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The Vizio VBR100  (Source: Vizio)
The manufacturer known for low-cost HDTVs now has a $199 Blu-ray player in its arsenal

There were a handful of different Blu-ray players that reached the $200 price point during the holiday shopping season after instant rebates, though many of the players went up in price after the holidays were over.  Memorex launched a standalone Blu-ray player for $199, and they'll be joined by at least one more company interested in lowering the price.

Best known for its low-cost HDTVs, Vizio has broken the $200 Blu-ray price point after introducing the VBR100 standalone Blu-ray player.

The specifications obviously aren’t as impressive as higher-priced players, but the VBR100 is Profile 2.0 compatible, has 7.1 analog audio outputs, onboard Dolby TrueHD and DTS-Master Audio, and also has optical and coaxial digital audio outputs.

It's unlikely the drive will have BD-Live 2.0 support, which has been reserved for more expensive Blu-ray players.

The Vizio VBR100 Blu-ray player will be priced at $199, and will be released in April.

Blu-ray player sales have been rather lackluster since Sony and company fended off the Toshiba HD DVD format in early 2008.  Even though most of the new Blu-ray players announced during CES have streaming capabilities and other added benefits, Vizio hopes it’s cheaper, lower-end Blu-ray player will convince cost weary consumers to watch HD content. 

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HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By aurareturn on 1/8/2009 9:46:05 PM , Rating: 4
While some people wanted the war to end, I really wanted the war to stay. People thought that if the war ends, then they can buy a player for future proof.

Too bad because we had $50 HDDVD players going around with like 2 free movies. And the PS3 used to bundle what, like 5 free Blu-Ray movies?

Now we're just reading the $200 mark? Seems like we've gone back in time.




RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By Nfarce on 1/8/2009 11:38:47 PM , Rating: 3
As someone who bought a PS3 in the summer of 2007, I can attest that one thing that caused the trigger pull was the five free BDs (and Amazon's offer of a free Sony BD remote worth $25 at the time)...a total of about $150 worth of stuff at retail pricing at the time. The other was the price "drop" of $100 from $599 to $499 for the 60GB.

Today if I wanted to buy the $399 80GB PS3, the 5 BDs I chose (received via mail), and the remote (hasn't been offered free ever since), I'd still be plunking down $520 from Amazon. And BD disc prices have not fallen much either. That said, I consider a $200 BD player fair market value. You have to remember that BD is still a premium entertainment technology, just like a 1080p LCD is a premium HDTV - no variant is going to come cheap.


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By barjebus on 1/9/2009 9:28:47 AM , Rating: 2
Agree'd!

Do you know what the best part was though? I was able to walk into Walmart and return four of the Blu Ray movies that I had received for free in return for a 120$ gift card at walmart :D Cha Ching!


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By cubby1223 on 1/8/2009 11:42:44 PM , Rating: 2
(1) HD DVD players were priced so cheap because they were on the verge of folding. Divx players were once a dime a dozen sitting next to $300 dvd players, nobody cried for their survival
(2) The free bundled movies were often from a limited selection of crap titles
(3) This article is misleading, Best-Buy had Insignia Blu-ray players at $169 last time I was there


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By UNHchabo on 1/9/2009 12:22:22 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
This article is misleading, Best-Buy had Insignia Blu-ray players at $169 last time I was there


The first sentence of the article:

quote:
There were a handful of different Blu-ray players that reached the $200 price point during the holiday shopping season after instant rebates, though many of the players went up in price after the holidays were over.


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By cubby1223 on 1/9/2009 2:04:54 PM , Rating: 2
Okay, should have said "title" then.

I can still pick up other brand players under $200 at retail stores today.


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By wallijonn on 1/9/2009 1:53:28 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
(1) HD DVD players were priced so cheap because they were on the verge of folding.


I don't think that that is entirely true, although it seemed that way at the end of the war. Toshiba fought the war from the hardware end - knowing that the median price point was $149.99 to $199.99 for adoption. What killed that idea was the reality of the higher priced HD-DVD movie prices, when compared to Sony's strategy of fighting the war by almost giving away the software, since they understood that the cost of a disc was a lot cheaper than a whole player. Sony therefore had a lot less to lose since manufacturing costs were minimal.

So even though Toshiba was selling a player for $200 less than a Sony BD, the BD camp was selling their movies for $10 versus the HD-DVD camp selling the same movies for $30.

What people saw was the low price of BD, usually lower than regular DVDs. And what people are now seeing is the $30 price (regular Wal-Mart prices) for BDs. Same as it was for HD-DVD; and refusing to buy for the same reason. An insidious after-effect,imo, is the "dumbing-down" of DVD quality, to force the adoption of BD. The rant used to be that HD-DVDs needed two or more discs while BD had unlimited space. Now the reality is that BDs are coming out in dual and triple discs.


