LG BD300 Network Blu-ray Disc Player

Love this machine. The picture quality is great, and it's easy to use. Prompt shipment. Very satisfied.Buy LG BD300 Network Blu-ray Disc Player!

Panasonic DMP-BD55K Blu-ray Disc Player

I am very pleased with this purchase. Since my home theater receiver is four years old I had to connect the player directly to the television and the receiver. I set it up in mimutes and it connected to my home theater system via the fiber optic audio cable connection and to the television via the hdmi cable. Sounds and looks great. It would have been nice if the blu-ray player had a wireless connection similar to TIVO but I am working on the wireless bridge that has been described in other reviews.Buy Panasonic DMP-BD55K Blu-ray Disc Player!

Sylvania NB500SL9 1080p Blu-Ray Player with HDMI Cable

It was very easy to hook up and we have been extremely pleased with the picture quality.

Buy Sylvania NB500SL9 1080p Blu-Ray Player with HDMI Cable!

Sharp Aquos BDHP21U 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player

Unfortunately, despite Sharp having upgraded the firmware for this player in February, this machine doesn't play all of the latest blu-ray discs. We tried two different copies of "Australia" - the player couldn't get past the loading stage. The next upgrade won't be for "months."

Customer Support told me that this is a problem with the disc manufacturers changing the requirements for what makes discs playable. How is this possible? How is it possible that the blu-ray format has not been standarized? Maybe Sharp is to blame, maybe the disc makers, maybe Sony. All I know is, even when we had a Beta video player, at least you knew that if you rented a Beta video, it would play when you got it home. I would have to say: skip this player, and if you haven't made the jump to Blu-ray yet, wait a couple of years until the format is truly standardized.Buy Sharp Aquos BDHP21U 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player!

Panasonic DMP-BD35K 1080p Blu-ray Player

Panasonic will be announcing their 2009 line of blu-ray players soon- the BD60 and BD80. So, don't pay an outrageous amount of money for a 2008 player.Buy Panasonic DMP-BD35K 1080p Blu-ray Player!

Pioneer BDP-51FD BonusView Blu-ray Player

This particular Pioneer is a great buy right now, as it has some of the best upscaling capabilities of ANY player. This model is nearly the same as the Elite model, and unless you really need the fancy faceplate and gold connectors, buy this model instead and save yourself a few hundred bucks. The 51fd is a tweaker's player, giving you quite a few options for optimizing your sound and video output, and is a world-class CD player as well with it's terrific Wolfson DACs. The GUI is very refined and easy to use.

The downsides to this product are lack of ethernet and profile 2.0 support, but that's a mixed bag if you ask me. Pioneer has been fairly supportive in firmware updates for this player, which have markedly improved load times and upscaling performance. DTS-MA is still coming down the pipe purportedly, but with Pioneer's sketchy DVD player support in the near future, we shall see if that ever gets released.

The new Pioneers (120, 320, and 23fd) should offer similar performance, but are not built as well as this player. They will also offer ethernet capabilities, and come in at lower msrps.

In short, this player is quite a bit better than any of it's 2008-release, under $1k brethren, and still better than most of the 2009 products as well.

The only player I would consider above this would be the new Oppo, and maybe some of the high-end Denon and the Pio 09fd.Buy Pioneer BDP-51FD BonusView Blu-ray Player!

Sony BDP-S350 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player

In the digital world, picture quality is not just about resolution, but also about bit rates. The higher the bit rate, the more data that is processed, typically resulting in higher video quality. DVDs have a maximum video bit rate of about 10 megabits per second (Mbps). In comparison, Blu-ray Disc is capable of video bitrates up to an incredible 40 Mbps. The bottom line, higher bit rates allow for the least amount of data compression for HD video that looks closest to the original video source.
Buy Sony BDP-S350 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player!

Sony BDP-S550 1080p Blu-ray Player

My unit was defective out of the box (it would not output video using the HDMI output). I contacted Sony's technical support and spoke with 4 different technicians. They concluded that the unit was defective out of the box.
Buy Sony BDP-S550 1080p Blu-ray Player!