Top Five Affordable Blu-ray Players

DVD players are so yesterday, and everyone’s going with Blu-ray players today, as they offer so much more. The playback you get from a Blu-ray disc is on a different level than what you get from a traditional DVD. You will also get a lot of added functions such as extra scenes from movies, full HD playback and more. Here’s a quick look at some affordable Blu-ray players available in the market today.

Samsung BD-C5500

Samsung's entry

The BD-C5500 is a great player that does a lot more than one would expect. It has some nifty extras such as a Dolby Digital Plus decoder and HDMI CEC. It also supports a lot of file formats such as H.264, DIVX-HD and MKV. It also features the AllShare function, allowing you to sync the player with multiple devices. One of the biggest advantages this player offers is perhaps the wireless function, for which you will have to buy a separate adaptor.  You get all of this for just Rs. 10,300, which is just a wee bit more than most ordinary Blu-ray players.

Philips BDP2700/12

Divided by twelve

Although this player looks quite ordinary, it does everything right. It has no major extra features, but does just what it’s meant to do. This player has all the usual connections like component/composite, HDMI, digital coaxial out, analogue audio left/right out and Ethernet at the back, as well as a USB 2.0 port in the front. The file formats supported are MP3, WMA, WAV for audio, MPEG 2, DivX Ultra and XviD for video and JPEG for pictures. It also has some other features such as child protection, online firmware upgrades and the EasyLink function which allows for one touch play and standby.  It is also quite an affordable player at Rs. 9,990.

Sony BDP-S370

Sony makes an appearance

This is another great Blu-ray player that performs well and is priced affordably too. Like the Philips BDP2700/12, it is quite ordinary looking, although it does have some pretty sweet features. It has the regular connectors at the back such as HDMI, cmopnonent and composite, as well as UD B. It also upscales DVDs to 1080p, and supports Dolby TrueHD internal decoding and bitstream output via HDMI. All in all, this is a brilliant player and is priced at Rs. 9,990

LG-BD550

A wild LG appears!

If you want something that’s absolutely entry level, this is the player you are looking for. It has all the features of a regular Blu-ray player, but costs much less at Rs. 5,490. This player has HDMI output, a USB slot and an Ethernet port. It also has the usual analogue composite and component connections as well as coaxial output.

Sony BDP-S480

Sony makes yet another appearance

The BDP-S480 sits right in between all these mud range Blu-ray players. It has all the features I’ve mentioned in the players above along with a couple of extras thrown in to justify the slightly higher price of Rs. 7,600. Apart from the regular stuff, the Sony BDP-S480 also supports BD-ROM Playback (single and dual layer), as well as 24p True Cinema.

By now you know exactly what is available, so you can go right ahead and make your decision.