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Author Topic: Blue Ray player price differences Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 01-08-2009 12:13 PM                     We saw a lot of the good old "double dip" release pattern on DVD and it's no different with Blu-ray. Already certain high profile BD releases have been double-dipped. A new box set version of I Am Legend was recently released. Casino Royale now has two versions on Blu-ray (a new version with more extras and a new Dolby TrueHD track in addition to PCM 5.1 was released just before Quantum of Solace hit theater screens). The Lord of the Rings trilogy may be released on Blu-ray in the fall of 2009, but only the theatrical cut versions -that leaves room for even more elaborate "director's cut" versions to get released on BD just before The Hobbit is released in theaters. There is a lot of movies on BD that need re-visiting due to mediocre video transfers, someone making stupid DNR mistakes in the mastering process or the movie just being bit-starved from being squeezed onto a BD-25.  |  IP: Logged Carey Barber Expert Film Handler Posts: 143 From: Newport News, VA, USA Registered: Jan 2003 posted 01-17-2009 08:08 PM                     Veering back toward the original topic... At Best Buy I saw some Insignia brand Blu-Ray players for $169. That is pretty darn cheap, but it makes me nervous. Is this so cheap that they are likely to have problems? These players were only Profile 1.1, but I frankly don't care too much about that... Would you trust a player from Insignia? Or, would you recommend spending at least $50-$75 for a better brand?  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 01-18-2009 01:10 AM                     You just have to go by product reviews...if that means anything. Even to this day I still recommend the Playstation 3 as the best overall choice for Blu-ray players considering the kind of bang for the buck you get out of that product. Outside of that, if someone insists on buying a standalone BD player, then I recommend one of the latest Panasonic units on the market, either the DMP-BD35 (for under $300) or the DMP-BD55 (which runs around $400). The more expensive Panny unit features internal decoding and 7.1 analog output of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD audio formats. Still, the PS3 loads movies and BD Live content a lot faster than any standalone player can manage.  |  IP: Logged Carey Barber Expert Film Handler Posts: 143 From: Newport News, VA, USA Registered: Jan 2003 posted 01-18-2009 11:11 AM                     Thanks Bobby... I did not investigate whether that Insignia supported TrueHD or 7.1 surround. One thing I should mention is that I already have the PS3. It is in my living room and is part of a humble home theater system. I was thinking about a second, cheaper Blu Ray for my bedroom (where I currently have a DVD player). My wife and I like to relax and watch some movies before bed, so I have to decide whether I should rent movies in Blu Ray or DVD. If I had a second Blu Ray player I would not have to buy or rent DVDs anymore. I thought that this was a good deal, but would be afraid that the thing would just fall apart. I will try and check some product reviews.  |  IP: Logged Sam Graham AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues. Posts: 1431 From: Waukee, IA Registered: Dec 2004 posted 01-18-2009 05:47 PM                        The Insignia is the Funai player (Magnavox at Walmart, Sylvania at Costco). It does not decode the audio codecs internally, but passes them through to any HDMI receiver that does. I have the Maggie. It's just peachy. It's my main player in the living room...I have a PS3 in the bedroom. If you never intend to connect your Blu-ray to the internet, this player is just fine.  |  IP: Logged Carey Barber Expert Film Handler Posts: 143 From: Newport News, VA, USA Registered: Jan 2003 posted 01-18-2009 07:58 PM                     Thanks Sam... So Insignia is like Best Buy's generic brand? And Funai is a company that makes the player itself and it is then branded differently for different stores? If that is the case, I never knew that. Like you said, I will never need to connect to the internet with this one, since I can do so with my PS3. At such a cheap price it is a little hard to pass this up unless there is some huge flaw in it.  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 01-18-2009 08:04 PM                     Yes, Insignia is Best Buy's generic brand. So what happens if you need to upgrade this player later (profile 2.0? Or whatever?). It looks like BD is designed for that kind of thing, and I do wonder a little at buying a player whose long-temr support may be a bit limited. Just wondering. --jhawk  |  IP: Logged System Notices Forum Watchdog / Soup Nazi Posts: 215 Registered: Apr 2004 posted 03-25-2010 05:52 AM                 It has been 430 days since the last post.  |  IP: Logged Carey Barber Expert Film Handler Posts: 143 From: Newport News, VA, USA Registered: Jan 2003 posted 03-25-2010 05:52 AM                     Well...That Insignia Blu Ray player that I mentioned died a few days ago. It just spits discs right back out. I would like to buy another lower-priced Blu Ray player pretty soon. As I mentioned, I already have a PS3 in the living room, so I want a cheaper model for the bedroom. Here is my concern...There were several Blu Ray discs that would not play at all on this Insignia player. The model was a NS-2BRDVD. I believe it was a profile 1.1 player. If I am going to buy another player, I would like to know that it will play every disc. Is there a way to confirm this? If a player is listed as Profile 2.0 (BD LIVE) is that pretty much a guarantee that it will play all discs?  |  IP: Logged Sam Graham AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues. Posts: 1431 From: Waukee, IA Registered: Dec 2004 posted 03-25-2010 08:14 AM                        The profile version you have shouldn't cause issues with playing any movie...just using certain features in movies. The key to avoiding problems playing certain discs is keeping the firmware of your player up to date.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 03-25-2010 09:51 AM                     This is another big reason why I still recommend the PS3 to people wanting to buy a Blu-ray player. It is usually far easier to apply a system software update to a PS3 than it is to update a standalone Blu-ray player. I helped a couple friends of mine pick out a good Blu-ray player 2 months ago. They went with a Panasonic DMP-BD60K because the Playstation 3 seemed kind of overwhelming for all the stuff it does. They preferred something more simple and had no desire to connect it to the Internet. A couple weeks ago they ran into a snag. The unit wouldn't play a rented BD of Inglorious Basterds. The problem was with the player's firmware. The DMP-BD60K has a USB 2.0 port and a SD card slot on the front of the machine. It would seem logical to think you could download the latest firmware, copy it to a flash memory card/stick and have the player install it from there. Nope. Instead I had to burn the firmware to an "ISO-9960" formatted CD-R. My friends couldn't do that because their Windows Vista based notebook wouldn't let them. My old XP Pro notebook would. What a pain in the ass. That particular Panasonic player is one of many standalone BD players that require the user to burn a ISO-9660 disc to apply a firmware update (if the player isn't connected to the Internet). OTOH, the PS3 can be firmware updated (quite easily) via a flash memory stick/card. You can even back up the system to a flash card -which you need to do if you install a larger capacity hard disc. Edit: BTW, Blu-ray.com reported Newegg.com has the Toshiba BDX2000 Blu-ray player for $99.99 and Amazon has the Sylvania NB530SLX Blu-ray player on sale for $59.99. The Sylvania unit is a Profile 1.1 player (Bonus View only).  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-25-2010 12:27 PM                        Did you mean ISO-9660? That's the standard CD-ROM format. Any operating system that supports a CD burner should be able to burn that.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 03-25-2010 12:33 PM                     Apparently a lot of CD creation software and even Windows Media Player doesn't burn CDs and DVDs strictly to recognized standards. They have to be special. So if you merely burn the firmware file to a CD-R as you would with any data or music disc the Blu-ray player will not recognize it. I had to use a kind of odd procedure with Windows XP (described in Panasonic's firmware "how to" PDF) to burn a disc the Blu-ray player would recognize. IMHO, the Blu-ray player ought to simply "see" the ".fir" file on any attached media (USB flash memory stick, SD card, etc.), compare it to the player's existing firmware and ask the user if he wants to apply the update. But I guess that's thinking like a customer/end user too much. We all have to think like engineers and know the secret handshake. At least the PS3 doesn't put its user through that sort of hassle.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-25-2010 12:45 PM                        You should still be able to download something like the freeware "mkisofs", create the ISO image, and then burn the image to the disk. That said, Aunt Millie is not going to do this. If this sort of thing is necessary for Blu-Ray to work as a format, then it's not ready for prime time yet. Just requiring users to own a computer and have Internet access is ridiculous. And what about all of the institutional players in service? Are schools and colleges and such supposed to send someone around every so often to upgrade the firmware on Blu-Ray players? That's not going to happen.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 03-25-2010 12:59 PM                     It seems that the programming on many electronics and computing devices are unfinished. Sometimes upgrading firmware adds useful features, as I've seen with my Playstation 3 and Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera. At other times the updates are fixing bugs and compatibility issues. We have a large Konica-Minolta "bizhub" copier/printer in my office. The service technician had to apply a firmware update to that machine, but it didn't fix the "I'll print 10 copies of this thing instead only 1 like you wanted" error that happens from time to time. I remember DVD having issues like this too in its early years. If the end user was lucky he could burn a ISO disc to apply a firmware update. More often than not a glitch was fixed only by replacing the player. I went through that with a Sony DVD player bought in 1999 and replaced it with a 5-disc Pioneer DVD changer in 2001.  |  IP: Logged

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