Looking for a blu-ray player with the following features


Recommended Posts

I'm looking for a blu-ray player to give as a gift. I would like it to have some features in case I want to use it some time too

:p

- Low priced

- Plays Blu-ray (duh), DVD and CD disks

- Great upscale from DVD (or lower resolution content) to 1080

- Support USB playback with as much as possible formats

- Support multiple file formats and codecs (including H.264 in MKV)

- Network support with WiFi (With this, DNLA support is implied)

- If it uses "open source" with a community behind it, even better as this means I can easily update its firmware with for example a new Blu-ray profile and/or get new features as the age of the player progresses.

I think basically everything is covered there from most (top) to least (bottom) important. No internal HDD based as it basically shoots the price up: They will just have to buy a external HDD, plug it via USB and that's it.

Thank you

:)

I can't recommend you much, but I heard that the upscaling is usually handled better by the TV set if I remember correctly.

Glassed Silver:mac

I perfer that the player does it as my TV for some reason does it "weird"......

LG's BD660 and 670 are good options.

660 is about ?100 only lacks WiFI, but has ethernet and all the other features you want.

670 adds WiFi and some "smart" features priced at about ?130

Hey

Sounds like a PS3 for you... And you get a game console built in ...

Not exactly a low price thought...

Might be subject to OP's definition of "low" than again... :)

Usually I'd say it's about the best Blu-Ray player you can get.

Gets updated to the latest and greatest standards, too. :)

Glassed Silver:mac

Hey

Sounds like a PS3 for you... And you get a game console built in ...

Normally I'd agree with this, I use my PS3 to stream netflix, and it has the best disc playback of any of the BD players i've used...but ever since sony introduced that Cinavia garbage, I havent used it to play my media (backed up 720p/1080p mkv movies)..

Normally I'd agree with this, I use my PS3 to stream netflix, and it has the best disc playback of any of the BD players i've used...but ever since sony introduced that Cinavia garbage, I havent used it to play my media (backed up 720p/1080p mkv movies)..

What's that? :)

I'm hearing about this for the first time.

Glassed Silver:mac

Really impressed with the LG BD670 as it even has Wi-Fi Direct as many devices do not support this.

One review says that DVD upscaling is not the best but it looks like a pretty good player....

Another option would be the Panasonic DMP-BDT110 or DMP-BDT210 again has everything you need, I have an older Panasonic and it's upscaling is very good...only issue with Panasonic is their Veira Cast (internet smart TV bit) is nowhere near as full featured as LG or Samsung's Version...so depends if upscaling or smart tv is more important....prices seems about the same though.

Another option would be the Panasonic DMP-BDT110 or DMP-BDT210 again has everything you need, I have an older Panasonic and it's upscaling is very good...only issue with Panasonic is their Veira Cast (internet smart TV bit) is nowhere near as full featured as LG or Samsung's Version...so depends if upscaling or smart tv is more important....prices seems about the same though.

The DMP-BDT110 doesnt have wifi incorporated.

The other one's page seems to be down (?) so couldnt read much about it....

It seems the equivalent in my region is: Philips BDP5200/12

I imagine they are exactly the same...

So basically we are down to these;

LG BD670

Panasonic DMP-BDT210

Philips BDP5200/12

Im geared (excluding prices, as I havent looked yet) towards the Philips as my DVD player is Philips and hasnt given any problems and so is my TV.

The problem is that (from comments here on Neowin in this thread) LG offers better "smart apps" Are they really worth it?

My TV (Philips) also offers some apps although they are VERY slow to load....

Now more towards the Philips :p It seems to also be the cheapest (also easiest to find) of the three....

Panasonic DMP-BDT210

There is a cheaper option that only has one HDMI out. It's about ?150 on ebay

1: Why do I want more than one HDMI out?

2: Why, besides that, should I pick this instead of the Philips which is cheaper and has everything I asked for?

The DMP-BDT110 doesnt have wifi incorporated.

The other one's page seems to be down (?) so couldnt read much about it....

I think the 20 is the same just with WiFi.

The smart app are kinda nice...youtube on your tv etc...but it really depends if you're fussed...maybe have a look at LG's smart site see what there is.

This is a list of thats pre-installed http://lgknowledgeba...ry&EntryID=6510

and this is the store http://gb.lgappstv.c...t.lge?dummy=all

as you can see quite a lot...now I dono if some are limited to just the TV's rather then the players...but if your the sort of person who has LoveFilm or Netflix...or wants to watch youtube on the TV its quite useful.

It seems the equivalent in my region is: Philips BDP5200/12

I imagine they are exactly the same...

So basically we are down to these;

LG BD670

Panasonic DMP-BDT210

Philips BDP5200/12

Im geared (excluding prices, as I havent looked yet) towards the Philips as my DVD player is Philips and hasnt given any problems and so is my TV.

The problem is that (from comments here on Neowin in this thread) LG offers better "smart apps" Are they really worth it?

My TV (Philips) also offers some apps although they are VERY slow to load....

I would expect the upscaling on the Phillips to be only as good if not worse than the LG...I'd break it down as:

Best upscaling - Panasonic

Best Smart Apps (and probably best updates) - LG

Cheapest - Phillips

My vote would go towards the Panasonic 210 (I have one) as far as upscailing - Phillips to me seems cheap and I would not expect the best quality. LG is def the favorite for your "smart apps" but with all of the ones that are built into the Panasonic.. I havent used any of them.

