Price Watch: Memorex Blu-ray, $146.98 shipped
It's official: Blu-ray players are no longer grossly overpriced.
If you missed this player on Woot the other day, here's your chance to get it for just a couple bucks more. TheNerds.net has the Memorex MVBD2510 Blu-ray player for $136.99, plus $10 for ground shipping. (Buy.com has the same player for $149.99 shipped if you'd rather go with a bigger, better-known store.) Best of all: no rebates!
The MVBD2510 is a new model (and new-in-box, not a refurb). CNET has a brief overview of it, but, alas, no hands-on review. Hardcore home-theater types will bemoan its lack of Profile 2.0 support, but on the audio front it's all good: Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS-HD. Also: analog 5.1-channel audio output. (I won't pretend to understand any of this audio jargon. At this point I'm just regurgitating specs.)
Anyway, now we're getting somewhere! At $150, a Blu-ray player is worth buying, if for no other reason than to make your current DVDs look a helluva lot better on your HDTV than your old, non-upscaling DVD player ever could. And let's not forget: The Dark Knight is coming soon to Blu-ray (and Wall-E is out now). What do you think? Is this the magic price point for Blu-ray to finally take off? Or do the players need to dip below $100?
One last note: You'll need an HDMI cable. For heaven's sake, don't pay 50 bucks for one at your local big-box store. Or 40 bucks or even 30. Meritline has a six-foot HDMI cable for $5.99 shipped.