2 new Best Buy Insignia Blu-ray players get Netflix streaming

The ability to stream instant movies from a Blu-ray player, once relegated to higher-end models, is moving to the masses with two new Insignia-brand Netflix enabled Blu-ray players from Best Buy.

The two models with Netflix access are the Insignia NS-WBRDVD player, sale priced at $200, and the $180 NS-BRDVD3. Both are currently available at stores and on BestBuy.com. The key differentiating feature is that the higher-priced model has built-in Wi-Fi, so you can wirelessly access a home network to connect to the Internet.

In addition, the step-up model can decode both Dolby TrueHD [PDF] and DTS-HD Master Audio internally; the entry-level model only decodes Dolby TrueHD internally, though each can output both formats as bitstream if you have an A/V receiver that can decode them. —James K. Willcox

Extra Extra: Consumer Reports Electronics Buying Guide is on sale

(Click to enlarge.)

It may be a tad early to start your holiday shopping, but there’s a good chance you’ve at least been thinking about it. Maybe you’ve had a big-ticket gift—like a new TV or home theater—in mind for a while now, but are putting off the purchase till November or December. If it’s sales you’re waiting for, you probably know what you want and how much you’re willing to pay. On the other hand, you might just a teeny bit leery of throwing so much cash at something you know very little about. Which is better: a plasma or LCD TV? Should you upgrade to a Blu-ray player or stick with standard-def DVDs?

If you find yourself in need of expert advice, consider the newest edition of the Consumer Reports Electronics Buying Guide. Inside you’ll find a wealth of information on everything from televisions and computers to smart phones, GPS units, and much more. For each product, the Consumer Reports editors walk you through the basics, explaining what’s available, which features matter, brand profiles, and offering tried-and-true shopping tips.

In addition to product information, the guide offers advice on how to shop smarter, including:

• Netting the best deals online, and protecting yourself when you shop on the Web


• When to repair and when to replace a broken item


• How to haggle effectively


• Finding the best electronics retailer based on our comprehensive annual survey


• How to save—and what to be wary of—with refurbished or open-box products on store shelves


• Where to get free office software, free computer security programs, and more useful freeware

LG's BD390 Blu-ray player: Now with Vudu, Rotten Tomatoes

LG’s BD390 Blu-ray player, now equipped with Vudu’s streaming movie service and Rotten Tomatoes ratings.(Click to enlarge.)
[PHOTO: Courtesy of Vudu]

Vudu, the movie-streaming service whose high-def HDX video format we recently evaluated on an LG plasma TV, is now available on the company’s BD390 Blu-ray player, one of the top-rated players in our latest Blu-ray player Ratings (available to subscribers).

But don’t be alarmed if you boot up the player and see shiny red vegetables, er, fruit, all over the screen—Vudu is now incorporating ratings from the Rotten Tomatoes website in its list of movies available for sale or rent.You can sort selections in your Vudu movie lists by the ratings score (which includes the site's beloved Tomatometer and fresh/rotten tomato icons), and see summary reviews from some of the top movie critics from around the country. And Vudu has redesigned its movie page to deliver the extra content more interactively.

If you own, or are about to buy, a BD390 Blu-ray player, it should receive a free Vudu-enabling firmware update automatically the next time it connects to LG’s NetCast online service. The player can connect to the Internet either using a wired Ethernet connection, or wirelessly via the player’s built-in Wi-Fi connection). Vudu is also available on 42- and 47-inch LH50 LCD TVs and 50- and 60-inch PS80 plasma models. —James K. Willcox

New Blu-ray player Ratings: Lower prices, more features

LG BD390 Blu-ray player. (Click to enlarge.)
[PHOTO: Consumer Reports]

In our largest test of Blu-ray players so far, we found that satisfying picture quality has become almost a given, while features and price vary considerably. You can pay as little as $160 for a recommended model or as much as $500, depending on the capabilities, bells and whistles you’re willing to pay for. Portability commands top dollar. The first portable Blu-ray player we’ve tested, the Panasonic DMP-B15, is priced at $700.

