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Chinese Invasion Will Bring $99 Blu-ray Players This Christmas
Philips/Lite-On Blu-ray Drive to Ship for a Dirt-Cheap $186

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OCEntertainment
04/21/09

In reply to Chinese Invasion Will Bring $99 Blu-ray Players This Christmas
I will buy a Blu-Ray player if it goes to a hundred. But only if it comes with a built-in DVD upscaler. Netflix streaming capabilites are optional, but definitely desired. But seriously, a Blu-Ray player without a DVD upscaler is worthless to me.
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ceilingFANBOY
04/21/09

@OCEntertainment: That is pretty much a given. I don't know of any blu-ray players that don't do it because it is so cheap to add as a feature. However, depending on how good your TV is, you are probably better off letting your TV do the upscaling.
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ceilingFANBOY
04/21/09

In reply to Chinese Invasion Will Bring $99 Blu-ray Players This Christmas
I would hope these Chinese no name blu-ray players come in at less than $99 by Christmas time. I would rather pay the $129 for a Magnavox or $149 for a Samsung that we had last year than pay $99 next year for a no name player. Yea, I know Magnavox is just a Funai player that has been badged with Magnavox rather than Emerson or Symphonic, but I would still rather pay the $30 more to get that than some brand I have never heard of and be able to get it a year earlier.
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Mr_Human
04/21/09

In reply to Chinese Invasion Will Bring $99 Blu-ray Players This Christmas
Is blu-ray worth it for a 720 HD TV? Or does upconverting do the job well enough?
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ceilingFANBOY
04/21/09

@Mr_Human: There are more things to picture quality than just resolution alone. Upconverting attempts to fix the resolution problem, but not perfectly. No matter how you look at it, an upconvertor is trying to make 720 or 1080 lines out of 480, so it is not going to be the same as blu-ray because the details just simply don't exist. Other than that, the audio quality and color saturation on a blu-ray disc are going to be better, and really, the color is more important than the resolution in a lot of cases. I would much rather watch a 720p Samsung LCD than a 1080p Vizio LCD and if you compare that same 1080p Vizio to almost any 720p plasma, the plasma is still going to easily win hands down.
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Zac Shipley
04/21/09

In reply to Chinese Invasion Will Bring $99 Blu-ray Players This Christmas
THe deeper question is: Will this force Sony to do a PS3 pricecut, which they've been really good at avoiding so far, if the value of half the system is dminished?

I bought a $99 DVD player around the time of the PS2's second year I think, and PS2 dropped to $from $299 to $199 around the same time. I'll still gladly pay more for a PS3, but a break to $299 or including a stack of free movies or something would soften the blow...
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ripfire
04/21/09

@Zac Shipley: "Will this force Sony to do a PS3 pricecut, which they've been really good at avoiding so far, if the value of half the system is dminished?"

And the answer to that question is No. Thank you for participating.

NEXT!
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oliveboy
04/21/09

In reply to Chinese Invasion Will Bring $99 Blu-ray Players This Christmas
$99 players = more Blu-ray disc buyers = cheaper discs = goodbye DVD.
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bosskev
04/21/09

@oliveboy: I wish I could agree with your seemingly impeccable logic. Unfortunately, it may not work out that way.

To the contrary, it's very possible we will see Blu-ray follow the pattern of inkjet printers and ink cartridges, where the Blu-ray player (inkjet printer) is practically given away so that you continue to buy overpriced BD movie discs (ink cartridges).
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Matt0505
04/21/09

In reply to Chinese Invasion Will Bring $99 Blu-ray Players This Christmas
If they're not 2.0 compliant or have internal DolbyTrueHD/DTS-HD decoding (which I HIGHLY doubt they will,) they serve no purpose for me.

Yeah, $99 is nice, but it's also preferred to have all the features. When I can get a standalone blu-ray player for ~$150 & below that has all the features, I'll happily buy one.

Until then, my HTPC blu-ray drive will suffice.q
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ripfire
04/21/09

@Matt0505: Why would you want audio decoding in the player rather than the receiver?
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Costner
04/21/09

In reply to Chinese Invasion Will Bring $99 Blu-ray Players This Christmas
Better late than never. Of course they better be profile 2.0 compliant, because if they aren't people will continue to buy PS3s as Blu-Ray players.
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bosskev
04/21/09

@Costner: You are giving the typical, mass-market consumer far too much credit. It won't matter whether or not these players are 2.0 compliant (or if they even have a regular complement of other expected features). Joe Average is just going to see "Blu-ray" and "$99" and it's a done deal.
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