Five of the best Blu-ray players

By Ty Pendlebury on 11 November 2009

It's now three years after the first standalone Blu-ray player went on sale in the Australian market, and we've seen prices drop from an incredibly lofty three grand (!) to under AU$300.

It's also taken this long for Blu-ray to get its act together on the interactivity front. While the ill-fated HD DVD had its features sorted at launch, we've seen Blu-ray go through three separate profiles to land at Profile 2.0 (or BD-Live). If you're looking for the most future-proofed Blu-ray player, get one based on this version.

Features to look for in a player nowadays are Ethernet and USB ports (for BD-Live and YouTube/Picasa), onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio and 7.1 channel outputs, and firmware upgradeability.

If you're looking for value-for-money, then our pick is the new PlayStation 3 Slim, which has most of the above features and is still one of the best players available. If you want the ultimate in DVD and Blu-ray picture quality, though, then there is only one word: "Oppo".

LG BD370

Cheap and very cheerful, the LG BD370 Blu-ray player is a fantastically optioned piece of blue laser finery, and a new benchmark for budget players.

Editor's rating:8.7 User rating:7.4
     • Full Review • Specs • Images • Video • Where to Buy

  • Good: Excellent Blu-ray image quality • YouTube player • Support for most web video formats • HD audio output • Cheap •
  • Bad: Some minor build quality issues •
  • Specs: Blu-ray • 1 • See more specifications
  • RRP: AU$449.00

Topics: blu-ray, ps3, profile 1.1, sony, bd-live, profile 2.0, best, top, panasonic, samsung, lg

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Comments (29)

  • Picasa commented on 20/12/2009 19:49

    Sony offer best value in blu ray,
    for people high graphic HD better movies a pioneer blu ray the LX5090
    is what u need together with a plasma HD TV Pioneer Kuro PDP LX509A is the best in the world that money can buy or u want to go for the second best buy the samsung series 8 with the plasma ua46b8000 LED TV. LED TV consider to be the fashion but in term of graphic the pioneer 600hz where the LED TV has back lit light of 200hz u can see gap.

  • SL commented on 07/12/2009 17:03

    I have owned Samsung blue ray, then Sony ps3 blue ray and finally Oppo BDP-83. I have only one thing to say, anyone looking to buy a blue ray player, check Oppo-BDP-83 before deciding.

    It is above and beyond any player out there. Plays any disk you put in it, SACD, DVD-Audio, DVDs, Bluerays etc etc. And the quality in all the disks are AWESOME!!

    I am never going to buy any other player except Oppo. Unfortunately in Australia Oppo presence is limited, had to import mine from US, with multi region DVD and multi zone Blue ray capability.

  • markfiona commented on 26/11/2009 18:49

    Who would buy Panasonic- their service is industry worst.
    This product is KILLED by the OPPO.
    Viera Link is stupid. HDMI 1.4 will be the revolution.

  • Treacy commented on 03/10/2009 03:48

    Excuse me - Pioneer Elite BDP 23FD!- WOW.....

  • Treacy commented on 03/10/2009 03:47

    Pioneer BDP 23FD - Awesome!

  • Juggler commented on 08/09/2009 00:58

    Pana fan boys trolling around,,,,very slow load times compared to the lg and ps3,,,,cannot play mkv hd files either like the lg.But maybe PQ is ok but nearly 2 min load time as apposed to 25 sec ? No Hd media playback on usb .I like the
    LG for these reasons,but they should be running off ntfs not fat32 as most hd content is over 4gig and most external hardrives are ntfs out of the box now and dont even give you the option for fat32.

  • looking to buy 1 commented on 07/07/2009 16:12

    just got a sony bravia lcd. what player would go best with it

  • Chuck commented on 03/07/2009 12:30

    Beware, as of 7/2/09 with latest firmware, the US version does not support video playback from USB device, nor could I get it to play divx files from a DVD-R.

  • carol commented on 20/06/2009 10:59

    can you record on the blu-ray players? Like watching a program and wanting to see it later.
    Thanks

  • drongo commented on 02/06/2009 13:48

    if your on a budget the only solid choice is the PS3 otherwise nothing comes close to the performance of a pioneer LX 91 Bluray, it's simply king.

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