Memorex MVBD-2510 Blu-ray player hits $139.99 (but not for long)
By Darren Murph 
posted Nov 17th 2008 1:24AM
posted Nov 17th 2008 1:24AM
[Thanks, Jamil]
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Already ordered mine , now all i need is a good deal on a 1080p tv an some movies. My budget is 1000.
I'd go with a 1080p 47" Vizio with that budget. Got mine for $980 including shipping several months ago.
I got an awesome 40" Sony Bravia from Wal*Mart for around $1200. Up your budget a little and you won't regret it.
@aznofazns
I want to smack your face for what you have just said. With a budget of $1,000.00 you can get more then what you need, it's just depends on how you use it. Since casanovasinger is going to buy a Memorex MVBD-2510 Blu-ray for $139.99, he can also get a TOSHIBA 40" 16:9 8ms 1080p LCD HDTV 40RV525U for the amount of $849.99 from www.NewEgg.com, which adds up to $989.98 without tax. Newegg also cover the shipping charges on the LCD TV so you don't have to worry about that but you should worry if you have to pay tax, I just hope you don't live in the states that you order from.
See, this is what gets me about blu-ray. Everyone talks about players reaching a PRICE threshold. I think you are always forgetting to mention the QUANTITY threshold. I wouldn't care about buying a blu-ray player at $50 or $250. What matters to me is the fact that there are only 500+ titles out there!
Let's get real. Assuming you had access to rent all 500+ titles (Netflix, etc) there are always invariably going to be titles/generes you don't want to see. So I mean, why would I go to buy a player when the selection sucks? I find tons of movies on HD television, and the only premium one I get is HBO. And even then, most of the blu-ray coming out are movies that were recently out, so I've seen them anyway.
I say, once you start lookingat blu-ray with 5,000+ titles, including TV shows and older movies (80s and before) that I wouldn't mind revisiting for the HD quality, then let me know (and I'm sure players will be even cheaper then, lol).
"Search movies (1519 matches)"
"Upcoming Blu-ray Releases
November 18, 2008 - 61 Movies
November 25, 2008 - 31 Movies
December 02, 2008 - 30 Movies"
You sir, fail the internet.
2,120.
I know that's not the magic 5,000 number for you but it's a far cry from your 500 guess. I'd say over 2,000 high def movies is worth the asking price for $139!
Reference: http://www.bluraydvdmovies.net/
Oh no, I got the number wrong! The point is, compared to DVD, the selection sucks!
You can play your old an/or unpopular movies on your DVD player if you must. Anything new and worth watching in HD will come out on bluray. Hell, even old stuff really worth watching in HD will probably be or already is on bluray.
Seriously though, a lot of DVD players are 140 bucks, this is pretty hard to pass up if you're looking to get into HD.
correct me if i am wrong, but can't the blu-ray player also play dvds? if yes, then you are not really limited to 500+ titles. You can still buy all the dvds you want and keep your current dvd collection. However, you will have the benefit of choosing the blu-ray version of the video ,if available, when making a purchase.
that was a reply to mikesay98.
I certainly already have the ability to play DVDs. If that were the issue, I certainly wouldn't buy a blu-ray player. The whole point of blu-ray is HD. So, if the selection of HD is small compared to DVDs, I'm going to wait.
i see what your saying, in that case it would vary from person to person. With the blu-ray players having come down greatly in price, some might see this a good opportunity to jump on the bandwagon now. Making use of HD content when the desired blu-ray movies are available to them. And if you go to blu-ray.com under genres there are 8000+ titles, mind you there seems to be doubles of some movies, but its safe to say that there are more than 500+ movies.
Also, remember the DVD upscaling that Bluray players do. Unless you have an upscaling DVD player right now, your existing DVD collection just got better
The bag of hurt just got less hurty.
I almost pulled the trigger on this one, but the fact that it has to be manually updated (via USB flash drive, or burned ISO onto cd) with a firmware update from Memorex worries me. I don't know if I can count on Memorex to release an update every time a new BD encryption key comes out (at least thats my understanding of the situation).
Sears has a good BD player from Sharp for 180 (Model BDHP21U), and its available online too. Since Sharp already provides firmware updates for is other BD player model on its website, I would think that they would eventually add updates for the HP21U soon.
And just to silence any fanboyism, if I had the money I would definately go with the PS3, but I'm a college student and saving money is the objective here ( which probably means I'll hold off on Blu-Ray until Holiday Season 2009). And maybe the discs themselves will be a bit cheaper (Amazon's 2 for 1 deal aside).
Correction: The firmware update for the older Sharp model (HP20U) also works for the one on sale at sears (HP21U), so you can either go with a Spec 1.1 from Memorex for 144 after shipping, with the uncertainty that Memorex will push out an update, or go with the easily upgradeable Sharp player for 180....
I agree, if I wanted blu-ray I would get a PS3 but I don't want blu-ray. The nice thing about the PS3 is that you can depend on it being programmable to add features in updated versions of blu-ray, whereas some of these players don't have the horsepower for whatever updated features they want. Plus I think Sony will be supporting the PS3 for a while and as they are billing it as a sort of one-stop entertainment center, I think it will be very well supported. I don't plan on getting a PS3 though, poor college student like yourself who doesn't even have a TV in his apartment. Craigslist is awesome though, looking to get one off of that. There are some giant old HDTVs going for under $300 because people want a thinner TV (I'm talking about the huge rear-projection type).
Yeah now imagine the prices of HD-DVDs now, if HD-DVDs were still around that is.
The Bluray discs are still expensive to own. That's the real problem.
Netflix
or craigslist
Just use internet or pay-per-view... seriously.
PPV? What is this, 1993? And a lot of those are 4:3. Awful.
Oh Woot
I've spent waaaay too much money on that site
but I'm pretty sure the savings outweigh the expenses by now
god i love woot
Woot is a great site. I've bought lots of items there. Their business model (one item per day, limited quantity available, low price) gives us an interesting opportunity today. We can see how a specific segment of the tech-buying market feels about BlueRay.
My opinion: If this BlueRay player does NOT sell out at $139.99 from Woot.com, then we can probably all agree the new hi-def DVD format is officially dead (or at least on life support).
With the xbox 360 NXE I'm streaming HD movies from netflix. Bluray is dead and so is optical media for delivering movies to the consumer. Yes streaming HD on netflix is not bluray quality in video or sound. And yes the selection is very poor at the moment. But I wouldn't invest too much in Bluray media. Its obsolete in two years max.
quick, somebody refresh me, how long does it take to download a high def movie if you don't have broadband?
i don't think i have the patience to wait! i'll pick up a blu ray player when they start packaging them with tv's again like they did last year
I had one of these for less than 2 weeks. The HDMI port on the back somehow got loose, and there was terrible static through the picture. If I wiggled the cable, the static would go away, but only temporarily. I think I'll just hold out another year for a better brand for a better price. :)
Does anyone know if this supports mkv or x264?
Yay! Make blu-ray viable.
Memorex usually makes some pretty crumby products. I rather spend a little more on a sony or samsung and know im getting a good product.
Was ONLY $269? Wake up and smell the economy. And us people that don't make as much as you do.