Budget Blu-Ray player

[Coheednme13]

Hi all,


My brother's birthday is this week and I'm trying to find him a blu-ray player for his 50" plasma. He purchased it a few years ago and still has yet to watch any hi-def media through it. Crazy right? I want to get him a Blu-Ray player that is good but within my budget. I'm looking for one $150 or lower. Let me know if you guys have any reccomendations. Thanks in advance.


Matt

 

[jostenmeat]

The Panasonic BD60 is both a good player, and easily falls into budget. No netflix streaming, with no intention of providing FW to make it capable either. Not that I care, but maybe you do.

Just good old fashioned bluray playback, with historically excellent FW support. After all, Pana owns the majority of bluray patents. $129 at Amazon.

 

[Halon451]

Fortunately the prices of blu-ray players have come way down these days, especially with most manufacturers' entry level products. The Panasonic DMP BD-60 unit was on sale for about $150 when I bought one for my Dad for Christmas - not sure if the price went up by now or not. This was at my local Best Buy.

 

[MinusTheBear]

Another vote for the Panasonic BD60.

 

[j_garcia]

Another vote for the Panasonic BD60.

+1 to that list. You can't go wrong with this one.

 

[Coheednme13]

thanks guys looks like it's unanimous

 

[HDPCsound]

The behavior as a Blu-Ray the Panasonic BD60 is excellent, with very good quality in both video and sound. Although the response time has improved a lot, not like the LG BD370. But it's great.

 

[3db]

I bought a Sony BDPS360 for a 150 Cdn. I really like the picture quality of this player.
http://www.sonystyle.ca/commerce/servlet/ProductDetailDisplay?storeId=10001&langId=-1&catalogId=10001&productId=1006156&navigationPath=n45940n100265

Sony's web site is saying $260 Cdn but its usually goes between a $150 to $170 in the big box stores.

 

[ivseenbetter]

I'll vote for the Samsung BD-P1600. It can be had for sub $150. It provides a stellar picture and it has additional funtionality that you can't get from the Panasonic...Netflix streaming and Pandora and Youtube.

 

[Halon451]

I'll vote for the Samsung BD-P1600. It can be had for sub $150. It provides a stellar picture and it has additional funtionality that you can't get from the Panasonic...Netflix streaming and Pandora and Youtube.

Those are nice features, but I've heard the Samsung models this year have not been very reliable. Can anyone confirm that?

 

[darien87]

Those are nice features, but I've heard the Samsung models this year have not been very reliable. Can anyone confirm that?

I picked up a BD-P1600 at Best Buy for $117, (open box). It's been fine so far. Load times are pretty good. Definitely better than the Pioneer's I compared it to, one of them was even an Elite, (don't remember the model number). The BB online is pretty pointless for me as I already use their mail service and the player doesn't sync up with your online queue. So if I wanted to use that player to download a movie, I would have to pay for it. Pandora is kinda cool. But I don't really see myself using it. I could see it being useful if you were having a party and wanted commercial free music, or were doing housework and wanted music playing in the background.

Haven't had any reliability issues with it, but I don't use it that often.

 

[j_garcia]

Those are nice features, but I've heard the Samsung models this year have not been very reliable. Can anyone confirm that?

To be honest, Samsung's players seem to have a lot of quality issues historically. They have a few here and there that are solid, but for some reason they have had certain models that are just buggy.

 

[Midwesthonky]

Samsung...personal opinion

A former employer that is no longer in existance had a deal with Samsung to produce a product for them using Samsung's design but my employer's name badge. It was an unbelievable FUBAR of a design!! I was even home testing the units and they were so bad I called up the project guys and told them to come get them that day or I'd set them out on the curb.

I've used 5 Samsung products over the years varrying from appliances to electronics. Only one is worth a crap. So a 20% positive experience is not enough for me to retain any confidence in Samsung. My experience has been they typically understaff their projects and force short project schedules to get the product out in the market regardless of the launch quality. So I stay away from Samsung products since they failed the last chance I gave them.

We have all had such experiences with different brands. So we stick with the ones that have served us the best. I have had bad experiences with Samsung so I stay away from them.

 

[s52e368]

local target has the memorex 2525 for 100$

 

[Halon451]

local target has the memorex 2525 for 100$

I wouldn't recommend a Memorex BD player even if it was being offered for free.

 

[s52e368]

I wouldn't recommend a Memorex BD player even if it was being offered for free.

have you ever had or used one ?

i have the 2515 and it works perfectly, and i use it mainly for its 5.1 analog output.

 

[Halon451]

have you ever had or used one ?

i have the 2515 and it works perfectly, and i use it mainly for its 5.1 analog output.

Nope. But I've owned and used several other POS Memorex products in the past, and I fail to see how they suddenly found religion with the release of their blu-ray player line... If yours works fine for you, I won't knock you for it.

 

[3db]

To be honest, Samsung's players seem to have a lot of quality issues historically. They have a few here and there that are solid, but for some reason they have had certain models that are just buggy.

I can attest to this but not with teh Blu Ray but their standard upconverting player. I own a Samsung D8 (I beleive is the model) upconverting DVD player. Nice menu, really sh?tty remote, nice picture but its starting to skip on some DVDs. Its less than 2 years old and hasn't seen alot of action. My old Electrohome DVD player was built like a sherman tank and lasted me 7 years before finally dying. It was a much better built machine than the Samsung.

When I went looking for a BluRay, I was going to jump on the Samsung (I own a washer and dryer by them and they are freaken nice solid machines) but I shyed away because of the problems I'm seeing with my upconverting player.

I really like the Sony I bought. It feels solid, disk tray slides out really nice, just everything about seems quality. I'll let you know in a years time if I still maintain this impression.

 

[Halon451]

I can attest to this but not with teh Blu Ray but their standard upconverting player. I own a Samsung D8 (I beleive is the model) upconverting DVD player. Nice menu, really sh?tty remote, nice picture but its starting to skip on some DVDs. Its less than 2 years old and hasn't seen alot of action. My old Electrohome DVD player was built like a sherman tank and lasted me 7 years before finally dying. It was a much better built machine than the Samsung.

When I went looking for a BluRay, I was going to jump on the Samsung (I own a washer and dryer by them and they are freaken nice solid machines) but I shyed away because of the problems I'm seeing with my upconverting player.

I really like the Sony I bought. It feels solid, disk tray slides out really nice, just everything about seems quality. I'll let you know in a years time if I still maintain this impression.

I have the same Samsung upconverting player in my bedroom actually. As so far, I've not had any problems with it, but then again I rarely use it. It was just something to put in there for my small 32" Samsung LCD in there, just in case. Now, this past Christmas, I was actually prepared to purchase a Samsung BD player for my Dad because he owns a 52" Samsung LCD (I like consistency), and the salesman actually talked me out of it, quoting several instances of these players being returned for various reasons. From there I jumped on the Panny BD60, which just so happened to be on sale for the holidays and the thing works incredibly.

 

[3db]

I have the same Samsung upconverting player in my bedroom actually. As so far, I've not had any problems with it, but then again I rarely use it. It was just something to put in there for my small 32" Samsung LCD in there, just in case. Now, this past Christmas, I was actually prepared to purchase a Samsung BD player for my Dad because he owns a 52" Samsung LCD (I like consistency), and the salesman actually talked me out of it, quoting several instances of these players being returned for various reasons. From there I jumped on the Panny BD60, which just so happened to be on sale for the holidays and the thing works incredibly.

I wanted a Panny but they weren't offering the discounts like Sony was.