Holy ****....

From their online store (although I know this is not the cheapest price I can find) the Philips costs 140 while the Panasonic costs 229. Doesnt meet the price point of "low priced" at all.....LG doesnt seem to have a online store.

Upscaling is nice of course but my TV is not huge so I dont think it would be too noticable.

I could find the LG (or the Panasonic) in a online store Ive been recommended :( so I think Ill have to go with the cheapest option of Philips.....although it has a "Reserve Now" option :( which means they arent shipping out right now.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Simple answer is yes, you will still get the Windows updates and as long as browser is up to date, you will be good. Only thing secure boot does is protect you against boot level threats and make it harder to install other OS's. I've been looking into this pretty thoroughly lately myself as wifes computer has secure boot disabled plus my other, older computers that run Linux, don't have secure boot enabled. Have seen all kinds of questions about this on the Linux Mint and MX Linux forums. Just don't suddenly enable secure boot now.
    • How many other companies will follow Ford's lead? Or, have they already gotten lazy and become enslaved to AI--and now can't figure out how to get out of that mess.
    • Why would any self-respecting intelligent person follow any recommendation by Donald's GOP administration? With almost two years of fabrications, deceit, and blatantly illegal behavior, why believe them now? They had best be gone after the November 2026 election, so we'll wait and see.
    • AltSendme 0.4.1 by Razvan Serea AltSendme is a minimal, cross-platform application designed for fast, secure, and private peer-to-peer file transfers. It allows users to send files or entire directories directly between devices without relying on cloud servers, accounts, or any personal information. Everything is encrypted end-to-end using modern protocols like QUIC and TLS 1.3, ensuring both strong security and low-latency performance. Transfers are verified with BLAKE3 for data integrity, and interrupted downloads automatically resume, making the experience reliable even on unstable connections. You can transfer anything—images, videos, documents, and more. Integrity checks are performed on both ends, so your files are automatically verified for correctness during both sending and receiving. AltSendme works seamlessly across local networks or long-distance links, capable of saturating multi-gigabit connections for extremely fast delivery. With built-in NAT traversal and encrypted relay fallback, it connects devices almost anywhere. The app integrates with the Sendme CLI and will soon support mobile and web platforms. Fully free and open-source, AltSendme offers a lightweight, privacy-first alternative to traditional cloud-based services, removing size limits, upload costs, and unnecessary data exposure. AltSendme 0.4.1 changelog: Release Highlights Self-hosted relays: Run your own iroh relay so transfers don't rely on public infrastructure. Includes a full deployment template in deploy/relay/ with Docker Compose for a VPS and configuration examples for production use. Fly.io support: One-click deploy template for Fly.io, including a quick-start config (fly.dev.toml) for testing without a custom domain, plus production setup with Let's Encrypt and your own hostname. Relay settings UI: New Settings → Network panel to choose how AltSendme connects: automatic public relays, custom self-hosted URLs (with optional auth token), or disabled. Test connections, verify latency, and see live relay status in the footer. Disable relays: Turn off relay servers entirely when you only need same-network transfers (e.g. LAN). Direct connections only. No relay hop required when devices can reach each other. Android graduates from beta: Android is now part of the regular release cycle alongside desktop. APKs ship with each version (universal, arm64, and armv7). Other improvements Private relay access control via shared auth token Relay fallback notifications when a custom relay is unreachable Broadcast mode toggle in sharing settings Android release build fixes (split-per-ABI APKs, universal APK preservation) UI polish: mobile safe-area insets, dropzone layout, transfer progress animation Bug fixes for minification-related serialization issues and system tray icon loading What's Changed feat(relay): add relay status functionality and settings UI (a120cdf) feat(relay): implement custom relay server configuration and verification (51276c7) feat(relay): add configuration for private relay access and enhance observability features (48fbabf) feat(relay): enhance relay URL validation, display connection status (d4fffa0) feat(relay): add RelayChangeGuard component and enhance relay-related translations (16ba514) feat(broadcast): add toggle setting for broadcast mode in sharing UI (ca6d977) fix(relay): correct QUIC discovery port, pin image, templatize fly.dev (52a2ba5) fix: More broken serialization due to minification (67491a9) fix(android): preserve true universal APK across per-ABI builds (e9f256f) fix(ui): conditional safe-area insets padding on mobile (1182f0e) refactor(transfer): CircularRing component animation fix (944572b) chore(android): drop x86 and x86_64 release APKs, keep universal+arm64+armv7 (34ada0b) Download: AltSendme 0.4.1 | ARM64 | ~9.0 MB (Open Source) Download: AltSendme for MacOS | Android Links: AltSendme Home Page | GitHub | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • You are mostly right about the ephemeral nature of it. As I mention in the article, if you dont add a second device or take a backup of your account before uninstalling it, then yes you will lose access to your account. That said, in terms of actual user experience when you sync multiple devices your message history carries across and there's also a Saved Messages chat like there is on Telegram to send messages and attachments between your installs. But yh, what you point out are correct and its not trying to emulate Messenger or Telegram.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      flexorcist earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Woland13 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Woland13 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Year In
      bernmeister earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Week One Done
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      495
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      225
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      149
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      75
    5. 5
      FloatingFatMan
      71
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!