what to look for in a blu ray player

[drdawg]

I don't know whether to go with sony,samsung, panasonic? I am just confused on what to look for and what to buy!

Kdawg

 

[Nomo]

Depends on the rest of your set-up, disk format requirements (DVD-A or SACD?), and budget.
What receiver do you have?

Panasonic was my choice. Sony was a close second. The Samsung players just never impressed me.

 

[Shock]

A Good place to start is by looking at the same brand as your TV. Most of the players or TV's will allow you to control both devices from a single remote which is a nice plus if you don't like remotes. (Personally I like having 4 remotes)

There are a few different type of BR players out there, from the standard ones which run from 250-300 CDN to the BR "Live" variety which have 1 gig of storage and usually have 7.1 analog outputs on the back which is always a good feature. These usually run roughly 100 bucks more.

It really comes down to how much you're willing to spend and what features you need or don't need.

 

[drdawg]

clarification

I am buying everythign kind of at once. Here is what my setup will look like. Sharp LC65SE94U (the 120 Hz) tv. onkyo tx 606 or 806...or denon 2309ci reciever (not sure if i should drop down to the 1609 or the 1709). and infiniti tss 550 speakers. does this help?

everything will go into the Reciever and from there, out to the TV

 

[Shock]

I think you'd be happy with any of the moderately priced BR players. Like Nomo I would probably go with the panasonic out of the three you listed just since I like them as a company but not for any specific feature stand point. Since most of the players in the same price range are going to have near identical feature sets.

 

[Nomo]

Now the bad news:
The recent Panasonics, like the BD35 I own, are being discontinued and are hard to come by for a reasonable price. I paid $235 for mine. the prices I've seen recently have been over $300, and I would not have paid that much.

Anyway, given your receiver choices, you can probably save around $100 by skipping the analog out feature on the 2nd tier models such as Panny's -55 and Sony's -550 and go with one of the lower end models.

One point of interest; if you are a Netflix subscriber, One of the Samsung players (?1550?) offers streaming of several thousand movies from the Netflix site. It wasn't enough to sway me but does somewhat bring Samsung back into consideration.

 

[drdawg]

The issue with the netflix thing is that i have to have an ethernet cable plugged in. don't have a jack there. If it had wireless like the PS3 that would be different!! The Sony's 350 though I thought did 5.1 not 7.1 output. Honestly we are going to use this for movies and yes we have netflix but i don't think the samsung is worth it for the ethernet because i don't have a jack there. I heard sony was working on the the netflix streaming thing as well. any word on that?

 

[aberkowitz]

I heard sony was working on the the netflix streaming thing as well. any word on that?

I'm personally not all that high on that rumor b/c Sony is trying to stream movies from their own studios. I don't see that happening soon.


For wireless Netflix streaming I HIGHLY recommend getting a Roku box. Best $99 I've spent

 

[Phil Taylor]

As for general features to look for you may want to consider what current owners have reported regarding load times, ease of updating firmware, compatibility, upscaling quality of standard DVDs and of course overall build quality. The Panny BD35 meets all of the above criteria IMHO as I own one (got a killer deal on it off fleabay w/ Live search cashback = $169 final cost) but as noted above limited supply is raising prices dramatically... unfortunately. It's still the best player to date - again IMHO... and worth even the premium price it's drawing nowadays if you want the best. If you need analog outs the BD55 would be my choice. I don't use SACD (which it won't play) so that's a non-issue for myself personally.

 

[Thunder18]

The Sony's 350 though I thought did 5.1 not 7.1 output.

Only the Sony 550 has 7.1 analog outputs. 350 has HDMI as your only lossless mode of transport.

 

[MarthaT]

I think you'd be happy with any of the moderately priced BR players. Like Nomo I would probably go with the panasonic out of the three you listed just since I like them as a company but not for any specific feature stand point. Since most of the players in the same price range are going to have near identical feature sets.

same here, the Panasonic unit is a good one