New Bluray player - which?

[capriboy1978]

Hi all,

time to concede i'm well out of the loop of whats hot or not with consumer electronics and it's too much grief to start a whole new genre of magazine subs again.

My sharp BDP-10H Blu ray player has died. Frankly it was rubbish but was free with the tv, which isn't

I have a growing collection of discs and hundreds of Dvd's so need to sort something. requirements are as follows, however I'm pretty easy going. I still have a few contacts left in the industry and can get hold of pana / sony for a good price but i'm open to suggestions:


- Blu ray player that does a good job of upscaling dvd's
- On board audio decoding - I have pre / power amp set ups, 6 channel plus powered sub, originally set up for 5.1 DTS / DD
- Champagne coloured...... to match the rest of the gear..... if at all possible
- easy to upgrade firmware - network connection?
- fast start up / loading times

Not really sure what else needed / available? I left the industry and stopped being bothered as Blu-ray hit the market and haven't had the need to keep up. Budget is flexible - however after building this new i7 I'd prefer to keep things towards the budget / id end of the market. Better add I have no need to record.

thanks in advance, all comments welcome.

 

[capriboy1978]

streaming, probably won't use it but if it could stream slideshows it'll get used eventually for customers.

LG - hmmm never been that impressed in the past by there gear, sure it's good value and generally packed with features (usually gimmicks) but build quality doesn't cut it. I bought a 32" pure flat (inside and out) from them direct when flat crt at 32" meant £800-1000. It was eol stock, new boxed but they were short of cabinets. I paid £150 + vat for it. Pic quality was excellent, not upto the pana of the day bit for the oney it was great. Based on that one I took a fair few more and sold them on with nice alphasson stands as a 'free upgrade'.

Prob was they, like all the lg gear I ever stocked sold etc aged really badly. Mine was used as the main tv for around a year until I got my first plasma and by that time the pic was realy poor - biggest issue was that it looked very dull, like a 10 year old set. I spoke to some of the customers who brought them, most coulfdn't tell the difference seeing it day in and out but when you brought stocked and sold the best day to day I did.

Don't have any dealings with them at all nowadays, they still seem to sell high spec nice looking stuff for relatively nothing and their mobile phones I've come into contact with are awful. Will give them a look though, as upscaling is important (old sharp did a good job, only thing it did do well) I'll stear clear of the bd370.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

 

[capriboy1978]

just checked out the lg 390 - definately has onboard decoding, and has been well recieved. Fugly though.

As a budget choice I might give one a whirl, I'd rather spend the money or more on a player without all the wireless streaming gumf. Can't find one for sale anywhere though after a quick glook.

 

[capriboy1978]

keep coming across references to this - price is ok nut would need to perform execeptionally well to justify it. Do you hve any details / links?

 

[capriboy1978]

thanks for the informed input.

have read round about the oppo - looking good, temptingly good infact

 

[capriboy1978]

thanks picked those up via google. at a horrendous thread on whf. prefer the us glossy black to the uk one but def not going to pay the near on £600 for a hacked import. presumably having limited distibrution and prosuction means these won't be aggressively discounted. Pity.