Blu-ray recommendation needed

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Lou Schneider said:
The Silver Spur RV park is great.  Friendly staff, wide spaces and good wi-fi in a quiet setting on the outskirts of town.  $36 per night, or $18 per night Passport America.
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Whenever we're in that part of Oregon, we head to Silver Spur. Sorry to see that they raised the price to $36/$18, we used to pay $15. We'll have to check out the Palace Theater next summer. The Glockenspiel and Mt Angel Brewing for a brat and a beer in nearby Mt Angel are a must. If your in town during the Homer Davenport Days, go for it, it's a hoot.
 
Lou Schneider said:
I can see the difference between Blu-Ray and an upscaled DVD, but I have a video background and know what to look for. 
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I was thinking about this statement last night as I was drifting off to sleep and it proves what I said is correct. You should not have to have a video background and know what to look for to see the differences between BR and DVD. If the difference was as dramatic as the ads would lead us to believe the difference would be so easy to see that the average person would notice the difference easily.
 
The Glockenspiel and Mt Angel Brewing for a brat and a beer in nearby Mt Angel are a must.
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Just noticed the picture I took of the glockenspiel in Mt. Angel. Concert performances are at 1 & 3 PM.
 

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Well I'm back on the hunt.

scottydl said:
I'm sure that this new-to-me Toshiba upscaling model will work out fine for a couple more years.
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I was wrong.  The thing was a piece of junk and lacked some of the most basic features (no ability to change aspect ratio to play "standard width" shows/movies, no front display) and froze up and quit working within a few hours.  The purchase was from the online  Best Buy Outlet store, so the only immediate silver lining was that I could return to a regular Best Buy store, which I did.  Got a replacement and it worked a few extra days, then froze up the same way.  :p

It's discouraging that some of the more once-reputable manufacturers are now making ultra cheap products that obviously have build issues.  It makes me reluctant to spend the extra money on a "higher end" model when I have no idea if it will work any better/longer.

Meanwhile I am using an 8-year-old Panasonic DVD player/recorder in the house (that I pulled out of the RV during the off season) and it's working great.  Ha!
 
I'm not opposed to refurbs, although I don't really like the limited warranty they have.  I actually saw that listed on Geeks.com earlier, that is one of the sites I regularly check for daily deals and electronics price checking.
 
Got a Vizio blue ray fir Christmas. Was on sale at Wallyworld for $78. Also bought the pack of The Help which has blue ray and regular DVD. The BR player I got has upscaling. I have a 57" 1080p TV. First, I tried both the BR and regular DVD disks of The Help. Couldn't really tell much difference in the picture. The biggest problem is the player. When I went to fast forward, it worked OK for a while and then the screen went black for a while and then went a pink color. Finally, ther picture came back. While watching a BR disk, all of a sudden the same thing happened...screen black, then pink and hesitation in the display. So I thought it was the BR disk so I put a regular DVD in and lo and behold the same thing happened. I'm taking the thing back to Wallyworld and may not get another BR player. I don't think they have this technology down yet.
 
I bought a LG Blu Ray player on Black Friday 2010 for $89 at Fry's.  It works great - fast forward, rewind, freeze frame, zoom, etc.  It even has an Ethernet connection in back to let it download from Netflix and YouTube.

So don't blame the technology.  Once you get past the bare bottom, how many parts can we leave out and still have this thing work price point, Blu Ray works fine.
 
I agree with Lou. I have had three Blu ray players for a year and they all work just fine. I do agree that there is not enough difference in image quality to make it worth the extra money.
 
BruceinFL said:
I'm taking the thing back to Wallyworld and may not get another BR player. I don't think they have this technology down yet.
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IMHO I think you are making a generalization about an entire technology based on an experience with a single very inexpensive example of it.  Blu-rays have been around for 5 years or more and I doubt they would have the market share they do if your experiences were that common.  I, too, have an inexpensive Vizio Blu-ray and have been fortunate enough not to have experienced any problems with it.
 
Anyone know what the feature is called on a DVD (or Blu-ray) player, that "remembers" where you left off when you put a movie back in?  The cheap Philips upconverting player I'm trying to replace had this feature, and WOW was it nice.  Especially with kids when the movie gets changed back and forth 3-4 times per day.  The player would "remember" several titles back, so regardless of which one you reinserted, it would resume correctly.  There was no DVR or other hard drive involved, but it must have had some kind of memory chip to identify the disc and know where to start.  I wasn't expecting that feature in a cheap player, but I sure got used to it and miss it now.
 
Lou Schneider said:
I bought a LG Blu Ray player on Black Friday 2010 for $89 at Fry's.  It works great - fast forward, rewind, freeze frame, zoom, etc.  It even has an Ethernet connection in back to let it download from Netflix and YouTube.

So don't blame the technology.  Once you get past the bare bottom, how many parts can we leave out and still have this thing work price point, Blu Ray works fine.
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OK, I'll try another brand before I give up on it. But maybe I can find an upscaling regular DVD. Those BR disks are big bucks.
 
BruceinFL said:
Those BR disks are big bucks.
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I have had very good luck buying used Blu ray discs on Amazon for less than half of the price of a new disc.
 
My BR player search is over... again, and hopefully for the last time?  (At least for awhile.)  And the answer is Playstation 3.  With the constant software upgrades and support from Sony (including the ability to play 3D Blu-rays once I have a supporting HDTV) and of course the gaming option, it was a good option.  Much more expensive than the upcoverting DVD players I started off with, but hopefully it will be worth it.  Best of all, it didn't cost me a dime out of pocket...

In an unexpected RV-related twist, I traded locally for the PS3 bundle (included controllers, remote, games, etc.) and my end of the bargain was my tow dolly.  About a $300 value both directions, and the new owner of the dolly said I can borrow it anytime.  I hadn't used the dolly in over a year, and don't even have a small enough car that fits on the dolly anymore... but had held onto it.  Glad I did, as the trade worked out for mutual benefit.
 
the PS3 is also a media client, however I'm having a hell of time to connect it to my Win7 library.  Finally gave up, I just hook up the laptop to the TV and use a compact wireless keyboard.  Use the PS3 strictly for games now.
 
If you watch a lot of movies, may as well get the Sony remote for it, works better than trying to control a movie with the game controller and the 10-foot-UI.
 
Marc L said:
the PS3 is also a media client, however I'm having a hell of time to connect it to my Win7 library.
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Same here!  In fact that's what I'm trying to figure out right now.

I got the remote in this bundle so I'm set there.  I also have the Playstation Move package ... more to learn!
 
Be careful when buying a remote control for the Sony Playstation. There are two different ones, blue tooth and infrared. The difference is that the infrared will take up one of your USB ports and the blue tooth won't. So if you have all your USB ports used up either get the blue tooth or a USB hub.
 
scottydl said:
Same here!  In fact that's what I'm trying to figure out right now.
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I think my library is too big, the PS3 can't enumerate all the files and times out.  I don't recall the error code though, it was a DLNA error.  I got more success installing the PS3 Media Server on my laptop.
 
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