Since last month all the major players on the Blu-ray market started a small war, flooding us with offers to drive the Blu-ray sales. It started with Wal-mart offering the new Magnavox NB500MG9 for under $300. A fews weeks later we see Amazon and then Best Buy start throwing in baits to get consumers to buy Blu-ray movies and players from them. Amazon started slashing prices, bundling movies together and now has a HD week with amazing prices on the ‘Gold Box’ page. Best Buy is pushing their Insignia player with a $100 book of coupons. Now is Wal-mart’s turn again: They are also offering $100 in coupons but with the purchase of any Blu-ray player. Out of all these promotions, I would probably go with this last one because it is valid for any player including the Playstation 3. The PS3 has currently the best cost/benefit ratio, the promo basically makes the Sony console sell at $299. Besides being the only profile 2.0 player already selling, it has the potential to be upgraded with firmwares and you can also make your kids happy giving them games to play!

Or you can buy the mediocre Magnavox NB500MG9 for $198. Your choice!

They are also offering selected Blu-ray movie titles for 15 bucks! Some of the titles are: 3:10 to Yuma, War, Shooter, 300 and The Fifth Element.

Yes, this is great stuff and if you are waiting for a great opportunity to enter the “Blu” World this may be your chance! Check out their web site! This promo is valid from June 8 through June 14.

Popularity: 35% [?]

Best Buy is running a special promotion on the newly released NS-BRDVD Insignia Blu-ray player! This will make it the most affordable Blu-ray player available. Of course there is a catch but it is not that bad. The player costs $349.99 but with the purchase of the Insignia NS-BRDVD player, you’ll receive a special book of coupons inside the box. You can redeem the coupons at your local Best Buy store for $100 in instant savings on Blu-ray movies from Disney, Touchstone and Miramax.

NOTE: They are not redeemable online! See? I said the catch wasn’t bad…It gives the opportunity to new Blu-ray owners to start their new hi-def movie collections. As we mentioned before, this is not the best player ever but it will do the basics… The player has 1080p Full HD output, HDMI, optical and coaxial audio and composite video output but no support for DVI. It also supports MP3 and WMA.

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You can access Best Buy’s promo page here!

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Popularity: 56% [?]

The Blu-ray player Insignia NS-BRDVD is already being sold by Best Buy. Insignia is another one of those players manufactured by Funai, just like the Magnavox NB500MG9 and the Sylvania NB500SL9, that we covered on a previous post. Insignia also targets the lower end, cheaper market; according to them: (they are) “All about affordable and well designed technology”. The NS-BRDVD hasn’t even made to the Insignia website but is already available at a few Best Buy stores! They are sold exclusively at their stores for $349.99.

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The specs on the player are not very clear but this is what we could find out:

• Playback formats: Blu-ray, DVD, DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW, CD, CD-R/RW, MP3, WMA, JPEG
• Profile 1.1
  
• Video Output Resolutions: 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
• DVD Upconversion to 720p, 1080i, 1080p
• Built-in decoders for Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD high-resolution surround, plus lossless Dolby TrueHD (2-channel)
• No Media Card Slot
• No USB Port
• 1 Optical Digital Audio Output
• 1 Coaxial Digital Audio Output
• 1 Composite Video Output
• 3 Audio Outputs
• 1 Component Video Output
• 1 HDMI Output
• 1 Stereo Audio Output

I personally have not hear good things about Insignia. If I were to buy a BD-player today, I would spend the extra $50 and buy a PS3, which has higher quality and almost all desired features in a Blu-ray player. That’s just my humble opinion…

Popularity: 33% [?]