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Off-brand Blu-ray players to sell for $150 this year

4 February 2009 23:53 by Andre "DVDBack23" Yoskowitz | 9 comments

According to a new DigiTimes report , the prices of white box (off-brand), entry-level Blu-ray players will drop to $150 USD during 2009, setting the stage for name brands such as Sony, Samsung and Panasonic to drop their prices, at least for entry-level players.

The report also adds that Lite-On IT, one of the world's largest optical drive makers, will enter into the Blu-ray standalone market and that its lowest price players will start at about $150 USD as well.

The Chinese-language newspaper Economic Daily News (EDN) noted that over 5 million standalone BD players were sold globally in 2008 and that 11 million are expected to be sold during 2009.

For the holiday season, Blu-ray players were discounted to under $200 and saw incredible sales, with reports pegging Black Friday sales at 2.7 million globally.

Blu-ray Players

Sony BDP-S350

Panasonic DMP-BD35
Not rated yet

Sharp BD-HP20S
Not rated yet

Samsung BD-P1400

Permalink to this article | Topic: Blu-ray

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DXR88 (Senior Member) 5 February 2009 1:20
I would buy a lite-on drive before even thinking sony, but i dont know how they would fare in the player market if it follows the current trend of quality they've setup for themselves id definitely buy a lite-on. only two optical drives manufactures, id trust with quality at entry level is Lite-on or pioneer. [ + quote]
blueboy09 (Newbie) 5 February 2009 4:06
Lite-on has good drives (in particular their CD-RW drives), but again it's too early to tell about their BR drives. Anyways, the drives will probably be Profile 1.0 with no BR-Live support, as the very few bare-bones models are right now. Increased competition would be good for Sony, Panasonic, LG, etc. Now if only they could get the media to drop in price with the drives, then we could see BR pick up some steam. [ + quote]
maryjayne (Junior Member) 5 February 2009 7:39
I will consider buying one once they start to produce 5-disc changers at this price. Until then I will stick with my DVD upscaling and video streaming. I've apparently have had bad luck with Lite-on, and I gave the company a fair chance. I purchased a DVD+/-RW drive, which was difficult to install and get work properly with XP, a DVD recorder, which failed after about 3 months of usage, and recently a Blu-Ray burner, which would only read any type of discs for about 2 minutes before spinning down and not responding. As much as I hate supporting Sony, I will stick with either Sony or LG for my brands of choice. [ + quote]
error5 (Senior Member) 5 February 2009 8:48
*Originally posted by blueboy09:* the drives will probably be Profile 1.0 with no BR-Live support, The drives don't determine the player profile when it comes to PC setups. It's the player software that's the determining factor. Stick any BluRay drive into a powerful enough PC that's connected to the internet and install the latest version of ArcSoft Total Media Theater. Now you have a BD playback system that can handle Profile 1.1/BD-Live 2.0 plus the advanced audio codecs (Dolby TruHD and DTS HD Master Audio.) http://www.arcsoft.com/public/software_t...FEATURE#submenu [ + quote]
ZippyDSM (AfterDawn Addict) 5 February 2009 10:11
BD drives are great and under 100$ now, good to see the standalones getting lower this will drive down used priced that are already under 200!! [ + quote]
Azazel61 (Junior Member) 5 February 2009 12:30
I would definately buy the lite-on drive if I were in the market for a Blu Ray player. [ + quote]
borhan9 (AfterDawn Addict) 9 February 2009 23:52
Why did I not read this article last week before i went and bought a PS3 for the pure fact that i thought it is the cheapest Blu-Ray Player on the market. Ohhh Welll.... [ + quote]
maxikaz (Junior Member) 10 February 2009 9:18
Lite-on is not so bad, i never had problems with liteon drives Big Ben [ + quote]
DXR88 (Senior Member) 10 February 2009 11:39
pioneer dvd burner is on 8 years of life and still burning, my lite-on CD-RW/drive is 6 years old. They both make good drives, But lite-on is making a stand-alone player this is nothing they have done before [ + quote]