VIZIO VBR100 Blu-ray player freed from superstore confines, unboxed on video
By Richard Lawler 
posted Aug 9th 2009 5:44PM
posted Aug 9th 2009 5:44PM
posted Aug 9th 2009 5:44PM
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Damn I can't believe people write article about opening new packages! And even worse other people read them and watch the vids or look at the lame pictures. It's about as entertaining as watching Giligan's Island or Saved by the Bell repeats.
Well, there are good unboxings, and there are bad unboxings. Sadly, this one was a bad unboxing. Still, I'm always grateful when someone snags a new and unreleased product from a shelf and shares their experience with us.
I know man. I like some unboxings, but a BD-player?
My thought exactly, why make blu-ray unboxing videos? Why not unbox DVD players too, and packets of ramen maybe, perhaps it's a cry for people for someone to start the video version of twitter where inane things are shown in 14 seconds vids.
At least the dude looks like Obama.
Yeah I agree this geek porn bothers me. Just tell me what is does and why it's better. If i want to unbox something I'll repack my playstation 2 and unbox it myself for the enjoyment
Better yet Timm, stop clicking the links then. You blatantly troll
every unboxing article just to shout your displeasure. Why keep
clicking? Skip over it.
He used one hell of a camera to shoot that unboxing...
He might have done better to invest in a mic.
So when is it available? It isn't listed on Walmart's site.
do bluray drives need to be so big?
Does he ever open it? I got bored 60 seconds in.
Rear mounted USB is nice.
Lack of HD cables is a huge deal. I mean, we hear from xbots all the time how horrible it is to have to sport for an HDMI cable at the time of purchase.
www.monoprice.com
find some change under your sofa and that should cover the HDMI from them.
His point was that, unless you have the foresight to order the cable online, you could be stuck having to shell however much a big box store feels like charging you for a few feet of wires.
Monster probably pays all of these Blu-Ray makers to *not* include a $3 hdmi cable in the box.
I was being facetious.
I think i'll get a BR player when they are down to 60 bucks. It better play h.264.
You mean play standalone H.264 files?
Because all Blu-ray players play H.264, it's one of the standard codecs for BD (under the name AVC).
A lot of Blu-ray players will play your own H.264 files in the form of AVCHD discs/memory devices. I agree I'd love my player to play H.264 file and streams too (my current one does, as it's a PS3, but cheaper ones should do so also).
I have a PS3 and a Blu Ray on my PC so blah blah. Had Blu Ray before most people this isnt news.
wow, BarryL, you are so cool people gotta call you culo.
yea i mean h.264 in .mkv containers.
Good luck finding .mkv support, it's more rare. But you can use .m2ts files for all the same things and it supports all the same capabilities like muxing high quality audio with H.264 video. And I swear in VLC .m2ts files seek better than .mkv. But maybe that's just VLC.
@Ridgecity,
LOL! Good one!
I wonder what camera they used to record the video..
I used a Panasonic DCM-TZ5 digital still camera that shoots 720p video.
Personally, I am waiting until whenever Apple supports this, then I'll see whatever's the cheapest writing drive I can get in the Mac Pro. (Copy protection is already built into os x in iTunes, so Blu-Ray can't be much worse).
But the PC has anydvd HD, who knows if that sort of thing will turn up on the mac. Maybe vlc wil sort it out. Either way, the whole exercise is pointless and rips end up on the torrents anyway.
I don't see Blu-Rays and their players competing in the ballpark of dvds for a while, I expect the distribution companies and retail think it's quite nice to have a premium range and the minute it becomes normal the main thing they will expect is people less willing to pay high prices for dvds.
Macs have been able to write Blu-rays since 10.5.4. iTunes isn't going to add any capabilities you need. Managed copy will just let you make a file for use on one machine. It won't let you write it back to BD and play it in other machines anyway.
makemkv does some of what AnyDVD HD does, and it does it on a Mac. And for now at least, it's free.
It's too bad I didn't know about this until now because I might have bought one. Just bought a Sony for my mom's new TV and I still can't believe Blu-Ray players (good ones!) haven't come down in price. They're still the same price as they were 6 months ago. I wonder what's keeping them so high. Sure you can get a $99 player, but the quality is terrible. Yes, i've tried one. What makes me mad is that BD-R media is still sky high. In Japan a 25 pack is like under $75 when here it's probably twice that. It's too bad we're still stuck with lousy DVD-R DL media.
This might be a really good player. Vizio surprisingly makes good stuff for the money. I have two in my house and my brother has a 42" Vizio. I liked my 37" Vizio so much that I convinced my mom to buy one as well. I'd glady pick a Vizio or any house brand such as Insignia or whatever else they have out now. My main TV is a 4 year old Sony, but if that dies I might think twice about spending that kind of money again.
that vizio seems like a really good deal, but that was a horrible, horrible unboxing, that guy was just really boring and his "humor" was really bad
ugh
I got the Magnavox $98 BluRay player at Wal-Mart. Its done everything I've wanted it to, and done it swimmingly. It doesn't do BD-Live... but I only want to watch movies. If I wanted to play games, I'd turn on my 360.
great camera.. can anyone find out what camera did he use?
How can you knock it for not coming with HD cables? Does ANY Blu-ray player come with anything other than composite cables? (So stupid!)
Yes, the Panasonic BD-605 currently selling for $199 at Costco comes with an HDMI cable. I was interested in this Visio model when it was supposed to come out last April. But got tired of waiting and I have been extremely happy with the Panasonic.
Panasonic's always come with HDMI cables. I bout a DVD VHS combo like a year or two ago and it came with an HDMI cable.
All the players that Sam's Club/Costco sell come bundled with the HDMI cord.
I think its a requirement we have for the vendors. (I work for Sam's)
Guess its another way to add a little extra for the members of the clubs.
I honestly don't get why this is such a great deal either.
The warehouse clubs have Blu-Ray players from Philips/Sharp for around the same price, with the cables in the box. o.O
What's so exciting about this? A BluRay player for $178 USD? That's not that dissimilar from the cost of a BluRay reader for a PC and the software required to play movies.
Well, I would much rather to wait for Black Friday. I am sure Black Friday will definitely have some kind of Blu-Ray Player (include ethernet and hopefully they can also include BD Live as well) under 99 dollars. If it is then I will buy me 2 of those!! LOL!
Eh, I dunno. Ever since Engadget turned me on to MvixUSA, I dunno how I could ever justify buying a bluray player for my living room.
My favorite part was the suspenseful reading of the brochure.
When i think vizio, i think decent quality, great price.
I dunno, a $180 bluray player makes me think, why not just wait for a PS3 price drop and get one of those.
Now if this was $100 or less it would be a different story.
I saw this at walmart list night too.