My 3 regular DVD players were purchased as follows (price and dates off the top of my head): Sony S7000 for $899 - May 1997, Toshiba SD-5109 for $649 - Nov 1999, and Denon 2900 for $699 - Dec 2004.

In all 3 cases, I spent more than I did to get into the HD formats, $399 for the Toshiba HD-A1 last October and $539 for the Sony PS3 in January.

I paid $300-350 for my first one, a Sony, in June 1999. It's still going strong today. I used it regularly up until about a year ago, and then I gave it to a friend.

$350 for a Toshiba SD3109 in September '99. (It was in the heady dot-com days, so I got free shipping and...12 free discs, I think, from 800.com.)

I paid $499 for the PS3 and I think somewhere around $450 for my Toshiba HD-A1.

I've had an HD DVD player for almost a year now, so I am looking for a BD player. If a fully functional (meaning it has the BD equivalent of IME) Blu-ray Disc player gets down to $250 or so, I will buy it. I'm hoping that they hit that price by the end of the year, but I am in no hurry since there is almost nothing out on BD yet that I want.

My first DVD player was a Panasonic that cost $228. Several years ago I sold it to some friends and at last report the player was still working fine. Amazing machine!

See, this raises an issue I have not seen addressed with the NG formats.

A year ago, today even, you could buy a dvd player that is damn good for $75. Or you could buy an exceptional dvd player for $500+. So, to me the important questions are:

How do these NG players ($400-1k price point) compare to the $75 batch? "Regular" dvd $500+ batch?

Everybody is waiting for these "regular" NG players to get to a reasonable (relative) price point, but what about the exceptional NG players from the likes of Pioneer, Denon, etc. that will run for ~$500 after "regular" NG player normalize and can be had for ~$100?

I was buying DVDs for a period of 9-10 months before I could even play them. lol.

First player was a dvd-rom in a new computer I bought. Thing froze like crazy. Short period later I got a Sony player for Christmas.

My guess is that they will keep adding features in higher priced players that the cheaper models don't have. I mean technology/terminology we have not even heard of yet.

With DVD we went through varying on board sound decoders / interlaced to progressive players / limited playability to multi-format players (CDs/ DVD-Audio/SACD/DVD-+R(W)) / Component connections to HDMI / Improved upconversion and scaling chips ....

Under $300 which we are currently at with HD DVD. However I'm afraid as soon as a buy a HD DVD player, Blu-ray will end up winning. Same if I get a Blu-ray, being afraid HD DVD will win.

I don't have the money for both right now, and I don't want a format that might be gone in a few years. So basically I'm confused...

^ While it is true that one needs an HD display to benefit from the HD disc players, many of us already have such a display. I, for one, saw these new disc formats coming several years ago and bought an HD display in anticipation, as well as for upscaling SD DVDs. I doubt that I am alone, especially here in the HD Talk forum.

With the switch to all digital broadcasting in 2009 and the near disappearance of conventional 4:3 NTSC TVs from stores, the proportion of households that have HD displays is increasing rapidly.

Even a small HD screen will benefit from HD discs if one sits close enough:
http://www.carltonbale.com/wp-conten...tion_chart.png
But you are correct that the biggest benefit from the new formats is on larger screens.

That was my sweet spot - finally broke down and got the HD-A2 a few weeks ago when I found it on Amazon for $250.00. The deal only lasted a couple days.

Now that Sony has dropped the price on the PS3 I'm awfully tempted to get that too... but that'll be a big hurdle to overcome with the wife. I had actually convinced myself that a PS3 would be my first HD player until Toshiba did the $100 discount last month.


As for my original DVD player - it was a Sony in 2000 for $300.00 so I'm right around the same price.

While it is certainly a viable option to just wait and see how things shake out in the format war, even if you pick the format that doesn't "win", what have you really lost? You will have a disc player that will play your accumulated HD discs as well as do an excellent job of upscaling your SD DVDs. And in a year or two, the prices of the other format players will likely be so low that picking one up might cost under $100.

Nevertheless, it seems likely that Blu-ray Disc will survive and is unlikely to fold, due to the "PS3 factor" and greater studio support. So, if you had to pick just one, that would be the best bet. But both HD DVD and BD may well remain as small niche formats and never supplant SD DVD by the time the "next big thing" appears and makes the current HD discs obsolete.

$150

Which happened (360 HD-DVD drive w/ remote and Kong). The A2 with Matrix + 2 free + 5 free (will be selling 4 of them) free deal came around and I sold my Oppo 970 and the 360 drive = $250 + $40 free DVD sales on ebay which I used towards the A2. Making it a free upgrade.

The A2 doesn't deinterlace as well as a Faroudja or Reon based player, not nearly as well, but it does about as good as the Oppo 970 I sold. (I was running the Oppo at 480i over HDMI and letting my projector w/DCDi deinterlace which did a better job than the A2...). If I hit a title with a lot of deinterlacing problems I can always set the A2 to 480i over HDMI and go back to that.

Gimme a quality Blu-ray player with Faroudja or Reon deinterlacing in it for SD-DVDs for sub $300 like the A2 and I might be interested. The PS3 doesn't cut it there as far as I can tell.

Our first DVD player was a PS2 my wife (then g/f) and I split on a pre-order for $299. Our first "real" DVD player was a DCDi-equipped Panasonic CP72 DVD changer for about $199 which bit the dust a few years later.

In 1998 I spent $400.00 for a Sony that never gave me any problems for the 5 years I used it before I upgraded to another Sony but a 5 disc player for about $250.00 in 2003. I still have that one for things like TV shows. I now have a Sony BRD S300 for $500 and it has been 2 months. I expect I might get a HD player but my last gadget purchase was the 8gb iphone and I'm not due for another gift to myself until the winter and have not figured out what that is going to be yet. I would have saved over $500 by then.

My price point was $350. I got in at $309.

$500 for a dual format player

Would you go $250 for each or is it just the idea of one box vs two?

one vs two

But if I could get 2 for less then 1 that'd be great

Waiting for the XA2 to get below $500.

And waiting to achieve $500 to spend on such a device.

Under $200 for an HD-DVD player. So when the Crutchfield deal came along, I jumped in. $186 shipped and 5 free movies seems well worth it.

As far as a BD player, who knows. Will they ever pay me to take one?

Paid $200 for my first R1 Toshiba many moons ago. Avg. price for each of the code-free players JVC & Pioneer(4) $275. HD-A1 $400 Samsung BD $599 (slae & BB reward zone credits)

I paid 500 for my HD-A1 last August which was the deal breaker for me. The cheapest BD player was the Samsung at 1,300. As of today I am still debating if I should even invest in BD.

The Samsung's MSRP was $1000 back then, so you may be thinking of the first Panny.

Sorry, I should have said 1,300 Canadian. Prices up here are a little crazy.

It's not space. It's how close you sit to the TV. I bought a small second HDTV (26") for my bedroom and it made a huge difference. Granted my old set was tiny and craptacular, but I could easily tell the difference between HD and SD, even when I was in my bed.

Even if you're close to the TV, there's a difference. And if you're very far away from a small set, all the more reason to get a big TV.

$324 A20 plus Netflix HD-DVD got me into the game. I'll go neutral when a good quality BD player approaches $300.