SONY seems to have a host of blu-ray dvd players. Confusing! Any recommendations as to the best buy for the money?

reader or burner?

best burner is GGW-H20L, nothing else can compare

I think you mean the set-top players. The Panasonic seems to be a favorite for features and trouble-free playback, as well as compatibility with BD-2.0.

Personally I would wait for v2 players. Not sure if there are any available at present but that is the next standard (for now)>

If you want one now then go for a v1.1 player to support current disc features. V1.0 players are very common but dont support some of the new features found on discs.

All players should at least play back the movie off the disc.

Check out the wiki on Blue-Ray for more info

All this is why I dont really like Blue-Ray, so many standards

I am in agreement with qwakrz I would wait til they get the bugs and hardware fixes on the second generation players and burner to buy one...and even then I would have to justify the price and media to get it when DVD is still out there and a viable media...I play the DVD on my computer with excellent video card and don't see the need to get a BD player or burner. The cost to me doesn't justify buying or needing one yet or will ever get....???

7 years ago people who wanted to jump to DVD, what did other said? Wait until DVD player cost $200. Yeah wait 5 more years dude!

I thought this is the hidef forum? If people wants to go hidef you dudes still give those kinds of "oh too expensive, oh DIVx looks great, oh DVD upscale nicely " remarks?

Welcome to 2008!!

First poster: consider Panasonic DMP-BD30, Sony BDP-S300 or S500 and PS3.

Unfortunately you are not with the times...Where is it that you get benefit in the end from BD? You have to purchase the equipement to get the benefit of the BD format. Since they will make the broadcast signal go digital in 2009 most people should wait til then when they get that settled...So where is your source of the 7 years ago debate then???

Panasonic BD30 is one of players that considered better, trouble free with fast loading time. It also Profile 1.1 which supports PIP. It doesn't support Profile 2.0 yet for BD-Live as it doesn't have LAN port. But I wouldn't worry about it since both PIP and BD-Live is just extra features. You will be able to watch the movie with even profile 1.0 players.

For contrast, PS3 is also a nice player. Loading time (from insert disc and menu comes out) is the fastest among players. PS3 has wireless and an additional LAN port so it will be Profile 2.0 when the profile is finalized. Unfortunately it doesn't have multi channel analog inputs for people without HDMI receivers. But it will encode hidef audio through HDMI, except DTS-HD Master Audio at the moment.

Samsung Blu-Ray upscales regular DVDs so well I stopped buying expensive Blu-Ray DVDs and just get regular previewed DVDs from BlockBuster stores at a fraction of the price.

Yeah, but then again the Toshiba HD-DVD players will do the same job for significantly less. Anyways, if you are absolutely set on a Blu-Ray player I would recommend the PS3 with the Panasonic BD30 as an alternative. The PS3 is the only one I know for sure that are V2.0 compliant. Either way, I see absolutely no reason to rush out and buy one. Honestly it's not like you are going to see an earth-shattering difference between a solid up-conversion DVD Player and Blu-Ray on every single title out there. I strongly suggest that whichever route you go that you spend some time over at www.highdefdigest.com. Check out the reviews and pay special attention to the picture quality ratings on each title you are interested in. Outside of the reference quality discs (ie 4.5-5 stars) you won't notice enough of a difference over up-converted DVD to merit the additional cost of the hardware purchase of a decent Blu-Ray player and disc sales.

WOA THERE! I seriously have to take issue with the perpetration of this CRAP that "going digital" equates to "going HD". This is EXACTLY the point I've made in many other threads about people NOT UNDERSTANDING the difference. Besides the fact that you're talking about the U.S. only. And then you're only talking about over the air broadcasts, not cable or satellite. So, why then should we wait until the "digital switch" in 2009 to settle the HD question, exactly? I've been enjoying the benefit of BD for 6 months now and HD DVD for a year. The digital switch over isn't going to affect me one bit.

The BD50 should be out sometime this spring and will support BD Live(aka Profile 2.0). I agree wit all you've said about the PS3. I own one and it's a damn good stand alone player, but, the BD50 will be better IMO. It all depends on the budget of the OP and whether they can hold off for a few months until the BD Live stand alone players come out.

This is only true for smaller screen. If you have 40" or lower, you might not see the difference between DivX vs "shrinked" DVD vs full dual layer DVD and probably vs HD images.

On larger screens, the picture quality difference WILL be more noticeable. Many references, including Amazon High-def 101 stated that significant difference on HD images displayed on 42" and larger screens compared to standard DVD.

I completely agree. On my 50" SXRD screen I can definitely see a difference between upscaled and true HD content. However, for me, I only care on movies that can really benefit from HD. Comedies and romantic dramas really don't benefit from being in HD, so, I see no reason to buy them in HD unless I get a really good deal. Action movies and epic films, however, benefit greatly from HD and I always try to buy those in HD. In any case, you can definitely tell the difference on a quality screen.

Me too. I can easily see the difference on my 46" between HD and upscaled DVD's but it's pretty hard to tell on my daughters 32" LG 720P. Same with normal cable channels the 32' looks good but the 46" is terrible or worse.

Cable is a joke compared to HD movies on disc. The best they do is broadcast 1080i with DD sound. A Blu-ray, for instance, is 1080p with possibly LPCM sound. Quite a big difference. If the cable companies would start using AVC or VC1 for their encodes rather than the MPEG2 crap they're still using they'd get better quality and use less bandwidth, but, that doesn't appear to be happening. I think satellites are starting to use mpeg4 if I'm not mistaken. In any case, I plan on getting a 42" tv for the bedroom later this year and even on that I'd want true HD rather than simply upscaling DVD's. Not that upscaled DVD's look bad or anything, but, true HD is definitely better and not just from a marketing point of view.

@SamuriHL, I forgot about BD50.

Ok, to my knowledge, here's some list of the latest Profile 2.0 players that will be released soon:

Panasonic DMP-BD50 - MSRP unknown, available May/June 2008
Sony BDP-S350 - MSRP $349, July 2008
Sony BDP-S550 - MSRP $449, August 2008

Btw, Funai Corp. will release NB500 for under $300 MSRP. http://www.funai.us/bluRayDiscFunai.aspx

I would say the BD50 is probably the best bet for a stand alone. The sony players to date have not impressed me. Yes, I just saw the specs on the new ones this morning and they look ok, but, I think the Panasonic players will be better. Funai...yea, um, that's certainly going to be cheap. I'll give it that much.

P.S. That lower cost Sony will not do DTS-HD MA, btw. That's the only real difference I could find to the more expensive one.

Hello I just read this post. Bought a PS3 past weekend. I don't plan playing games but the store guy told me that this is more than a gamin machine. It can play blu-ray and other stuff (that I don't understand yet). Maybe I made a mistake? Should I return it and get the panasonic player?

No, the PS3 is truly the only future-proof Blu-Ray player out there ATM and is compatible with all the various Blu-Ray specs. So unless you want really high-end audio there really isn't any reason to spend more money on the Panasonic. Furthermore the PS3 boots movies much faster.