Holiday Headstart: Why wait for Black Friday? Get a $100 Blu-ray player now

If you’ve been eagerly anticipating the three-day Black Friday shopping period to get a great deal on a new Blu-ray player, you may not have to wait: Best Buy is now selling a BD-Live model with access to streaming movies from Netflix for just $99.99.

The player, NS-BRDVD3, is the same one we wrote about recently when it was priced at $180. Apparently the everyday price is now $150, but the model is currently on sale for $100.

Though we haven’t tested this specific player, we do have another Insignia model in our labs that has excellent HD picture quality. It didn’t do as well with standard DVDs, however.

Insignia NS-BRDVD3 Blu-ray player, on sale for $100 at Best Buy. (Click to enlarge.)

The real question is whether prices will fall below $100 during the Black Friday holiday shopping spree. Based on the first major Black Friday ad we’ve seen, from Sears, the answer is no. Sears will reportedly have special $150 price tags on two Blu-ray players: Samsung’s BD-P1600, and Sony’s BDP-S360. Both are BD-Live-ready models, which require optional memory for the BD-Live feature to work, that currently sell for about $200.

We’ll continue monitoring Black Friday websites such as BlackFridayInfo and GottaDeal to see what new entry-level Blu-ray price points emerge as we get closer to Thanksgiving. And look for similar blogs on other CE products, such as TVs. —James K. Willcox

Comments

[B. Good]

Stick with DVD, please! Blu-ray is trying to sucker people into switching so they can drop easily-pirated DVD completely. Of course they are hoping to get you to re-buy your movies. But there are some additional anti-piracy controls coming to Blu-Ray in 2010 or 2011. Things they don't want people to know about right now. Here's just one example: "By December 31, 2010, AACS licensed manufacturers are required to limit AACS-compatible analog signals to interlaced SD resolution." This means that your fancy high def Blu-Ray disc will output no better than a standard DVD if you connect an analog device to it. (See http://gizmodo.com/5288576/drm-group-to-kill-analog-blu+ray-output). By 2013, no Blu-Ray device may be sold with analog outputs. People, Hollywood is using lots of shiny new gadgets to hide many new controls that will limit how, where, and when you can view their content.

Sure, people will always find illegal means around these "protections", but I'd rather not resort to criminal methods to watch content for which I've paid!

Just say NO! to Blu-Ray!

[Eric]

That's dirt cheap--might have to make my Blu-ray buy earlier than I thought.