Poll: What is the best Blu-ray player?
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted October 25th 2009 3:30PM
posted October 25th 2009 3:30PM
posted October 25th 2009 3:30PM
LG BD390
Samsung BD-P1600
Samsung BD-P3600
Samsung BD-P4600
Pioneer BDP-120
Philips BDP3200
Sony BDP-S550
Panasonic DMP-BD60
Panasonic DMP-BD80
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WHY did you leave off the Oppo BD-83 from your list? That was a major omission!
Cost no object: the Oppo. Cost is an object: the PS3 Slim.
As someone who has watched the format wars and owned a HD production company for over a decade - http://www.saturnaliaproductions.com/ - I am simply waiting for Blu-Ray to go away. Files are the future. Storage, most likely through remote servers as streaming and compressions becomes better, will be the future of home entertainment. A memory card will simply tell everyone what they own.
I can't even tell how much I hate the idea of not actually owning a hard copy of a movie. Even if the downloaded movie looks as good as blu-ray and has uncompressed audio, it still will suck to me. And I can't wait till I lose that memory card holding all my movies.
Yeah, you keep on waiting. What people like you don't realize is that, tomorrow, if you were to take all of the movies being watched on DVD or Blu-ray and move them to a download or streaming environment, the entire internet would come crashing down. The bandwidth isn't there. Moreover, it is nowhere even close to being there.
Downloaded content is the future, you're right. The future of about, oh, let's say 2018 or beyond. That's plenty of time for Blu-ray to have a long and successful lifespan.
I agree that files are the future, but it's a long ways away. There are so many downloading companies and streaming that it seems ill-gotten to say the public was unsure during a format war of 2 disc formats....now we have dozens of options, but not a single one the quality of Blu-ray. It's going to take a long time for that, our country doesn't even have the bandwidth.
This reminds me of what happened to me last year. I have Dish Network Sat. and they let you use unlimited external hard drives, so I have three 750gb drives full of HD content, mainly movies. One of them failed. Tried everything even with Seagate, the content is gone. I did not make a backup because digital rights management will not allow it. This is NOT how I want to own a collection of entertainment, here one day gone the next, thanks I'll take my Blu-rays and DVD's on my shelf that I know are safely there for good anyday over digital files.
my htpc
I voted for the Samsung BD-P3600. Purchased one so that I could move my BD-P1500 to the bedroom and it is amazing. Plays YouTube, Pandora, NetFlix, and Blockbuster; loads faster than the PS3; supports MKV; and comes with a wireless adapter.
Great player, and I'm thinking of getting my parents one for Christmas.
Oppo BD-83 by far above the rest.
Ben, you may want to do this over with the Oppo as a selection. These results are not useful. I myself think the Oppo is the best, but picked PS3 since Oppo wasn't a choice.
I have a LG BD-390, a Samsung P-1400, and a PS3.... The LG has the best user experience of the 3 (boot/load times, navigation, and format compatibility) and was the cheapest one @ $240 shipped! The Vudu streaming is what puts the BD-390 over the top. No other player has that quality of streaming.
Pandora? Really? Highly compressed audio streams of custom radio that gets worse by the day (lots of Indy stuff there lately that just doesn't match the artist I've been choosing)? Get a $140 Squeezebox, a Rhapsody subscription, and an iPhone/iPod Touch (for use as a remote & mobile playback)....much more useful.
I voted PS3 for the load times alone. I recently watched a Blu-ray on a friend's Sony Blu-ray player and the wait was agonizing. It took 2 minutes to boot up and another 2 minutes to load the disc. Then the menus were sluggish! Ridiculous.
Just as a note, the Sony player that streams internet content is the BDP-N450, bot the BDP-S450, just thought you would like to know that.
I support the Sony BDP-S550 myself. 7.1 analog ouputs for an older receiver. Built in decoding for all the surround audio formats including DTS-MA.
My Suspicion is that the PS3 is king here because it just happens to play games as well. Arent there any pure home theater buffs out here anymore? :)
I agree with sharpened sense....I love plopping that shiny new disc into the smoooooth tray of the amazing Oppo BDP-83 (I'm baffled by its omission in this list, btw) It's all about the experience--like how an audiophile simply loves his gear. You can give him apple lossless files all day--he will DELETE them, pull out an LP, put it on a $10,000 turntable, and relax and enjoy. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE!!!
And this survey just goes to prove that Blu-ray isn't catching on as a standard format outside of supporters of a multi-purpose game system. Why is that?
give me a break...It is already farther along then dvd was at this point in its life and do you know what helped dvd so much..... oh yeah the ps2. Just because the ps3 plays video games is not a knock after all aren't all blu-ray player just computers anyway. The ps3 is just a really powerful computer.