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By paydirt on 1/13/2009 10:24:58 AM , Rating: 2
MOST PEOPLE (not us, nor audio/videophiles) do not want to own their media. People want to rent it or subscribe to it. If I can rent a BD movie for $2 and watch it once (and maybe rent again at a later date), then I certainly am not going to want to pay $30 to buy a movie.

Now I know there are people out there who like to watch a given movie 10 times, or their kid wants to watch it 100 times (which is just b@$#!t insane IMO). Other than that, the $30 price point doesn't appeal to anyone. People might pay $20 and will pay $10 to own.


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By 16nm on 1/9/2009 12:25:19 AM , Rating: 2
There is competition among blu-ray player manufacturers instead of competition between disc formats. Don't worry about it as we are much better off with a single HD standard. One standard makes the players cheaper and the public less confused. Toodle Pip.


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By BansheeX on 1/9/2009 2:22:29 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
While some people wanted the war to end, I really wanted the war to stay. People thought that if the war ends, then they can buy a player for future proof.


I seriously hope you're kidding. Retailers were getting pissed off about having to allocate 2x the space to 2 warring formats. Consumers were confused, many were not buying because they were afraid one of them would die at any moment and cease getting movie releases, effectively forcing them to buy a second player. Studios were picking sides, making many movies impossible to get no matter what camp you were in. People were fighting all over the place about damn near everything, and every week was another 200 post flamefest arguing about manipulated statistics and bullcrap fearmongering about Sony. It was f&%^king absurd, we need that to continue like we need a hole in the head.

quote:
Too bad because we had $50 HDDVD players going around with like 2 free movies. And the PS3 used to bundle what, like 5 free Blu-Ray movies?


Umm, no, you had a $100 black friday sale at one retailer for an old model that was out of stock within hours. Everything this year was clearance of a failed format, the price has to collapse, its library isn't expanding anymore.

Just one year after $200 HDDVD players were the norm, $200 BD players are becoming the norm. Just a one year technology curve to get 66% more capacity per layer on a 15 year format that many of us are going to be spending thousands on. We'll have lots more releases with lossless audio, quieter drives from the higher data density, and a more spacious recordable format.


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By sweetsauce on 1/9/2009 2:23:58 PM , Rating: 3
Funny i remember your arguments against HD-DVD, and the usually involved it being inferior. Only difference between these low budget blu-ray players and the toshiba ones is that these happen to output in 1080p. I'll fill you in on a little secret, its irrelevant. 1080i and 1080p output are the same crap once the signal hits your screen.


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By cmdrdredd on 1/9/2009 11:48:52 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
I'll fill you in on a little secret, its irrelevant. 1080i and 1080p output are the same crap once the signal hits your screen.


Wrong...do you know what progressive scan actually does? Have you actually viewed 1080i in motion? If you don't see the blur you must have the eyes of a 100year old person.


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By Reclaimer77 on 1/10/2009 1:30:00 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Wrong...do you know what progressive scan actually does?


Progressive scan is obsolete. It only existed because TV's at the time couldn't upscale without an HD converter box.

TV's today upscale.


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By ajdavis on 1/10/2009 12:44:02 PM , Rating: 2
You do realize the p in 1080p stands for progressive, right? It is far from "obsolete". Also, it has nothing at all to do with upscaling.

Interlaced video on the other hand is deprecated and will hopefully die. The quicker the better.

Check it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_scan


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By chmilz on 1/9/2009 2:27:10 AM , Rating: 4
Blu-Ray may have won, but sadly, the format isn't even finished. I won't buy a player until they've finalized it so I don't end up with a player that can't access all the features on a disc... not that I've ever given a crap about extras.


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By cubby1223 on 1/9/2009 3:09:43 AM , Rating: 1
It was always a finished format, the confusion over this was nothing more than a format-war tactic. The hardware for all the profiles was not complete, but the format specs were.

Doesn't matter, though. Profile 2.0 players are on store shelves, and they are as complete as they will ever be.


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By 9nails on 1/9/2009 9:26:07 AM , Rating: 1
...except for the ones with-out the Intel chip to play Adobe Flash media. Those are in discussion. If anything turns up in the next 6 months from that, we'll see.


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By BansheeX on 1/9/2009 11:01:45 AM , Rating: 4
FFS, you have to be kidding me. They could update the profile to make new players toast bread with movie stills for all I care. Adding minor new capabilities to extras has nothing to do with the playback of the main feature on ANY player.

PS, powerful players like the PS3 already have the processing power to do it, all they'd need a firmware update to support it, no added hardware necessary. Figure it out already, millions of other people have.


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By cubby1223 on 1/9/2009 1:42:17 PM , Rating: 3
How does your post get voted up? That is the true sign that the online battle against Sony & Blu-ray is still far from over...

I'm half-expecting Microsoft to "officially" announce plans to add .net to Blu-ray players "just around the corner".

