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Featured Transport Reviews
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Oppo BDP-83 Universal Blu-ray Player Review
Last year we reviewed the Oppo DV-983H universal DVD player which, while a couple years too late to market, was still an impressive product that redefined the price points for universal players. Now, with the only other universal Blu-ray/DVD player coming in at almost 10x the price, Oppo has finally beat the market and brings a true universal disc player to the home theater market that not only plays Blu-ray discs, but also DVD-Audio, SACD and, of course, DVD videos and CDs.
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Epson Home Cinema 1080 Projector Review
The Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1080 is virtually identical to the Pro Cinema 1080. If you are a consumer, BUY this projector as it has nearly all of the performance advantages and features of the Pro model with a lot of cost savings.
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Recently Reviewed Transports
Marantz's high end offerings have impressed us in the past. The new line gets away from the unique gold styling that so caught our eye for the more traditional black with blue lights that has been adopted by just about everyone. According to Marantz, they have a "silk-black" finish but that may not be enough to have this gear stand out. The SA-KI Pearl SACD Player is a $3,000 unit that can play stereo SACDs, CD, and CD-R/RW and is compatible with CD-DA, MP3, and WMA files. Of course, the unit is completely overbuilt but is it enough to justify the cost?
Harman Kardon enters the Blu-ray market with the BDP 1, their first entry. With BonusView and BD-Live, this player has just about everything you might expect from a player these days except for analogue audio outputs. They also have included the ability to simultaneously play images and music from a disc or USB key for family slide show fun.
Last year we reviewed the Oppo DV-983H universal DVD player which, while a couple years too late to market, was still an impressive product that redefined the price points for universal players. Now, with the only other universal Blu-ray/DVD player coming in at almost 10x the price, Oppo has finally beat the market and brings a true universal disc player to the home theater market that not only plays Blu-ray discs, but also DVD-Audio, SACD and, of course, DVD videos and CDs.
Denon surprised us this week by releasing two new Blu-ray players. It wasn't so surprising that they had new offerings - just that they were almost value conscience, something Denon Blu-ray players have long been lacking. The BD-Live (Profile 2.0) $500 DBP-1610 and $700 DBP-2010CI sound downright bargain basement compared to the flagship universal $4500 DVD-A1HDCI.
VIZIO's new $199 VBR100 Blu-ray player is outfitted with a 108MHz/11-bit digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and provides 720p/1080i/1080p video upconversion for standard definition DVD discs via HDMI. A 24-bit/192kHz audio Digital to Analog Converter delivers audio playback from all of the latest surround sound formats and the VBR100 decodes uncompressed audio formats such as Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio. We don't know which video processing is included, but this marks a lower-than-typical price point for Blu-ray and that's got to be good news for consumers.
At CES 2009, Pioneer’s home entertainment group is introducing three new Blu-ray Disc players and one new upconverting DVD player. Pioneer is expanding its current line of BonusView Blu-ray Disc players to now offer a complete lineup of models with full BD-Live capabilities. Two Pioneer-brand players and one Elite-brand unit take full advantage of HDMI 1.3a output capabilities along with unique feature sets that give consumers a choice for interactive home theater source needs.
LG announced their update to the very exciting BD300 player. When it hit the shelves, it was one of the first Blu-ray players (nay, devices in general) that could stream Netflix content. The BD370 takes this to the next level by offering not only Netflix streaming, 1080p upconversion, and other standard Blu-ray features, but also CinemaNow and YouTube streaming. There are also plans to include Yahoo! Video (via their widgets software) and LG is calling the whole package its Netcast entertainment system, which it plans to roll out not only in set-top devices, but also in its new LCD and plasma televisions.
Here comes the flood... ezGear, known for their AV gadgets, cables, iPod accessories, power adapters and more, announced the introduction of the BluCobra EZ3000 Blu-ray disc player. The EZ3000 is the first in the new BluCobra line of products from ezGear. BluCobra Blu-ray players aim to include a full host of features you get with higher end models at a more affordable price. With the recent rush of competition that's going to be a tough job indeed!
The MVBD2510 is one of the most inexpensive Blu-ray players to hit store shelves in 2008. The trouble is this player offers only mediocre playback quality of both DVDs and BD content. It will certainly play back your new high definition Blu-ray discs, but will do so with sloppy video processing that will leave you wishing you had paid more for a more capable player.
We got our hands on some information about the pending release of Oppo Digital's universal Blu-ray player, due late December or early January to a handful of "guinea pig" early adopters/beta testers. That's right, we said "Universal" Blu-ray player. Except for Denon's ultra-high-end $3800 DVD-A1UDCI, this is the first universal BD player that will hit the market able to play DVDs, CDs, SACDs and DVD-Audio discs. And the best part is that it will hit the streets at a price somewhere between $499 and $599. Oh, and it will include Anchor Bay's VRS video processing... and do 1080p/24Hz output for both DVD and Blu-ray. And... and...
DVD/Blu-ray Players
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