A friend and I picked up the Sharp BD-HP20U player at Best Buy this past week.
Only 170 bucks! Brand spanking new! This is probably a YMMV situation.

Return it and pay $30 more for the Insignia...you will be much, much happier.

Any particular reason?

Its profile 1.0, firmware updates are far and few inbetween, an has known issues playing several titles (including all the Bonds). A member here, darkside, has the same player and hates it.

I'd recommend just paying the $30 more and getting the Insignia, or go to Amazon as they have the Sylvania player (which is the Insignia) and 4 Warner BDs for $180 shipped.

I wouldn't keep that Sharp either. I believe the Insignia player also comes with $100 worth of BD coupons.

Yeah, but there "Buy 2 select BD titles and get $10 off". Amazon prices are still better.

But please Scissor, return it and get either the Insignia, or spend a bit more for the Sony S350. If you have a Wal-mart near you some are clearing out the Panasonic BD30 for $200.

I have 30 days to return it, So I might wait and see if Black Friday has any of those rumored $150 Samsung deals before getting a lower brand player.

But, yeah I didn't even realize the player wasn't 1.1, I'll be glad when every player in the store has the full BR specs so this type of shit doesn't happen. This was one thing HD DVD had from the get go, one wonders why BR couldn't.

Thanks for the word guys.

Let me know how Dr No is

But yeah, wait if you want to. We should have several players under $199 by Black Friday and I need to buy 2 or 3 so I really hope so.

Scissor,

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.htm...cId=1000279241

$211 gets you get the Samsung 1500 (BD-Live 2.0). If you buy 4 of those movies you get $100 back. So you could get it for about $180 or so with the movies (if you get the cheap ones) and if you don't like them...sell them and make the player even cheaper. Go this route you will be much happier.

I'm about to buy my first player. Was going to go the Playstation3 route, but perhaps not?

Good god, that is cheap. I could definitely use a player in the bedroom to replace the PS3 but I already have most of the movies on that list.

Leaning towards taking advantage of this deal now for the Samsung player from Amazon. I can definitely find 4 movies there that I would want. Picking out 4 in my case (Speed Racer, Constantine, Corpse Bride, and Full Metal Jacket) ends up being $186.95 total after the $100 bucks off. Not as good as the previous Matrix deal and selling it off on ebay, but even a $150 player on Black Friday would include tax and in this case i'd get a few movies. It helps that I have a $25 gift cert to Amazon too knocking down the price to $161.

Anyone think something better will come along by Christmas? That's mostly what i've been holding out on (currently using my roomate's PS3, but i'm moving out in 2 weeks).

Sears will have the S350 for $179.99 come Black Friday...don't remember if we can post links or not.

Yeah, I saw that over on AVS. It's a door buster from 5AM to Noon too. I know there's some preference for the Sony players and this lacks internal DTS-HD MA decoding, but with tax and the extra discs on this deal, i'm still leaning towards this.

Well, that and the whole waiting in line at the wee hours of the morning thing

I caved in, went ahead and ordered it. Player price dropped about a buck to 210.18.

WOW That is some great deals.

198.00 for the Samsung with 4 discs.
or 188.00 for the Sylvania with 4 discs.

Which player is better? I'm guessing the Samsung right? I have a Samsung tv that I have been more than happy with!

Well, the Samsung is now 2.0 where the Sylvania never will be.

Sweet, off to order the Samsung!

Man, this is tempting, but that selection really blows. It is the same as the old HD-DVD B1G1F sales from last year. I own them all on HD-DVD already, except for Speed Racer and 10,000 BC of course...

Shall We Dance Blu-ray $9.99 at Bestbuy.com.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....uct&id=1400824

Not my cup of tea to be sure but that's a great deal. I wonder if there are more of them.

190 bucks for the Samsung Player along with 4 flicks, too good a deal to wait until BF.
The way I see it, I got my $150 player, along with 4 $10 flicks.

I've been debating picking it up as well but I keep hoping they add the S350 to that list...just remember to grab a 1GB flashdrive if you want to take advantage of BD-Live. Most people have some laying around but if not they can be had for $5-$10 or so at various stores.

You know this is stupid, but I would hate having a flash drive sticking out of the back of the unit all the time. I would always be knocking into it when I had to go behind the gear for something. Yeah I could remove it, but that's more wear and tear. It would be cool if they could design a right-angle flash drive for this unit.

When I had my S350 I didn't have any issue with it sticking out of the back...but I never really had any reason to go behind it. Shame the S550 requires the flashdrive as well, figure Sony would just include the 1GB onboard (but its probably cheaper just throwing a flashdrive in the box).

Regardless though, can't you buy mini 1GB flashdrives that won't stick out as much (like say the size of an HDMI plug going into the back)? I've seen some super-small but I don't know if they are "compatible" with the players.

IIRC, the USB on the back is kinda recessed into to the player so it doesnt stick at as bad as you might think.