Cheap Blu Ray Players

Forums › Home Theatre › Cheap Blu Ray Players

bbunnys

91 posts

Master Geek

Topic # 57952 2-Mar-2010 10:06
Im looking for some advise. I was going to get a DVD player that upscaled with HDMI as im on a budget but see you can get Bly-Ray players quite cheap now. I see you can get the Philips BDP 3000 for about $280. Is that a good buy. I know it doesnt have all the sound features of other players but im only going to be listening through headphones so dont need 7.1 etc. Basically can I get a cheap one like that and still have a good picture compared to a much dearer one for both Blu-Ray and DVD. Seeing alot of what im watching is on DVD will it scale picture better than a stand alone DVD player. I dont want to spend over $300. If it helps the TV its going on is a 3 month old Series 6 32" LCD Samsung.

Nety

2551 posts

Uber Geek

Moderator

Trusted

Subscriber

Reply # 303599 2-Mar-2010 11:17
First off any bluray player will play DVD's. Blurays will look better then DVD regardless of the quality of the bluray player however a high quality upscaling DVD player may well do better job of upscaling DVD's then a cheap bluray player. I would say that the benefits of having a bluray player even a cheap one far outweigh any loss of upscaling you might have. The Warehouse currently have bluray players for $200 but as yet I have not heard of anyone getting one so there is no way of knowing if it is any good. Media centre PC - Case Silverstone LC16M with 2 X 80mm AcoustiFan DustPROOF, MOBO Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H, CPU AMD X2 240 under volted, RAM 4 Gig DDR3 1033, HDD 120Gig System/512Gig data, Tuners 2 X Hauppauge HVR-3000, 1 X HVR-2200, Video Palit GT 220, Sound Realtek 886A HD (onboard), Optical LiteOn DH-401S Blue-ray using TotalMedia Theatre Power Corsair VX Series, 450W ATX PSU OS Windows 7 x64

bbunnys

91 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 303600 2-Mar-2010 11:18
yea i saw that warehouse one but not sure if I trust transonic over philips

NZCoderGuy

Software and Security Dev
506 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

Kiwi Dev Studios

Subscriber

Reply # 303607 2-Mar-2010 11:35
The funny thing is, alot of the cheaper players (Transonic etc) sometimes actually contain the better manufacturer components.. I remember picking up a DVD player from Aussie, some wierd chinese brand - but it actually had phillips components inside! .. the same thing happens with LCD/Plasma tv's.. -- Stephen twitter/ NZCoderGuy / KiwiDevStudios

Zippity

326 posts

Ultimate Geek

Reply # 303611 2-Mar-2010 11:42
Remember - you get what you pay for. Cheaper is not always better. Save your pennies or get a PS3

Kiwipixter

242 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 303613 2-Mar-2010 12:08
For $343 you can get a Panasonic at JBhifi, http://www.jbhifi.co.nz/home-theatre/blu-ray-players/ can't beat that.

Nety

2551 posts

Uber Geek

Moderator

Trusted

Subscriber

Reply # 303643 2-Mar-2010 13:03
Zippity: Remember - you get what you pay for. Cheaper is not always better. Save your pennies or get a PS3 Sometimes and just sometimes that rule does not apply.. http://www.audioenz.co.nz/2003/mizuda_331k.shtml I was one of the lucky people that brought one of the above DVD players. It failed within a week and was sent away for repairs. Arrived back a couple of days after that and never missed a beat from that day on. Eventually many years later I sold it on trademe. It was still going strong but I had moved to a PVR. Media centre PC - Case Silverstone LC16M with 2 X 80mm AcoustiFan DustPROOF, MOBO Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H, CPU AMD X2 240 under volted, RAM 4 Gig DDR3 1033, HDD 120Gig System/512Gig data, Tuners 2 X Hauppauge HVR-3000, 1 X HVR-2200, Video Palit GT 220, Sound Realtek 886A HD (onboard), Optical LiteOn DH-401S Blue-ray using TotalMedia Theatre Power Corsair VX Series, 450W ATX PSU OS Windows 7 x64

70mm

80 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 303685 2-Mar-2010 14:53
bbunnys: Im looking for some advise. I was going to get a DVD player that upscaled with HDMI as im on a budget but see you can get Bly-Ray players quite cheap now. I see you can get the Philips BDP 3000 for about $280. Is that a good buy. I know it doesnt have all the sound features of other players but im only going to be listening through headphones so dont need 7.1 etc. Basically can I get a cheap one like that and still have a good picture compared to a much dearer one for both Blu-Ray and DVD. Seeing alot of what im watching is on DVD will it scale picture better than a stand alone DVD player. I dont want to spend over $300. If it helps the TV its going on is a 3 month old Series 6 32" LCD Samsung. Most Blu-ray players reproduce a similar image, but what they dont do is reproduce standard DVD so well. The ones that produces a great image on DVD and BD are few and far between but they do exisit! Your screen size is small at 32" so really a cheaper player will work well for you anyway. When you have a large display of say 50" or more, or a projector a Blu-ray player with good upscaling for DVD's is really required unless you dont care about DVD's anymore. Then in this case a cheap BD player will probably sufice.

ilovemusic

409 posts

Ultimate Geek

Reply # 303737 2-Mar-2010 17:20
Kiwipixter: For $343 you can get a Panasonic at JBhifi, http://www.jbhifi.co.nz/home-theatre/blu-ray-players/ can't beat that. For just over $100 more Harvey Norman will sell you the better performing BD80 for $449.

ageorge

172 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 566216 8-Jan-2012 19:40
Blu-ray Toshiba low end is sub $100 now and other models are around $125. Prices dropping like a stone! Al.