ruled all of them out.

I am leaning toward the Panasonic 85K to go with my Panny Plasma, but it doesn't have DLNA, which isn't a deal breaker but is something I'd like to have.

The OPPO 93 seems a bit too far out as no one really knows when it will be shipping. I am also looking at the Denon 1611UD, but I haven't heard enough to know if it is the player I am looking for, or when it will ship.

The Sony's look nice (S570/770) so they are still on my list.

Other contenders are the Onkyo BD 808/807 (to match my receiver) and the Samsung C7900.

Any direction would be appreciated.

My choice:

1.SONY BDPS370
2.Samsung BD-C5500
3.Toshiba BDX2100
4.LG BD570C

Help me choose a player!!!

Hi all,

Looking to upgrade from an old Sammy and was wondering about a few options. I have been doing quite a bit of looking and thought I had things narrowed down, but actually don't. What I am looking for is a player with a good quality pic, good load times (Sammy is soooo slow), wifi, netflix and pandora would be nice, the latest codecs and 3d would be a bonus (but not necessary - I won't be upgrading the TV for several years, unless it dies on me). I have a older Denon (about 6 - 7 years old without hdmi, but will be upgrading to a much better A/V receiver very soon. Price range of $200 - $225.

I have a chance to buy an new PS3 slim 160gb for $200 and didn't know what some thoughts were on this compared to some others in this price range, such as;

- Panasonic DMP-BD85K
- LG BD590
- Sony BDP-S570

I currently have an xbox 360, but haven't really set this up as any type of media hub as of yet. I do some gaming, but not sure how much I would do on the PS3.

For the $200 price, would the PS3 be the best bang for the buck, or would I be better off with one of the other players at this price point?

Thanks for any thoughts!

So I'm looking for the following features in a BR player

$100 or less
Very good (preferably excellent) Blu-Ray and Netflix playback
Reliable WiFi

I'm looking into the Insignia NS-WBRDVD refurb models but I'm a little hesitant as I have no idea whether or not they provide BR PQ on par with the name brand competition. What are people predicting for Wifi enabled BR players on Black Friday, should I wait until then? Any input would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

I want a BR player but i don't know which one. It MUST be region free (or have a hack) at least for the DVD part. Also, it must support NTSF and be able to play MKV-files as well as XviD and all that.

BR PQ is identical to the competition. Netflix interface is better than most. That being said, vastly better players are available for only $20-$30 more from sony and vizio. They can do dozens of streaming services like hulu, amazon, vudu, etc. as well as DLNA and 3D that the Insignia currently cannot. It's also easier to get them to work with a universal remote, and remote response is better overall.

Insignia is a fine player and great bang-for-the-buck if you can find them for under $50 as I have, but they are quickly being surpassed by newer mainstream models whose prices continue to drop as their feature sets improve.

In any case, you should definitely wait for BF. I would expect the new Insignia NS-WBRDVD2 to drop below $100. The others I mentioned probably will as well.