Mark my word, you will never see studio movies use Adobe Flash.


RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By fleshconsumed on 1/9/09, Rating: 0
RE: HDDVD vs Blu-Ray War
By BansheeX on 1/9/2009 11:22:07 AM , Rating: 3
Huh? The memory stick speed and size changes are technological improvements no different from anything consumer electronics related, be it USB revisions or motherboard form factors. This has nothing to do with the conversation, these are storage-only formats and improvements to them are GOOD.

Blu-ray disc will have no physical structure or speed changes, only software ones. The feature film and most extras will play the same on a 1st gen player as a 10th gen player. If you own a PS3, nothing will ever not work, because it has the processing power to do everything a dedicated decoder chip would do via software, software it is able to obtain via internet updates. If you really worry about this fringe stuff, you'd have bought one and stfu.

By the way, why don't you crusade against studios for releasing 6 different versions of the same film on DVD, each one incrementally better than the last? Why leave out 3.5 floppy and CD-ROM, which were also Sony formats? Nothing in your post makes any sense, it's pure fanboy sour grapes nonsense, give it a bloody rest.


I don't think...
By amanojaku on 1/8/09, Rating: 0
RE: I don't think...
By cubby1223 on 1/8/2009 11:27:47 PM , Rating: 4
Your dvds don't just become unusable when you buy a Blu-ray player...

and you *really* think 2160p will be here in 6 years? Keep dreaming. I'd be very surprised if 2160p were here in 20 years.


RE: I don't think...
By Nfarce on 1/8/2009 11:44:32 PM , Rating: 3
Exactly. My PS3 upscales regular DVDs extremely well and blows away my upscaling regular DVD players in other rooms, although some of that may be because of the component connections vs. the PS3 HDMI connection.

And thanks for the reality check on 2xxxp in less than a decade. That dude is smoking something hard core. On another point he made, anyone who can't tell the difference between SD and HD has to be legally blind.


RE: I don't think...
By UNHchabo on 1/9/2009 12:37:59 PM , Rating: 2
SD vs HD might be a decently large jump in resolution, but what about SD upscaled vs HD? I'd argue that there's not much difference there.

The BIG thing, IMO, holding people back from seeing the advantages of HD resolutions, are "768p" TVs. Unless you hook a PC up to the screen (which only nerds are going to do), you're never going to get an integer ratio between the source resolution and the display resolution. 720 gets upscaled by 7%, and 1080 gets downscaled by 30%. 480 gets upscaled by 62.5%, making it the closest input resolution to an even jump.

I'm a nerd, and I have a Mythbuntu machine, so a "768p" TV works fine for me on my budget, but it just doesn't look that good with my DVD player, or cable TV. Watching The Dark Knight using an upconverting DVD player, I cannot get it so that the text message Gordon receives in the car is readable. I've tried component, and I've tried HDMI at 480p, 720p, and 1080p. On the PC it looks just fine.


RE: I don't think...
By Nfarce on 1/9/2009 4:30:05 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
The BIG thing, IMO, holding people back from seeing the advantages of HD resolutions, are "768p" TVs.


And that is exactly why I talked my sister out of getting a BD player - they have a 720p plasma. They couldn't tell the difference when I brought the PS3 over to give her and her audio/video/computer saavyless husband a look at the technology compared to their upscaling standard DVD player.


RE: I don't think...
By TreeDude62 on 1/12/2009 11:25:19 AM , Rating: 2
To be fair, your PC is going to do a better job at upscaling than any DVD player out there. Upscaling DVD players generally use crap scalers, there are very few that are actually decent. In many instances you can set the DVD player to 480p, let the TV do the scaling, and get a better picture.

The 720p on 768p thing has always annoyed me. I never saw the point in using that resolution.


RE: I don't think...
By wallijonn on 1/9/2009 2:07:56 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
anyone who can't tell the difference between SD and HD has to be legally blind.


It depends on the master (there are some great masters out there - like the last three Star Wars films) and whether it is a re-scan onto BD. GIGO; pristine in, pristine out. It also depends on the display and how it has been set up. For some movies the increase in quality is barely perceptible (for example, Terminator, Dune, Tomb Raider, Full Metal Jacket (until it was re-mastered)). For others, especially those that have been restored and re-mastered, the difference is shocking.


RE: I don't think...
By tjr508 on 1/9/2009 10:44:42 PM , Rating: 2
I've pointed this out before, and I will point it out again...
It's not that people can;t see the difference, it's that they are not actively looking for it. Most people can enjoy a movie without being able to distinguish how the graffiti on a background water tower reads.

A guy a couple posts up mentioned he spent a significant amount of time trying to tune in the resolution to read some random text message on a movie. If it is that important, then he has problems no TV can fix.


