Even with prices dropping, a good
Blu-ray player will still set you back at least $250. You'll want
to get the most for your hard earned cash. Here's a look at the
hottest Blu-ray players on the market today.
Sony PS3
 
Although the gap has certainly narrowed between the PS3 and the
competition, the Sony
PlayStation 3
is still the best Blu-ray player money can buy. Its shiny black,
sleek exterior will look great in your equipment rack, and the
Cell Broadband Engine will give you all the power you need.
You get all the key features like Profile 2.0 support, upgradeable
firmware, built-in WiFi capability and Web browser, and the ability
to decode all the high-definition surround sound formats. Plus
you get quick load times, upgradeable firmware, and a pretty darn
good video game machine.
One downside to the PS3 is that the remote operates using Bluetooth
rather than the traditional infrared. This was presumably done
so that the game controllers would not need 'line of sight' to
communicate with the PS3 unit. This is a great idea for games,
but for those hoping to use an infrared universal remote- not
so much. This means that for movie watching, you'll either need
to:
I chose the third option and purchased the PlayStation
3 Blue Wave infrafred remote from Amazon.com
I was able to download the codes into my Harmony
universal remote and it works like a charm!
![Monster HDMI cable [Click to buy]](images/monster_hdmi_cable.jpg)  Caution:
The biggest downside to purchasing a PS3 is that it cannot bit-stream
the high-resolution audio formats to your home
theater receiver for decoding. This is not a problem as long
as you have a newer receiver with HDMI inputs. You'll need to
decode the audio in your PS3 and pass it to your home
theater receiver as uncompressed PCM. You cannot pass high-resolution
audio via digital optical due to lack of bandwidth, and the PS3
does not have 5.1 analog outputs. This means that although you
don't necessarily need a receiver that will decode high-resolution
audio, you DO need one with HDMI. Otherwise you have two choices:
upgrade your receiver, or choose from one of the other top performing
Blu-ray
players on the market.
Samsung BD-P2500
 The
Samsung
BD-P2500 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player provides excellent image
quality on Blu-ray Discs, and is Profile 2.0 compliant which means
it supports BD Live.
It also has upgradeable firmware which aids in future compatibility,
and gives Samsung the ability to provide dowloadable bug-fixes.
It decodes Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, and adds the
ability to bit-stream output if you'd rather decode it in your
home
theater receiver.
 Another
cool feature is the ability to stream Netflix movies in high-definition
directly to your player. Disc load times are quite a bit slower
than the PS3, so you'll have time to make the popcorn while waiting
for the disc to load. There have also been some disc compatibility
issues noted in some of the reviews I've seen. Hopefully, the
upgradeable firmware will enable Samsung to remedy these issues
quickly.
LG BD300
LG has long been a company to push the envelope with its products,
and the LG
BD300 Network Blu-ray Disc Player is no exception. The unit
offers quick load times, full networking capabilities, (including
Netflix streaming), and decent video quality. Its slick black
exterior can best be described as 'simple elegance'. Like most
LG products, it carries a premium price over some of the budget
Blu-ray
disc players.
 The
unit can output the advanced audio formats in bit-stream form,
but its internal decoding is limited to the Dolby high-resolution
formats. It will not decode DTS-HD Master Audio. Hopefully, LG
will provide this decoding in a future firmware update.
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