Finding A Good Quality Blu-ray Player

By Author: Mingki Tsui
Total Articles: 4762
Comment this article

As far as "those in know" are saying, there is only one way to watch a movie if you're not in a theater, and that's with Blu-ray. The holiday season will be big for this technology, which is finally reaching the psychological tipping point of around $100, if you remember to keep the second term clear in your mind - the first term, "Blu-ray," is certainly uppermost in your mind, but don't forget that the second term needs to be "player" instead of "recorder" if you want to keep that price down.

A quick recap is likely in order. Blu-ray discs look pretty much the same as CDs and DVDs, but store enough additional data (about six times as much) that they can hold high-definition (HD) video and plenty more. The Blu-ray technology, which stores 25GB for a single- and 50GB for a double-layer disc, gets its name from the blue-violet lasers that they use, as opposed to the red ones used for DVD.

Paradigm time?
Consumer magazines, from the famous "no ads accepted" one to more commercial offerings, have reported that the time is right to "get with the Blu-ray program" since falling prices are occurring in tandem with ...
... maturing technology. With such better resolution for movies, and entire libraries able to fit on a single disc, the formula for consumers is already a winner. When that psychological tipping point mentioned above meets the commodity price for electronics devices - $99 - the floodgates will truly open and Blu-ray players will be everywhere.

In one test of over two dozen players costing between $130 and $700, there were absolutely no "clunkers" and uniformly good results on the basics - picture quality, controls and connectivity. All but the lowest-priced units have the new feature known as BD-Live, which lets you connect the player to the Internet to "stream" HD movies. Some players' BD-Live functionality allows streaming movies from such services as Amazon Video On Demand, NetFlix, Vudu and other sites (usually with an Ethernet connection, but some allow wireless operation).

The usual suspects
For most of 2009, publications and pundits alike have rated Blu-ray players for picture brightness, detail, clarity and color accuracy. As the end-of-the-year holiday shopping season approached, the most thorough "pubs and pundits" also assessed Blu-ray players for ease of use, build quality, availability and warranty. Among BD-Live players with the expected range of features, the usual names appeared.

The $229 Sony is a BD-Live player that is advertised as "BD-Live Ready" because you need to add memory for that feature to become active. It is a matter of $15 or $20 to upgrade the unit so that your Ethernet connection will connect you to the "virtual movie universe." High-end units from Samsung, Panasonic and LG are also highly rated, and the reviews seem to suggest that if a company has a well-reviewed "upscale" model, its "entry" model is probably pretty good, too.

Prices dropping
If you don't need the streaming feature, and simply want to play purchased or rented Blu-ray discs - and spend a hundred dollars less - the $129 Magnavox player earned an "excellent" rating in several product round-ups. Still, the usual suspects mentioned previously in the context of premium models are also offering a full range of low- and mid-range players, too.

Electronics industry observers have seen some strong growth in Blu-ray players this year, one definite bright spot in what was shaping up as a very gloomy industry landscape for 2009. Almost all of the other "personal electronics" categories have been trending down - digital cameras, GPS devices, MP3 players - but in mid-2009 Blu-ray units were almost 15% of U.S. home-video-related purchases.

Entry-level quality
Industry watchers predict that Blu-ray devices will rise to 50% of unit sales in 2010 if recent tends in demand and pricing hold steady. The all the magazines, were found to have "very good" to "excellent" picture quality. Some lower-priced units have remotes with only basic functions represented, while others lack such "geek level" features as S-video ports and other alternative connections. On the other hand, just about all the players tested had excellent picture quality, the feature clearly most important to consumers.

It would be to every Christmas shopper's advantage to keep an eye on all the advertisements for Blu-ray players. Prices will not only continue to drop, especially around the semi-official "Black Friday" holiday shopping launch day. It is entirely possible that the price for a basic player will fall to $49, but there is no doubt that you'll find a handful of decent ones for that friendly, affordable commodity price of $99.
About Author:
Vinpower Digital.com has a great dvd duplicator selection, as well as CD and Blu-ray formats. We have the expertise to help you at every stage of planning to enhance your optical disc duplication. Visit us online today.