Kogan intros AU$349 Profile 1.1 Blu-ray player for Australia

Well, would you have a look at this. Out of seemingly nowhere, Aussies have been shown a remarkably affordable option for diving into the deep, crystal clear world of Blu-ray. Kogan Technologies is just 24 hours away from releasing its apparently unnamed Profile 1.1 Blu-ray player in the aforesaid continent / country, and with it will come 1080p output, an HDMI 1.3 port, DVD upconversion and Dolby TrueHD / DTS-HD decoding. The online-only e-tailer is taking orders for the unit as we speak, and for just AU$349 (that's $218 in greenbacks), we can definitely see it moving quite a few units.

[Via ITWire]

[daaper Posted Nov 20th 2008 12:52PM]

Nice design, in theory, but I wonder if that blue will get annoying. My old JVC dvd player had a blue light in the tray and that thing got old pretty fast when the lights were out. Hopefully you can turn it off.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 20th 2008 4:14PM]

You guys forgot the most importent thing:

It is currently the only REGION-FREE player for Blu-ray discs out-of-the-box in the world!

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 20th 2008 4:49PM]

The LG BH200 is/was too.

Dual format (grab a stack of HD DVD high def goodness for pennies).

Region free Blu-ray by simple remote code,
PAL enabling by simple remote code,
SD DVD region-free by one-time data CD hack.

Full spec (ie all HD audio bitstreaming etc etc) too.

By far the best of the bunch to date.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 20th 2008 5:08PM]

The LG BH100 was also region free, but it's a profile 1.0 player.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 20th 2008 4:25PM]

Wow, it's very good progress indeed. Players in oz are so expensive. Hopefully it will help drive blu-ray adoption Down Under.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 20th 2008 5:48PM]

@Multi-format-mayhem:
That's why I said 'out-of-the-box'...

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 20th 2008 11:43PM]

Is it for sale now? I want one, since you claim it's REGION-FREE!

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 21st 2008 4:45AM]

Yes, it's for sale now; just hit the read-link...

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 21st 2008 4:25PM]

You guys do realise that we have a Soniq Bluray player for sale in AU for about $249 at JB hifi right? Furthermore where on the Kogan website does it say that its Bluray multiregion?