PS3 does the worst at up-converting DVDs, which is what many will be doing for years to come.
Oppo
@Ben
Hey Ben... hehe,... do you sometimes read the news? check it out Netflix is on PS3 now: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/10/netflix-coming-soon-to-playstation-3/
Hehe, this will fuel your hate of PS3...
Does my ps3 count now that it has netfilxs
Cost no object: Denon DVD-A1UDCI Universal Blu-ray Player
Otherwise the Oppo BDP-83
Sign me up for a Denon DBP-4010UDCI reference Blu-ray / DVD (superb upscaling) / DVD-A / SACD / CD player. The adjustable gamma lets me get really good calibration to a nice monitor. My DBP-4010UDCI is scheduled to arrive in 2 weeks.
My money is on the Oppo or the PS3. From reading all the comments it seems the most sought after feature is streaming and quite a few players offer this but for me its not a critical, why you ask because the picture quality is lacking and the sound quality is lackluster. Although the LG 390 which offers VUDU content (Damn fine quality I might add), but its not a free service and IMHO should not be considered a critical feature.
OK for the nuts and bolts of it most of the players on the list are fine players, but some offer more useful features and options than the others. Ultimately it will be up to the end user to determine which feature set and options will benefit them the most, but IMHO the two areas where the Oppo and PS3 shine are in their build quality and customer service. Oppo has by far and away the best customer service on the market and more importantly listens to its owners about the players possible issues (software glitches etc.) and corrects them. Oppo will continue to put out firmware updates while other manufacturers will continue to put out new models thus rendering the older models useless if issues arise.
Lets state the obvious with the PS3 its not a Blu-ray player its a machine and a beast at that. The PS3 is hands down the best piece of hardware here and its not even close. The question you need to ask yourself is are you looking for the best standalone Blu-ray player or are you looking for the best piece of hardware, its as simple as that.
No Oppo...BOOOO!
Are you saying NO to Oppo or are you say BOOO because (Ben Drawbaugh, the samsung and lg lover and hater of high quality bluray players) left it out of the list?
If it's "No to Oppo" you are just asking to get your backside kicked multiple times. If it's the other, then yes.... BOOOOOO!
Best BD player not on the list is Sony 400 BD changer BDPCX960!
Oppo Blu ray is far superior to any standalone player in the the market even better than the PS3. Great sound and picture quality. Real videophile know that when it comes to sound and picture quality Oppo is hands down. I have a PS3 and it's and overall good player, but doesn't even come close to Oppo.
where's the Oppo?
Drawbaugh is anti Oppo.
I'm not anti-oppo kevon27, I just forgot about it when I composed the list.
For the purposes of playing Blu-ray discs, once you get past the load times and the user interface, there is very little to differentiate Blu-ray players to the typical consumer buying a BDP to accompany their HDTV. Pay $100 and wait a few minutes for the movie to load or pay $300+ and wait 30 secs or less.
You can argue sound/picture quality, streaming support, and media file playback.... but when was the last time my wife actually noticed any of that?...let alone 1080p vs. HD satellite.
Wait time is the difference.
Wait time is the only difference the majority of non-technophiles will experience between a ~$100 BDP and one that cost $240+
Wow. That was unexpected. Way to troll for the PS3 vs everyone-else argument!
If you have utterly no interest in games, or if you want your kids the hell away from YOUR Blu-ray player, or if you want to use a single remote, the PS3 isn't attractive.
All points moot, except the first, because the ps3 has no games.
Something else: Sony BDP-N460
The sad thing about bluray players these days is that some players like the OPPO get negative comments because they don't have much gimmicky this like Netflix, Pandora, Vudu and other streaming stuff.
some reviews say:
"Oh, the picture quality is top notch, but how can you justify paying $500 for a player that does not have streaming"
Yes folks, Benaverse people a crazy..
Myth or XBMC.
/thread
Hum... I'm missing the link to the result of the poll... Stupid, really :(
Where can you see it?
As a happy Oppo owner, I'm disappointed it was left off the list. I've owned numerous BD players, including a PS3 and for my money, the Oppo is the best.
I have to agree. I've auditioned several BD players over the last year. The Oppo BDP83 via HDMI is on the top of my list. If you require analog, not my first choice as it's analog section is nothing special. As a digital transport, top notch.
Since I now own a PS3, I have to vote PS3.
The Oppo DMP-83, as for video and sound, it blows the Sony PS3 away. Apart from this, there are better CD/SACD/DVD-A players around, but they are not combined aio players. The hig end brands might have better sound, but cost you easily 3, 4 times as much!