Help me pick a Blu-Ray player w/internet
 

So wifey just emailed me "so what was that blu-ray player you liked?"

I'm thinking she is fishing for a Christmas present for me ;)

I was looking a Sony's because I hear they have an OK Internet interface (so I am told)...

Sony make players from $60-$600

Anyone have one they like... or would like to have... or has anyone done the research for me? :D

Right now I'm looking at a BDP-S590 ($98) or BDP-S790 ($198)

Thanks in advance!

My PS3 has worked well for me.

Bought a cheap Sony at wal-mart $130, it broke. Now I replaced it with another cheap $69 sony, so we'll see.

The PS3 has performed flawless.

My only issue with my Sony (and this was a big engineering problem to me).

I brought my Sony Blue Ray on vacation along with a variety of blue ray movies. I brought this because I did not know if the condo would have a blue ray player (which it did not).

After hooking it up to the condo's tv, I discovered that I had forgotten to bring the remote control. This made the player completely useless because only the remote has the start button. The unit has a play button on the front but to initially get the movie playing from the main menu, you have to hit the start button on the remote - the play button on the remote does not "start" the movie.

This was a bummer because I had brought some good movies for the trip.


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My friends recently bought a Samsung Internet Blue Ray Player. It works well for the most part but on a few ocasions, it has gotten hung up during the previews and won't advance to the main menu. The only solution has been to turn off and back on agian but this forces you to watch the previews again or fast forward thru them.

Just to muddy the waters...

Anyone have a Panasonic with VIERA?

Yes what would you like to know?

Walked through Wal-Mart a year ago black Friday to buy snacks on the way to the duck camp. It was late in the day but they were rolling out a pallet of "$250" Samsung BR players with built in WiFi. Price was $125. I snagged one impulse. Still works well enough for us. Netflix is about all we use online. It used to make a real long pause reading BR disks just off the menu screen and starting a movie for the first time it was loaded. Firmware update seems to have cured that.

J

This is the one I'm leaning towards:

Amazon.com: OPPO BDP-103 Universal 3D Blu-ray Disc Player SACD & DVD-Audio: Electronics

I think my sony is taking a $hit, started showing a weird pixelated almost cycledelic picture last week. Updated the firmware, different DVD, swapped the HDMI cable....no dice.

and if you lose the controller it won't do anything but turn on/off and eject the disc.

You using VIERA? How do you like it at an Internet experience?

Thank you,

P.S. To add, the only things scaring me off Sony is lack of reliability (my current Panasonic DVD is probably 10 years old) and software update complaints.

And yes the OPPO is nice... but the price tag is a bit hard to take...

Sony does not build a memory buffer into their current generation blu-ray players. So unless you have a wired gig-e connection to the back of it you're not watching anything in hi-def on it. (well you can try)

Anyone else getting tired of the blu ray "experience"? Buying new hardware to keep up with Hollywood. Not for me...

This isn't what you asked for, and I am sorry for muddying the water, but I would recommend looking at something like Roku. It is a device specifically made for connecting to the Internet and currently provides about 600 channels. Granted, most of the channels are worthless, but there are a lot of special interest stuff that may float your boat. It is really in Roku's interest to keep themself relevant so they are constantly improving the Internet experience...cannot say so much with the "smart" products I have purchased. Roku is much less expensive too.

Our Toshiba is a steaming pile. Too bad, I had a Toshiba DVD player that went 10+ years before I have it away still working. I'd like to know how many times it was doused in beer at my college houses....

Stay away from the Toshiba SE-R0402. It plays blu ray and dvd disks fine but the netflicks comes thru looking like an 8 bit cheapo video game.

PS3..no brainer.

I can see your point but Blueray is ideal for watching old movies that were originally shot on film.

I recently watched "Apocalypse Now" on Blueray and it looked better than great.

I have looked extensively at Roku, AppleTV, Boxie, etc.

I have an old school DVD and would like to upgrade to Blu Ray, in order to keep clutter down I would like to combine functions...

So anyone using VIERA?

Bridge Over The River Kawai, is absolutely astounding on BluRay.

The Viera works fine. The kids use Netflix and YouTube often. Not as snappy as our Tivo boxes but it does work. Pic quality seems fine for a 65" Plasma playing non HD content. Mine does not have a browser that I know of or the ability to stream off my PC network.

FWIW, I've had this same issue with my Samsung BluRay player.

This was on my Consumer Reports web:


Blu-ray players

•Panasonic DMP-BDT220, $115
•Samsung BD-E5300, $80
•Toshiba BDX5300, $110

We have the Samsung BD-E5900. It has been great so far. The internet interface works well enough. We usually use the internet through our Samsung TV.
I am currently shopping around for a keyboard for the TV/DVD as this would make I much easier than using the standard remote. :)

ETA: This DVD player is currently on sale for $99 at Best Buy. I called in the price match guarantee since I paid $129. I would guess the non 3D version is somewhat less than that.

Does your samsung do smartphone/iPhone app control?
I.E. there is an app for that :D

There is an app or two that controls the TV and DVD but they lack a full qwerty keyboard and don't get really stellar reviews.

Uebo, Patriot and Western Live all have optional keyboard and mouse, and a few others I'm forgetting.

They are all crap, just get one with the understanding you may be getting a new one in a year.

My tv is LG, I think this one will do:

LG - Smart Wi-Fi Built-In Blu-ray Player - BP200 - Best Buy

Actually, for 10 bucks more I may even pick a 3D player, just in case. That one has more internet interfaces:

http://m.bestbuy.com/m/e/product/detail.jsp?skuId=6846614&pid=1218809315581

I've had 3 LG WiFI players-all have had issues. I'd also want something that will interface w/ my home network-they used to do this natively, npow you need to load Nero Home, which is a resource hog.

Firmware update fixed this problem on mine. -J

This.^ For me, just opening and closing the tray from the remote does the trick.