Our latest Blu-ray player Ratings (available to subscribers) include 27 models that have a few features in common. All have BonusView, a picture-in-picture feature that lets you view additional content in a smaller window while a movie is playing, and all can upconvert standard DVDs to quasi-HD resolutions.

Only a handful of the players, mostly priced at $300 and up, have BD-Live, a feature that allows the player to access directors’ commentaries, deleted scenes, games, and more from the movie studio’s servers. Other models are BD-Live-ready. These players, all priced at $200 and up, have the required Ethernet connection, but need additional memory (typically a 1GB USB flash drive, which costs $10 to $15) for the BD-Live feature to work.

Another feature showing up on some of the higher-priced models is the ability to stream movies from online services such as Netflix and Amazon Video On Demand, or receive music streams from Internet radio stations such as Pandora. And more players now have USB ports or SD card slots, so you can play digital photos, music and even videos on your TV. One model, a Panasonic, has a built-in VHS player, a space-saving option for those who still watch tapes. Again, you’re not likely to find these features on the lowest-priced players.

We expect prices to drop over the next several months, especially during November’s Black Friday shopping period. Rumors suggest we’ll see the first $100 model. So keep checking back here for updates. —James K. Willcox

Toshiba's first Blu-ray player hits in November

Toshiba's BDX2000 Blu-ray player. (Click to enlarge)
[PHOTO: Courtesy of Toshiba]

If you can't beat 'em, join them. That's finally Toshiba's message as the company readies to roll out its first Blu-ray player, the BDX2000, this fall. The player will arrive in November, at a price of $250.

The BDX200 is a BD-Live-ready player (you have to add 1GB of flash memory for the BD-Live Internet feature to work), and it includes an SD card slot for playing digital music, photos and video--including high-def AVCHD files—on your TV.

The player has a "smoked mirrored" front panel, with a drop-down door that conceals the primary controls. When used with a Toshiba Regza TV, the player and TV can both be controlled from a single remote. From the announcement, it's unclear whether the layer internally decodes the high-resolution lossless audio formats—Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD-Master Audio—internally, or sends it out via bitstream for decoding in a receiver. [Note: We just learned the player decodes these formats internally.] —James K. Willcox

Toshiba finally to offer Blu-ray players, notebook drives

Confirming earlier rumors that the company will finally embrace the Blu-ray high-def disc format, Toshiba has applied for membership in the Blu-ray Disc Association, saying that it expects to offer Blu-ray players and notebook PCs with Blu-ray drives later this year.

Toshiba, of course, was the primary backer of the now-defunct Blu-ray rival, HD DVD, a split that resulted in a format war that many believe delayed the acceptance of a successor to standard DVDs. That battle ended in February 2008, when Toshiba pulled the plug on HD DVD after losing the support of Warner Bros., a key Hollywood HD DVD backer, and the decision by several major retail chains, including Best Buy and Walmart, to carry Blu-ray players and titles exclusively.

The company says it will release more information about its product plans in the near future. —James K. Willcox

New Ratings: Blu-ray players now on CRO

We’ve just posted our latest high-def Blu-ray Ratings (available to subscribers), and we’re happy to report that almost all the models tested can provide excellent HD and DVD picture quality. In fact, all the models in our Ratings offered excellent high-definition performance, though we did see some differences in how well players handled upconverted film-based programs from standard DVDs.

In addition to models from familiar brands, such as LG, Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony (whose products we’ve previously reviewed), our latest Ratings include the first Blu-ray players from JVC, Sherwood, and Oppo (pictured), a smaller company whose upconverting DVD players earned strong word-of-mouth among the A/V enthusiast community. Check our Ratings to see how well these newcomers did compared to second- and third-generation models from other brands.