RE: I don't think...
By UNHchabo on 1/12/2009 12:27:06 PM , Rating: 2
Problem is, it's not a random text message, it's fairly important to the plot. I could read it in the theater, and I have a distinct feeling I could have read it if I had an SDTV. Since I had a "768p" TV, I couldn't read it, so in that case, I downgraded the amount of detail I could see in the picture by getting my "HDTV".


RE: I don't think...
By 9nails on 1/9/2009 10:08:13 AM , Rating: 2
2060P is just a stepping stone. There's more clarity to be expected!

Sharp, Sony, and Panasonic have all displayed 4K (4096 x 2160 pixel) TV sets at trade shows. That's 4X greater the resolution of 1080. There's a 4K market growing out there, and it's starting this year!

http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/29/panasonics-150-...


RE: I don't think...
By Spectator on 1/9/2009 11:21:37 AM , Rating: 2
Dam that is Mad Sized 150".

Does it come with Wii Cam style Interactivity

AND is touch sensative, AND can support mass so it can be floor/bed mounted, AND comes with interactive P0rn. AND Interactive sex toys?

Or better still. All off the above and cloud computing tech that can handle 8+million pixels per frame at 60 FPS. ohh wait

8million * 4 bytes (32 bit colour) * 60FPS.. == Dam .. AND some Quad Fibre net connection please. :)

Chukkle


RE: I don't think...
By Penti on 1/11/2009 5:53:23 AM , Rating: 2
Problem is most films (film - as in Cinema) just use 2k and idiots like George Lucas even film in 1080 - 16:9. They need to go 100% 4k DI for it to make sense. Lets get 4k digital Cinemas first. They use JPEG-2000 for the film btw. Pretty demanding stuff.


RE: I don't think...
By surt on 1/9/2009 5:15:48 PM , Rating: 2
You can buy 2160p tv's today. Will it take 6 years to get content starting to filter in? I doubt it. 20 years? No way.


RE: I don't think...
By BansheeX on 1/9/2009 2:36:25 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
3) People who know a better format (2160p in 2015?) is on the horizon, and hope it's downloadable


Those people are going to have a lot of fun waiting their entire life for something that isn't going to happen. Do you have any idea how difficult the transition to 1080p has been? The NTSC analog standard that preceded 1080p digital broadcasts lasted for like half a century. Consumers and broadcasters just spent hundreds of billions upgrading to this, it would bankrupt them all to do it again so quickly. And for what? If they can't see the difference between DVD and HD, why the hell would they see a difference between DVD and Super HD? Human visual perception at typical view distance maxes out with HD, SuperHD would accomplish nothing and would die as quickly as DVD-Audio for the same reasons.

PS, if you can't tell the difference between 480i MPEG2 and 1080p MPEG4, you're freaking blind as a bat. Don't deny the massive improvement just because you stupidly spent thousands on DVDs thinking they were an archival quality format.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=54...


RE: I don't think...
By Jellodyne on 1/9/2009 12:10:52 PM , Rating: 2
> PS, if you can't tell the difference between 480i MPEG2
> and 1080p MPEG4, you're freaking blind as a bat.

Its possible they can't tell the difference because they're comparing the two on a crappy Vizio TV.


RE: I don't think...
By dreddly on 1/9/2009 10:07:21 AM , Rating: 1
Great Post.

I will not purchase a Bluray player until the price is comparable to DVD.

I have an SD tv, and no desire to spend twice what I paid for the SD just to get a little better resolution.

I have SD cable, because I won't pay the high tier pricing of HD.

I use CRT monitors because they are cheap abundant and serve my purpose. I will pay for a fast system, but I don't game on the PC and I don't need stellar resolutions.

I see no benefit for the cost.


RE: I don't think...
By cubby1223 on 1/9/2009 2:07:40 PM , Rating: 4
Then why did you even bother to comment? :roll;

With owning an SD tv, no one expects you to buy HD anything .


RE: I don't think...
By callmeroy on 1/9/2009 3:18:01 PM , Rating: 2
lol pretty much what cubby1223 said....but hey its Friday, almost time to go home and the comment made me laugh given the topic at hand.

Does that person go to CAR enthusiast site and talk about their bikes as well?


RE: I don't think...
By foolsgambit11 on 1/10/2009 4:23:23 PM , Rating: 2
It is nice to occasionally be reminded that we who care enough about these things to spend (or wish we could spend) large amounts of money on it are in the minority in the world. That even though something may be obviously better, that doesn't make it obviously worth it.


RE: I don't think...
By TreeDude62 on 1/12/2009 11:32:53 AM , Rating: 2
You know you can get many HD channels for free over the air, right? Not to mention the fact that new CRTs are NOT abundant anymore.

Go find someone with a decent HD setup and watch The Dark Knight on Blu-Ray. Then come back and tell us it is not worth it. Everyone I have even met who has said HD is not worth it has not sat down and ever watched anything, they just blindly judge.


