OK, I got the GREEN light!!!

OK, so I got the green light from the better half to go ahead and buy a Blu Ray player. Is the Samsung BD-UP5000 worth 499.99 Yea I know, but I want a dual HD DVD player. I don't wanna have to stack 2 players on top of each other, and I only have 2 HDMI connections. Or should I just hold off until the Holidays to see if the price comes down. Best Buy has the BD-UP 5000 on sale for 499.99, but it also said that the product is being discontinued. So a little help guys, and no I do not want a PS3, I just want a stand alone player.

IB... as long as Samsung continues to support ^that model with firmware updates (it's kind of 'buggy'), then perhaps it's worth purchasing (great price), as (IMO) these combo stand-alone HD machines will certainly disappear by the end of the year (apart from combo computer drives). Here's a RECENT REVIEW (and many pics).

For the record, the second LG combo unit (still available for $799) is the one getting good feedback from owners, from the little I've heard about it. And it provides the full feature capability of both formats, whereas the first (original) LG combo unit (Jan 2007) hindered the HD-DVD side of playback features (& menu) and was more of a Blu-ray player.

-JIMI LOVE (the Voodoo Child)

[Post edited by Love Hendrix! on Apr 27, 2008]

From what I've read on AVS some people are saying LG had a BH300 in the works. They may or may not release it. Last I heard they were going to continue with dual format players. In 2008 there is still a market for HD-DVD. In 2009/2010 we probably won't see any dual format players. I've also heard rumors of a Denon dual format player, don't expect it to have a consumer friendly price though.

Sam's Club has the new Philips BDP7200 for $335 right now. You should give it a try. Some people who've already purchased it have a very favorable opinion of it.

Is that Phillips a combo player or just a bluray player?

EDIT: Looks like it's a bluray player.

Scoob reported this at blu-ray.com about the Phillips bluray player...

Some things of note. It has no ethernet port, so this is a 1.1 player. I can verify it DOES bitstream Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD MA. I verified this with my Onkyo 605. I tested ID4 for DTS HD MA and Dave Matthews live for Dolby TrueHD. The PQ is excellent and the load times are very similar to the Panny BD-30. It handles all of the BD-J menus without any issues. I tested Pirates 1 and 2, Ratatouille and ID4. No issues at all. For the 334.00 I paid at Sam's club this seems like a great deal. Now I need to see how well it upconverts.

He also said this about the upconverting...

I watched ID4 in it's entirety. No problems at all. The menu's worked great, FF and RR were fine and no video or audio dropouts. DTS MA sounded amazing. I also threw in the SD DVD of Revenge of the Sith. It looked great to my eye, but I need to do some more testing.

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?p=835804

[Post edited by Falcon01 on Apr 28, 2008]

Quote:
Or should I just hold off until the Holidays to see if the price comes down.

Probably the best thing you could do in my opinion is wait to see if the price comes down. But I bet it won't. Not substantially anyway. Maybe a $50 drop.