With satisfying HD picture quality now almost a given, it’s primarily features that differentiate one player from another. For example, while almost all the new models in our Ratings are BD-Live (or BD-Live-ready) players—meaning they can connect to the Internet to access extra content, such as outtakes, additional directors', or actors' commentaries, or even video games, from a movie studio’s servers—some older models lack this feature. All the players in our test have BonusView, a picture-in-picture feature that lets you view additional content in a smaller window while the movie is playing.

Adobe Flash to your TV: Let's get interactive!

Not content to remain tethered to the computer, Adobe’s Flash technology is about to make the jump to televisions and other consumer-electronics devices this fall, promising to deliver high-def video and other web-based content seamlessly to TV viewers. The technology, called Flash for the Digital Home, is an optimized version of Flash Lite—designed for mobile products—that can run on TVs, Blu-ray DVD players, and settop boxes.

As far as we know, Vizio is the only TV brand that's announced support for the specialized version of Flash, which will be available later this summer in XVT-series TVs that feature Vizio Internet Apps (VIA), the company's online TV platform. But Flash for the Digital Home has already garnered the support of some major players, including Atlantic Records, Comcast, Disney Interactive, Intel, Netflix, and The New York Times, among others.

This is part of the Open Screen Project, Adobe's plan to let you access Internet content from almost any kind of device without going through a computer or web browser. Flash for the Digital Home will give users the ability to combine traditional TV viewing with access to new types of Internet-delivered content, including streaming HD video and music, along with interaction with social-networking communities. Flash Lite is currently used to deliver multimedia content to mobile devices, including cell phones.

We'll be looking for additional product announcements from TV and Blu-ray player manufacturers to see how broadly this new technology will be adopted—and of course testing models when they become available to see if the technology lives up to its promise. —Will Dilella

In the CR test labs: New Blu-ray players

The latest batch of Blu-ray players are in our labs now. Check back in a few weeks for updated Ratings.

Things are once again cooking in CR’s DVD test labs, where we’re putting 11 new high-def Blu-ray players through their paces. All the new players we’re testing are BD-Live models that can access extra online content from the movie-studio’s servers, or download firmware updates from the manufacturer when new features are available.

Some of the models also offer access to additional Web-based content, such as movies from Netflix and Amazon Video on Demand, videos from YouTube, or streaming music from services such as Pandora.

These models will be part of the latest Blu-ray player Ratings (available to subscribers), which should be posted in a few weeks.

Here are some comments on the models currently being tested:

JVC XV-BP1: JVC’s first Blu-ray player can play back high-def AVCHD video files shot with a camcorder, and can internally decode DolbyTrueHD and DTS-HD Master lossless audio formats.

Give Dad the gift of entertainment on Father’s Day

[ Photo courtesy of Paula Pandey Chhetri ]

With Father’s Day just 3 days away, here are some last-minute suggestions that don’t include either a Sham-wow or a Snuggie. Instead, get your Dad or husband something he’d actually want—a gadget to make his entertainment more, well, entertaining. Here are a few suggestions for any budget.

$50 or less: Consider a set of decent earbuds (the Sony MDR-ED21LP, $20, is one example), or a DVD or Blu-ray disc of his favorite flick or series. An iTunes gift card, $15 to $50, will let him download music as well as movies and TV shows he can watch on an iPod, iPhone, or computer.

$50 to $100: A pair of noise-canceling headphones can deliver satisfying sound while providing a sonic sanctuary from unwanted outside noises, whether he’s on the go or just hanging out at home. We found several that fall into this price range in our last headphone Ratings (available to subscribers).

If you can spend $60, consider a basic Netflix subscription, which entitles Dad to two DVDs a month for a year. That translates to 24 movies, or a compilation of a TV series he might have missed. (A few critically acclaimed series to consider: Friday Night Lights, 30 Rock, Mad Men, The Wire, The Shield, and Dexter. And allow me one personal recommendation: If he’s into history and mystery, I think he’ll love Foyle’s War, a PBS series about a police inspector dealing with espionage, sabotage, propaganda, and everyday crimes on the English coast during World War II.)