What about the media price?
By Cappadocious on 1/9/2009 3:40:10 AM , Rating: 3
For me the issue isn't the price of the player itself (although it helps) my biggest concern is the cost of the movies. I know those disks can't cost the $35 they are charging at Best Buy.

I think things will really start to take off for BD when the movies come down to a consistent $20 price point.




RE: What about the media price?
By bmheiar on 1/9/2009 9:26:37 AM , Rating: 2
I agree... For me I would like to see the Blu-Ray movies come down to $15 or so. I am only buying Blu-Ray movies when I can get them for $15 or less during sales at retail stores &/or online (ebay, Buy.com, Amazon.com & etc), to replace my DVD collection (200+ movies). I know many others out there have larger DVD collections. I picked up about 5 movies just this past holiday season, but missed out on a couple because the stores (& their online stores) were sold out (particularly Transformers for $10 that BestBuy was selling the day after Xmas).


RE: What about the media price?
By VoodooChicken on 1/9/2009 1:34:28 PM , Rating: 2
Discs are plenty cheap now, relatively. I got WALL-E on Blu for $17 at Best Buy (price match from Fry's). There's a lot of deals out there like that at stores and online. For some movies, there's still a premium price, but a lot of the time, there's less than a $5 markup from the regular DVD.

You don't even have to buy the disc. Netflix has Blu, Blockbuster has SOME Blu (took forever for ours to even start carrying DVDs this century). I'm patiently waiting for redbox to start carrying them.

It all depends on what kind of experience you're looking for out of home entertainment. I have NOT gone Blu to upgrade my DVDs I already own, sometimes I even go for the regular DVD because there wasn't enough extra sizzle to the Blu-ray to justify the cost (Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Beetlejuice being recent examples). I think my only high def double dip has been Blazing Saddles on HD DVD (because it came in a 4-pack with Goodfellas, the Departed, and Superman I; worked out to $15 a movie when the format was still brand new).
Apparently I am one of the minority that actually enjoys DVD extras. I love audio commentaries (provided they're well made and insightful--a lot to ask to be sure). I like seeing deleted scenes and alternate cuts, and there have been many featurettes that I have watched more often than the movies themselves.
I have NOT been too keen on U-Control or BD Live or whatever else they call "interactivity," but it's nice to know it's there. It's up to the studios to provide content for that stuff.
Unless you have a large TV, you might not notice an "improved" resolution, but you might notice less hiccups (artifacts, skipped frames, etc) than regular DVDs. Absolutely no reason to put ALL IN THE FAMILY on Blu, unless they start cramming whole seasons on one disc (shudder).


RE: What about the media price?
By UNHchabo on 1/9/2009 1:53:12 PM , Rating: 2
I wouldn't mind DVD-quality seasons of TV shows on a single disc... there'd be no quality difference between putting a DVD in your Blu-ray player, compared to a Blu-ray disc outputting 480p content.


RE: What about the media price?
By cubby1223 on 1/9/2009 2:13:06 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
I wouldn't mind DVD-quality seasons of TV shows on a single disc... there'd be no quality difference between putting a DVD in your Blu-ray player, compared to a Blu-ray disc outputting 480p content.

You will never see this happen. The number of discs in a set absolutely does determine what value the consumer places on the product. Very few consumers will be willing to pay $60+ for one Blu-ray disc, I can guarantee that.

It's a great idea that just won't have the selling power.


RE: What about the media price?
By UNHchabo on 1/9/2009 2:43:44 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Very few consumers will be willing to pay $60+ for one Blu-ray disc, I can guarantee that.


Most of the time the shows you see selling for $60 a season are the 42-minute, 24-episode shows though: the CSIs, Law and Orders, and 24s of the world. Most of those shows average 3.5 episodes per 8.5GB dual-layer disc. At the same quality, that goes over BD's 50GB limit (assuming you go for dual-layer BD discs). So you'd be paying $50-60 for 2 BD discs full of TV shows. Not that bad.

However, for your average 22-minute show (most sitcoms), they average 8 episodes per DVD. There's more than enough room on a BD disc; it might even be small enough to fit on a single-layer disc. Most of these shows sell for about $25/season on DVD, which I think is reasonable.

Plus these prices come down within a few months of each release anyway.


Profile 2.0 = BD Live
By OnyxNite on 1/9/2009 11:20:24 AM , Rating: 2
"the VBR100 is Profile 2.0 compatible...
It's unlikely the drive will have BD-Live 2.0 support, which has been reserved for more expensive Blu-ray players."

Profile 2.0 = BD Live so it must be BD Live compatible.




RE: Profile 2.0 = BD Live
By bfellow on 1/9/2009 11:35:25 AM , Rating: 2
Maybe they should reword it as not BD-Live ready like Samsung BDP-1500 which was Profile 2.0 "compatible" but still Profile 1.1 right now without the ever-waiting future firmware update.

