Blu-ray Hardware Deals

The Magnavox hasn't missed a beat yet for me and it plays AVC HD home made discs also...plus has a SD Card Slot...

That Panasonic BD30 sure looks like a nice unit and has great specs too.

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oid=191905&cm_ven=COMPARISON%20SHOPPING&cm_cat=DEALTIME&cm_pla=DATAFEED->PRODUCTS&cm_ite=1%20PRODUCT&cm_keycode=66&om_keycode=66

The Magnavox unit is an okay-looking, but has pretty limited output options. Has a great price though!

Bargain: Magnavox Blu-ray Player for $198 (sort of) at Walmart.com

Still researching... Thanks for the tips!
 
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I guess if you're just starting out, that $100 coupon for a limited selection of BDs is a good deal.

All the same, I'll pay 2 or 3 times as much for that OPPO, if it is delivered as promised.
 
There's a possible $100 price drop from Sony on the BD Live-ready BDP-S350 and BDP-S550.

If the news (reported at HD Guru) is true, the BDP-S350 will drop to $299 on Sept. 28 and the BDP-S550 will debut at $399 in mid October.

It also makes me wonder how much further prices will be discounted on the Sony's old Profile 1.0 players still widely available (the BDP-S300 and S301).

BD Live needs more work, but a growing number or BD movies have some pretty cool Bonus View features. So I think it's a pretty big problem for a new BD player to lack Profile 1.1 capability. Those old Profile 1.0 players may need to be liquidated well below $200 price points.
 
BTW, the coupons are not nearly as nice as advertised. What you get is 10 coupons good for $10 off when you buy any two from a selection of 3-6 discs. The selection varies for each coupon, but there is a lot of overlap.

For example, there is one that lets you select two from Disney animated (Cars, Ratatouille, Meet the Robinsons, Chicken Little or Pixar Shorts). However, every one of those films except Cars appears in another coupon.

It will be very tough to take full advantage of these coupons. It also says not valid with any other offer, so I am not sure you can pick a sale disc as part of the selection.
 
I didn't get a lot of time with it last night. I did watch 30 minutes of Starship troopers and have the following initial impressions:

Installation was straightforward. Plug and play.

Remote is weak. Admittedly, I had some junk piled up that was partially blocking the sensor, but I needed to get close to the unit before it recognized the remote. It also has a significant lag in processing button pushes.

Load time and power up time is appreciably shorter than the A2 HD-DVD. About 20 seconds shorter on power up. Load seemed to happen quickly, like 10-15 seconds or so.

Picture was everything I had hoped for.

Sound was good, but I was just accessing the DD5.1 track through the receiver. That actually is enough to make me and my 60 year old ears happy. I didn't spend much time tuning the receiver and soom, so there is much to be gained here.
 

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