Good Deal on a Blu-Ray player and a Question...

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brianmclean

CAG Veteran
Hi all,

I was interested in getting into Blu-Ray and was planning on getting a PS3 to watch movies on. I already have an 360 that I am addicted to for playing games, so I don't know how much I would play a PS3.

Anyway, My wife got the Insignia Blu-Ray Player for me at Best Buy for $279...which looking around seems like a pretty good price for a machine with good reviews...

Question: What do you all think about trading it in and paying another $120 for a PS3 40GB vs just keeping it. I was thinking that the PS3 would be better because it could do more than just play movies, but I am not sure how much I would use it given that I have a 360...

Opinions please and thank you.
 
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Trade it in


Get the PS3, best :br: player on the market, it's firmware 2.0 now, you'll be able to use the online features on some movies. Plus there's bound to be at least 1 game you want to play


Plus Insignia is crap
 
I agree with anomynous. The PS3 is currently the best Blu-Ray player out there now. Due to it's hard drive function, they have been updating it with some great features. The latest on includeds BD-Live, which is sort of an feature that if the movie has this, then it will connect to the internet to access more Special Features and downloadables. It's pretty cool.

Plus, the Playstation Store has been updated that you are able to rent HD movies now. Not the best deal at $3.99 a movie, but it's nice to know it's there if you are unable to go to Blockbuster to rent a BD for $.99 (a day) or have a Netflix account.

Hope this helped. Blockbuster actually has a pretty good deal if you buy a 40GB PS3 there, which includes 2 Blu-Ray movies and the Bluetooth Remote.
 
If you're looking at a BR player, you need to get a Profile 2.0 player, since that's where all the new disc "gee whiz" content will be going.

As stated above, the PS3 gets you the most future-proof player out there, and covers just about all the audio output formats. Plus, I heard it plays games as well.

I wouldn't touch the Insignia brand with a 10 foot pole, mainly because it's a BB house brand device.

I'd stick with the PS3, as most of the choices at that price or better end up being as good or not as good. Eyeballing www.AVSForum.com, www.HighDefDigest.com and www.BluRay.com would be good if you decide on something else besides the PS3.
 
As others have said, for $400, the PS3 is a great Blu-ray player. You can think about the gaming aspect as a thrown-in bonus. Even if you never, ever play a game on the PS3, I still think you'll want to put down the $400 on it, simply because it gives you more entertainment options.
 
BD-Live (2.0) is over rated. Right now its just some lame ring tones or trailers for other films. However, the PS3 is the best BD player on the market. If your not looking for another video game system, grab the new Sony S350...its getting very positive reviews.
 
+1 for PS3

Like said already, it's very future proof thanks to the FW updates.

I own a 360 and PS3 and thought at first the ps3 would be a movie machine for me (it plays AVC HD mpgs too. convert .mkv with mkv2vob/and VC1 WMVs) but I have found myself playing MGO constantly now :p
 
If you never play a game on a PS3, it's still the best deal on a Blu-ray movie player. I'd love to see a home theater form factor version of the PS3, similar to the PSX variant of the PS2 that Sony released in Japan, but there's no better value in a BD player than the PS3.

PSX.jpg
 
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Get the PS3 :) I agree with the other guys here.

Here's an interesting example. My brother-in-law has a Sony Blu-Ray Player (BDP-S300). I loaded the Batman Begins Blu-ray disc and it took forever to load (45 seconds/more?). Other discs seem to take that long on his player.

On the PS3, loading blu-ray discs is much faster and some additional features from the disc (pop-up "making of" picture-in-picture videos are an added feature on Batman Begins, for example) ran fine. On the standalone blu-ray player, it just showed a message saying that the feature would require a firmware upgrade (and the player was already updated!).
 
I'm looking for a BD Drive for my computer, not a standalone player, so a PS3 is not an option. I've been looking at the two Lite-On ones on newegg (which I can honestly not tell apart except one has an 11 and one has an 8 in the model number). However, there are reports of these not playing everything, which could be due to people not updating the firmware.

Any recommendations?
 
I'd stay away from Lite-On optical drives. They use to have a pretty good reputation, but lately, the last few years or so, their built quality has gone down. People use to constantly complain about them on the GFAQs hardware board, and both of the ones I have are awful. One randomly doesn't open, and the other sounds like a thousand small fans all spinning at once.
 
Im throwing my opinion for the PS3 into the ring as well.

By the end of the year, I should be up on Blu-Ray but until then I've been compiling all stats and factoids about these players and $ for $, the PS3 is the BEST there is out there for now.
 
[quote name='bigdaddybruce44']I'd stay away from Lite-On optical drives. They use to have a pretty good reputation, but lately, the last few years or so, their built quality has gone down. People use to constantly complain about them on the GFAQs hardware board, and both of the ones I have are awful. One randomly doesn't open, and the other sounds like a thousand small fans all spinning at once.[/quote]

Newegg only has two LiteOns, one Opitiarc, and one Sony. Would the Sony probably be the best?
 
The Insignia player is actually a pretty good player believe it or not. It is based on the FUNAI reference design that is also used by Phillips & Magnavox Blu-ray players. Its only weakness is 1080p60 output that is not as quite as smooth as some of the other more expensive players out there like the P1500/S350/BD30, but aside from that it works quite well. If your TV supports 1080p24 I would most definitely keep it, and even with the 1080p60 issue it is still an excellent player for the money.

Overall, the best Blu-ray player you can buy under a grand right now is the Pioneer BDP-51FD. It trumps other players including the PS3 in many areas. But that is MSRP $599, so probably quite a bit more than you want to spend. :)
 
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[quote name='plft']Newegg only has two LiteOns, one Opitiarc, and one Sony. Would the Sony probably be the best?[/quote]

As a heads-up, I got the LG Multi-Blue drive, which reads both Blu-rays and HD-DVDs. So far haven't had any issues getting HD-DVDs to play with PowerDVD, but most of my Blu-Rays simply don't work. It's been a huge hassle over the last couple days, and I still haven't found a solution. I'm thinking this is more of a software problem than hardware, but I don't know if there's a program out there right now that can play any Blu-Ray without issue.

Side note, if anyone knows of a fix to this problem, I would be happy to know of it.
 
Definately get the PS3.

Even just for video it is a great system. The media capabilities are amazing, I have a couple movies that I put on there and it works great! Also there are a lot of PS3 exclusive games coming up and some already out that are "must play" games.
 
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