It also might mean it needs a USB flash drive to make it BD-Live supported


RE: Profile 2.0 = BD Live
By mholler on 1/9/2009 4:32:00 PM , Rating: 2
FYI. The 2.0 update for the Samsung BD-P1500 has been available since October 08.

http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/detail/support....


RE: Profile 2.0 = BD Live
By therealnickdanger on 1/9/2009 11:37:36 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
The specifications obviously aren’t as impressive as higher-priced players , but the VBR100 is Profile 2.0 compatible, has 7.1 analog audio outputs, onboard Dolby TrueHD and DTS-Master Audio , and also has optical and coaxial digital audio outputs.

Holy sh*t. Those are amazing specs for even a $400 player!


RE: Profile 2.0 = BD Live
By Jellodyne on 1/9/2009 12:14:55 PM , Rating: 2
I wonder how cheap they could make it if they skip the 7.1 analog outs. I'll take my audio and video unmolested on the HDMI, thanks.


RE: Profile 2.0 = BD Live
By Bookworm777 on 1/11/2009 7:10:27 PM , Rating: 2
I looked at several articles about it and have found no mention of an ethernet port which is required to be Profile 2.0 so it would be "compatible" if it met all the requirements but that one.


Hello?
By SoylentG on 1/9/2009 1:24:17 AM , Rating: 2
Wow, Sylvania's had their Blu Ray on for $200 for a while now. Lots of places you can get it for $150 if you're buying it with an HDTV. And you can get a samsung 1500 or Sony 350 for $200 with a TV purchase just about any day. In fact, I got mine at Sears for $180 (250-50 bundle w/ tv, 10% off for using sears card.) recently. I got the Sony, but the Samsung was the same price.

I guess these paid advertisements don't really need to be analyzed with any scrutiny, though.




RE: Hello?
By marvdmartian on 1/9/2009 10:28:33 AM , Rating: 2
Get the mid-range players below $100, and I might think about getting one.....in about 5 to 10 years, when my current up-converting players die!


RE: Hello?
By Spuke on 1/9/2009 7:16:52 PM , Rating: 2
I'll even take one of these Vizio players for $100. But not a penny more.


By ezinner on 1/8/2009 9:41:06 PM , Rating: 2
It is a great feature to have 7.1 analog output for use with pre HDMI receivers, but don't the two 7.1 formats require HDCP? My Vizio LCD has optical output, but not even Dolby Digital/DTS pass-thru. Hopefully, this unit will have two HDMI outs. Do most people hook up their player to an HDMI capable receiver and have the receiver feed the screen?




By amanojaku on 1/8/2009 10:04:24 PM , Rating: 1
If they have a decent receiver or processor, yes. In most cases your source (DVD, Blu-ray, CD, etc...) should connect to your receiver or (even better) processor and amplifier separates. You do know a receiver is just a cheap integration of an audio/video processor and amplifier, right? The receiver or processor usually has the bandwidth to receive the signals and processes them or pass them through with no signal loss. Your TV or Blu-ray player, on the other hand, might strip sound and video quality due to lower bandwidth. If a switch or router is the hub of your Ethernet network, then the receiver or processor is the hub of your entertainment network.


By tallcool1 on 1/9/2009 12:14:17 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 8/21/2007 8:10:12 AM , Rating: 2
I hope your willing to pay up as Transformers will never be on Blu-Ray, anything to the contrary is wishful thinking.

By Master Kenobi (blog) on 8/21/2007 7:14:37 AM , Rating: 2
Remember those words when more studio's switch to HD DVD exclusive.

By Master Kenobi (blog) on 8/20/2007 6:29:34 PM , Rating: 1
Transformers will be absolutely sexy in high def. I just bought an HD-A20 last week... and now this... haha theres a gamble that paid off quite well.
Side note... HD DVD FTW!

By masher2 (blog) on 8/21/2007 8:22:43 AM , Rating: 2
> "Guess what, I am not buying either one - period, until there is a winner."
Then you're likely to be without HD for a long, long time. At this point, its doubtful there will ever be one "winner". Both formats will likely remain for the longhaul, as dual-format players predominate.

You gotta laugh when looking back...




By DukeN on 1/9/2009 11:25:01 AM , Rating: 2
Are they at the DVD player level yet? In terms of speed and acoustics?

Also, for Boxing day (kinda like Canada's black friday) - couple of the retailers had low end BluRay players for $99.

I just can't see me buying one of these until they get to $99 or less, with DIVX support as well as usasbility, speed and next to no noise.




It's All in the Software...
By cubdukat on 1/9/2009 12:45:20 PM , Rating: 2
They can make the players as cheap as you like, but until they start pricing the software more reasonably, they're not going to go anywhere. There's no good reason for a Blu-Ray version of a movie should cost almost double what the SD-DVD version costs. The picture and sound quality may be light years better, but not double-the-price better.

