So what is the currently best stand alone Blu-Ray player?

[pittsgutta]

Well, besides the PS3 what is the best stand alone Blu-Ray player player on the market. Price doesnt matter.

[kpkelley]

IMO, there is no such thing as best for every set-up. Some players are better for some conditions than others.

The most feature-packed players, IMO are the following:

Denon DVD-A1UD
Panasonic DMP-BD55
Sony BDP-S550
Pioneer BDP-09FD

and the yet to be released Oppo BD83.

[Fors*]

This is a loaded question that is going to go down a long and winding road....but since I have gone this far, I might as well give my 2 cents and say I like Panny's, they seem to be quite stable and have a lot of bang for the buck...but this IMO....

[ultrablue]

It's dishonest to ask a sensitive question like this. Sony BDP-S550 of course.

[lobo81865]

I would be hard pressed to recommend one more than the Oppo bdp-83. It should hopefully be available to the general public soon. I have one of the early ones, and love it.

[quest88]

I guess for the mid range price because we're going to have people posting about the 1000 + S.A.'s it would be a toss up between the Samsung BD-P3600 or the LG BD390. WiFi is a big selling point at least for me.

[ozzman]

I know where this will end up,I think iam going to sit this one out and enjoy

[Blacklac]

Region Modded Pioneer 51. The Pioneer already plays PAL out of the box, add Region Mod and it can play any Bluray available. Since $ is no concern. I think they run around $600-700. Or a modded Oppo, when they start modding them, they have the same PAL ability as the Pioneer. Actually the Oppo might even be able to convert PAL to NTSC.

I now have 2 1080i50 Blurays and I'm glad I bought that Pioneer!

[Sammy]

The question completely relies on what your definition of "best" is. If price doesn't matter, then you're going to get responses for $1000 players that might not really be much better than a $300 player for delivering quality video and audio to the rest of the components in your system.

For some, it's WiFi. For others it's getting a read out of bit rates and the such. Yet for someone else it's whether it up coverts and what chip it has for that. Further still, it could be if it decodes HD Audio and/or has 7.1 analog outputs. Or it could be if it streams netflix.

If you are trying to narrow down your choice of selection it might be best to indicate the features in which you are most interested.

[P@t_Mtl]

Originally Posted by ultrablue

It's dishonest to ask a sensitive question like this. Sony BDP-S550 of course.

I might just have to agree with you, my friend bought this model on Saturday and I must say we were very impress with it, fast loading time and does a wonderful job on PQ

[Sammy]

Unless you have spent considerable amount of time with each available player it is not possible to even make anything near an educated response to this question.

[cembros]

i dont know how people are saying the sony s550 instead of the s5000es. My top players in no particular order are the sony s5000es, pioneer BDP-09FD, marantz bd8002, and denons upcommin flagship player (not sure of the actuall name)

[fatediesel]

I've never had any problems playing movies with my Panny BD55. My Sony S350 has also worked well but yesterday I tried to play We Were Soldiers on it and it wouldn't play the movie, after the trailers at the beginning it went black and I spent 20 minutes trying to get it to work with no solution. Other than that I've never had a problem with it though.

[thetoyaddict]

Pioneer makes the best blu-ray players!

[Pondosinatra]

My vote goes to Pioneer...

[sjy1969]

Originally Posted by pittsgutta

Well, besides the PS3 what is the best stand alone Blu-Ray player player on the market. Price doesnt matter.

The Sony 5000ES is a superb player. In addition to its Blu-ray capabilities it's an excellent upscaler of R1 DVDs. Some PAL R2 discs can be slightly more problematic but that may not be an issue if you live in the US. (It is for me since I'm in the UK). It's also a bloody good CD player through the 2 channel analogue outs - this was the most pleasant surprise about it.

General consensus is that the Pioneer BDP-09FD *may* be better, particularly for DVD upconversion but the Sony was available for £600 less over here so it was a no-brainer for me.

Plus, playback is also rock-solid. Not as fast as the PS3 but it has not tripped up on any BD or DVD I've thrown at it so far. BD-Live and onboard DTS-HDMA decoding were ready out of the box - the Pioneer is still waiting for a firmware update for DTS-HDMA decoding although that's reputed to be coming soon.

[btf1980]

Whatever you do, don't get the PS3. I hear it's "overatted".

You wouldn't want your house full of rats, would you?

[sokrman14]

Originally Posted by cembros

i dont know how people are saying the sony s550 instead of the s5000es. My top players in no particular order are the sony s5000es, pioneer BDP-09FD, marantz bd8002, and denons upcommin flagship player (not sure of the actuall name)

I would have to say Denon's new AU1 player, or the Pioneer Elite BDP-09

[goodstuff]

I'm loving my Sony S550

[brettallica]

Originally Posted by pittsgutta

Well, besides the PS3 what is the best stand alone Blu-Ray player player on the market. Price doesnt matter.

Oh boy...here we go...

Originally Posted by ozzman

I know where this will end up,I think iam going to sit this one out and enjoy

This is what I should do.

Originally Posted by forsberg21

This is a loaded question that is going to go down a long and winding road.....

True dat.

Originally Posted by ultrablue

It's dishonest to ask a sensitive question like this. Sony BDP-S550 of course.

+1 for BDP-S550

Originally Posted by btf1980

Whatever you do, don't get the PS3. I hear it's "overatted".

You wouldn't want your house full of rats, would you?

Yeah, PS3s are definitely overatted. Stay away from those at all costs.