Best Blu-ray Player Under $300

[elie]

Originally Posted by Jeff10ct

OK, so for those Sony lovers out there - which is the better machine: N460 or S360???

PS: For those who haven't seen it yet, the Sony S360 is going on sale at Walmart this Saturday morning (11/7) at 8:00am for a whopping $149!!!

as far as i know, it depends what features you would like to have. If you want to stream video from netflix, use the n460. If you would like to go to basics, get the s360. Both have a great picture and performance.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

I don't mean to hijack the OPs thread, but rather than start a redundant thread asking similar questions, I figured I'd post here.

Is the Sony BDP-S360 a good player? I'm mainly concerned with disc compatibility and playback.

My original Blu-Ray player (which I got for free... and it still cost too much) was the Samsung BDP-1200. And it's had all kinds of terrible firmware update and glitchy playback issues with both Blu-Ray and DVD discs.

That thing is now disconnected and gathering dust. And I went with PS3 (I actually have 2 of them now).


But, my wife and I are interested now in getting a player to put in the bedroom. I'm interested in sticking within the $150-ish price range or lower (so, a 3rd PS3 is out of the question). This isn't even going to be hooked to an HDTV. We have an older, standard Def TV in there, and this player will be hooked to it via plain old composite cables. The only reason we want to do this is because we like to lay in bed and watch movies from time to time, with PQ and AQ not being the issue that they are when we watch in the living room in HD. However, we now have a lot of movies on Blu-Ray that we simply can't watch at all in the bedroom on the DVD player in there, so we want to replace it with a Blu-Ray player.

It's possible that sometime down the road we may put an HDTV in the bedroom (but that's a long ways off now, and we probably wouldn't get anything super fancy for the bedroom anyway), so it would be nice to get a decent player that will still be reasonably good when that time comes. But we aren't concerned about all kinds of fancy features like BD-Live, etc, in the bedroom. We just need this for very basic playback. As long as the player has no trouble playing Blu-Ray and DVD discs, and is hopefully not in CONSTANT need to firmware upgrades just to play discs (and that has firmware updates ready to go pretty quickly on the occasions that they are needed), that's all we need it to do.

It sounds like the Panasonic DMP-BD80 and BD60 have some freezing/playback issues, so that's something I want to avoid if that really is the case.

If there are any other players anyone would recommend, I'd like to know more about them. But, I refuse to buy another player from Samsung. I don't care how much better any of their newer players supposedly are, I'm not willing to take the chance on them again.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

[quest88]

Originally Posted by Blove23

I love the people on this site, but they live and die with the PS3! The PS3 is a great system for all around use meaning multimedia, but it still isn't the best blu-ray player. You can either look at a Panasonic BD60 or a Sony entry level player. People feel to tell you that the PS3 doesn't have near the PQ or AQ of the Panasonic or Sony stand alones.

I have a PS3 and I never use it for Blu-rays, but I use it for gaming Plus, if you can save $150 bucks then you can use that extra money for some blu-ray movies.

I can only speak from what I've heard and know, but multiple people on this forum has asked for a blind study test to be done with the PS3 and stand alones. Now with the new slim the user can bit stream audio to the receiver so using AQ as an excuse is not a big con as it was with the phat models. Now with the PQ what you may be losing is very minimal at best. The slim is no OPPO but for the price range of the OP why not suggest it.

Originally Posted by Jeff10ct

WOW, that was a lot of information quick!! Thanks for the replies guys.

Ok, as requested here is more info. I am looking for a stand-alone player that will be hooked up to my Samsung PN50B650 plasma. I will be hooking up a Polk Audio SurroundBar SDA soon but have yet to order it, so for the time being I will be hooking up the BD/DVD player directly to my TV. I will most likely NOT be using it to download movies because I already have the Blockbuster mail program.

I say "BD/DVD" above because as I keep reading, I see a lot of people who say they have problems with their BD players playing regular DVDs. I'm a pretty big movie buff, but my girlfriend (who I live with), is NOT - so we don't watch a ton of movies. So now I'm on the fence as to whether or not I should just get a good DVD player that upconverts. I've read a lot about the Oppo DV-980H, Pioneer Elite DV-49AV and Denon DVD-2930Ci.

As for the PS3 slim, I read that it does NOT play PS2 games? I have several games that I really like for the PS2 so I'm a little iffy on getting the PS3 slim.


So, as you can tell, I'm confused as he!! and don't know what to do. Thanks for the help everyone!!!!

I thought you didn't want a BD player that did it all but just a standard one for playback. The fact that the new PS3 does not play PS2 games should not be an issue. What I can say is that the PS3 is not know to be an excellent DVD up converter but a decent to good one. The above SA you have listed do have better up converting hardware. I am sticking with everyone else on this one for 300 bucks go with a slim, it's less of a hassle all around and gives you more than expected.

[troyboven]

I recently purchased a panasonic blu ray dmp-bd60. I researched it a lot and decided on the panasonic because of the excellent picture quality for blu ray and standard dvds . Virtually all the reviews had picture quality outstanding. I didnt want to spend a whopping amount on a player and this was about 150.00. I dont plan on doing any streaming from the web or netflix I just wanted a good blu ray player. So far I havent had any problems with the panasonic. No freezing problems have came up. I would definately recommend this one.

[wafi]

Walmart was practically givin away Sony BD players for $140ish this weekend! I think it was the model 350...I could be wrong...but def a newer model than my 300

[Jeff10ct]

** UPDATE **

Ok, so Bernie's had an unbelievable sale this weekend in the Northeast for Sikorsky employees (my friend is one): 12% over Bernie's cost. I ended up picking up a Polk Audio SurroundBar SDA for $378 (list $499) and a Sony BDP-N460 for $224 (list $249).

So far, I have only played the plasma break-in DVD (the one with all the colors) in it, but the N460 seems like a nice machine. Nice, sleek lines and very easy user interface. I'm going to pop in Saw V tonight and watch it - on DVD unfortunately. I plan on picking up something on blue ray this weekend to watch it for the first time.

Thanks to everyone on br.com for their assistance!!!!!!!

[JB2K]

Originally Posted by wafi

Walmart was practically givin away Sony BD players for $140ish this weekend! I think it was the model 350...I could be wrong...but def a newer model than my 300

It was the 360 model that Walmart has been promoting -- chances are, this same machine is going to get some serious discounting from the competition, come next Friday...