I really think what they're trying to do is maneuver the general public into a position where they have no choice but to pay whatever price the powers that be deem appropriate, but with things the way they are now, that's not going to work quite so well anymore. Many will just do without.




Once you go Blu...
By Lazarus Dark on 1/9/2009 11:39:56 PM , Rating: 2
99% of people who dis Bluray, do not HAVE Bluray. Once you see it properly in your own living room on a 1080p TV, you will begin to loathe dvd.

And I'm not talking about some expensive setup here. I've got the Westinghouse 1080p 37" that I got for 900$ on Black Monday two years ago and my surround is a cheapo 200$ dvd/vcr reciever from four years ago. And yet, at a proper viewing distance of about five feet, I and everyone who comes over is blown away by the difference from dvd. I use a 100$ Liteon BD drive on my HTPC that I purchased the week after Blu became the official format with Arcsoft TMT player software. Load times are almost unmentionable. While my reciever only has spdif and I can't enjoy full HD sound, I do get the HD downrezzed to 1.5mps DTS, which is far, far better than the dinky Dolby we're used to on DVD. In fact, while everyone obviously notices the 1080p picture is much much clearer (and personally, I notice the colors are more lifelike than DVD), everyone who comes over is especially surprised by the audio quality, many asking if I upgraded the speakers. No, its the same cheap sound system, but there was still room for better sound without even upgrading.

An interesting side note: the biggest surprise for me? Futurama: Benders Game on Bluray. I was shocked at how much better even this simple american animation looks on Blu. It's a drastic contrast from the dvd's upscaled. I can't wait for some proper Anime releases on Bluray.

Once you have Blu, once you see and hear it properly... DVD's become almost passe. In fact, I don't care to watch anymore DVD unless I know there won't likely be a Blu re-release anytime soon. I get truly excited when I hear about things like Blade Runner, Ghostbusters and Days of Thunder coming to Bluray, as I never got to see them in theaters. In fact, I was never this excited about DVD's. I counted the other day. I got a DVD player in 1999. In almost ten years I have... 40 DVD's (not counting several TV series and anime series). After only 11 months, I have... 45 Blurays. I guess I never saw DVD as archival, I knew something better would be coming since DVD's couldn't hold HD and HDTV has been coming since before DVD.

One bad part about Bluray: it makes your system look inadequate. I'm buying a house soon and will be building a home theater room with a projector and HDMI reciever so I can get the full effect of Bluray, I kinda hate knowing I'm only getting half the audio, and I swear my TV is shrinking every month (maybe because my brother in law just got a 52" for Christmas). Better LFE would be much appreciated too. I bet for 3,000$ I can build a better looking and sounding theater room than the newest theater in this city.

Many have their reasons for not going Blu, financial reasons, economy worries, living in a small apartment, or marrying some Martha-Stewart wannabe who thinks big tv's and 6 speakers is ugly (God help you). But don't dis it cause you can't have it. I never went all out on DVD cause I always saw it as an intermediate, it could never keep up with the HD revolution. But I don't see anything better than 1080p and lossless sound for many years to come (and since the best internet I can get in my area is 1.5 mps, I don't think HD streaming is an option for many years, my bandwidth chokes on HULU and Netflix SD sometimes.) And if most people have trouble appreciating the difference between 720p and 1080p or CD and 320k MP3 (I can tell, but I guess I'm kinda trained), I seriously doubt anyone is worried about 2K res or ... how much more could the sound be improved anyway? Movies are only now being mastered in 7.1, and then only a few. I'm not naive, I know Blu won't last forever; but I fully expect I'll be enjoying them for at least a decade. And hey, DVD lasted that long right? The only forseeable improvement to me is 3D, but I can see a BD 3.0 with multilayered discs for this, or at least that's what I would prefer; still, I don't want to watch all movies in 3D. And it's not really possible to make much more improvements to older films, they can only be restored so much. Many movies like Blade Runner Final Cut I don't think will ever be released in any improved format beyond the current Bluray release. Maybe we'll have lossless video at 2K in ten or fifteen years... but I'm enjoying the crap out of Bluray now.




How does it playback though...
By cmdrdredd on 1/9/2009 11:56:00 PM , Rating: 2
Specs mean NOTHING with Blu-Ray players. There are numerous models that have many issues playing certain titles, slow loading, freezing, etc. Unless the Vizio unit can playback every disk without an issue it isn't worth $200 and I'd be inclined to spend $200 more on a PS3 and have the current best Blu-Ray player on the market for someone not needing analog outs.

Funny...the PS3 was almost the very first Blu-Ray player, and it's primary usage isn't blu-ray yet it works better than $700 units...fully upgradeable as well.




Finally
By gguy45 on 1/12/2009 7:21:57 PM , Rating: 2
Been waiting to convert to blu-ray for awhile, now thanks to Vizio I think I will! Can't wait for it to come out!




$200 Price Barrier
By oab on 1/8/09, Rating: -1
RE: $200 Price Barrier
By xxsk8er101xx on 1/8/2009 11:37:21 PM , Rating: 3
I have a vizio, my brother has a vizio, my cousin has a vizio, and my parents have a vizio TV.

They are great TV's! I'm sure the vizio bluray will also be a top seller.

oh by the way vizio is the only TV made in America. Everything else is made in china.


RE: $200 Price Barrier
By Nfarce on 1/9/09, Rating: -1
RE: $200 Price Barrier
By SoylentG on 1/9/2009 1:20:02 AM , Rating: 2
1) Writing.
2) Horrible cost of ownership on Vizios. About the same quantity of occurances per million, but virtually every repair costs close to the cost of the entire TV to fix.
3) Picture quality is going to be much much lower, although if you have no perception of picture quality (more common than I'd like to admit) it's obviously a smaller issue.
4) The 40" 650 has been as low as $1399, with store offers putting it as low as $1260 pre-tax. $880 was the cheapest I could find a new (possibly refurbished, hard to tell for online only retailers) 42" vizio. So for $380, you get a really high end instead of the bottom of the barrel. With the average cost of ownership of a vizio being 10-15% higher cost of ownership per year (as compared to the cost of the unit) higher than the Samsung, that becomes a laughably small difference.
5) Vizio is made in Taiwan or Thailand. It's an American company though. All I hear are bs lies about who makes vizio. I've heard Wal-Mart employees telling people Sony makes vizio. Well, Vizio did infringe on Sony's patents, but that's about as close as you get.
6) Go into a retail store and actually compare the Vizio XVT to the 650. It's disgustingly bad color, even with an expensive calibration performed on it. To get the TV even close (not very) to the 650's color, the cost of calabration would almost completely negate the price difference.

TLDR: Vizio's got a high cost of ownership, overseas manufacturing, poor image quality, and a bad value overall. You get what you pay for.

(Nfarce: good call on the TV prices if they were american made, I'm sure they'd be asking for a bailout right about now, eh? haha)


RE: $200 Price Barrier
By Spivonious on 1/9/2009 8:18:31 AM , Rating: 2
Have you actually seen a Vizio TV? I have their 32" LCD and after adjustment, the picture quality was equal to the Samsung next to it at the store.

At the time the Vizio was $599 and the Samsung was $1200. The Vizio also had more inputs, including a VGA input that we use to watch Netflix streaming movies.

There's only two companies that make the panels. You can keep paying for a brand name, but I'll save some money and get the same internals.


RE: $200 Price Barrier
By Spivonious on 1/9/2009 10:21:58 AM , Rating: 2
And to comment on reliability, I've had it for almost two years and have had zero problems.


RE: $200 Price Barrier
By killerroach on 1/9/2009 8:24:29 AM , Rating: 2
That being said, when I bought my 46" Vizio, I did a pretty extensive comparison between other LCDs in its price range, and it and a 46" Philips ended up coming out on top (although both have minor niggles, there were no game-breakers like there were on some other sets). I went with the Vizio because it was $100 cheaper, and have been quite happy with it. As far as cost of ownership goes, we'll see... odds are, if it lasts me through grad school, I'll consider it a worthwhile investment and just replace it if something goes awry.

Finally, $880 was the cheapest you could find a 42" Vizio? Try Wal-Mart... off the shelf for $797.


RE: $200 Price Barrier
By 9nails on 1/9/2009 9:40:30 AM , Rating: 2
A buddy of mine bought a Sony at a premium. He thought that he was getting a good deal, including an employee discount. I was going to go to his house to watch the Super Bowl in HD, but there was a huge line through the middle of the screen. He had Sony replace the main logic board twice, the back lighting once, and the display glass once. It was all under warranty, so he didn't have to pay a dime for it. But it's quite inconvenient.

I think you did the right thing. Every manufacture has a statistic of bad parts. Just keep a warranty on it and they'll have to fix it. If you save a few hundred off the top, you're the wise shopper.


RE: $200 Price Barrier
By Nfarce on 1/9/2009 10:32:32 AM , Rating: 2
Thanks for backing me up SoylentG (and the English correction - it was late :P ), even if I did get zeroed out.

Anyone who can honestly say with a straight face that a Vizio TV is equal or nearly equal to a mid or high end Sony or Samsung is only fooling him or herself. That said, if I was going to buy a new HDTV for a bedroom or a den/office, I'd consider saving money and buying a Vizio and pocketing the $$ savings.

For a home theater setup or other main TV source, I don't think so.


RE: $200 Price Barrier
By nerdye on 1/9/2009 8:14:02 PM , Rating: 2
Vizio truly gives a good bang for the buck with all their products, I am impressed.

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