Blu Ray or Oppo?

Brainwater: Just picked up a Sony 350 Blu and am quite stunned...

I can use some recommendations for "best value" and will take your statement as such. Just curious which ones you looked at, and how did you pick this one.
Thanks.

PS. As I read the reviews, Panasonic seems to be quite well regarded too.

I just got the new Oppo 981HD. I have seen em as low as 165.00 on the net ( 229.00 ). The picture quality is as good as they say. Enough for me to wait for Blu Ray movies and players to come down in price. This reminds me of the DTS vs Dolby war. The Play Station option is what I have been told too if you are wanting it now. I buy my movies when Blockbuster has them used for 4 or 3 at 20 bucks. So the Oppo was a easy choice to get now. I'm afraid we are still a couple of years away for Blu Ray to get mainstream affordable.

You can do what I did: beg for a Playstation 3 for your brithday!

Now, I have a player that is pretty darn good in the interim while the market fully developes AND I get to play Gran Toursimo (Prolog) with amazing picture and sound qualiy.

Enjoy the serach! John

This has been a really interesting thread to follow...it's been really cool to see everyone's opinion. I hope that continues.

I am not a Sony fan by any means and was hoping that HD-DVD would win the format war. That didn’t happen, but something very interesting did: prices for Blu-Ray movies have not come down. What’s the deal with that?!

IMO Blu-Ray believes they have locked up the market so there is no pressure on them. Like others here, I believe Blu-Ray will be the shortest lived format we’ve seen. Right now the players are expensive, and receivers and surround sound processors that decode the new sound formats are really expensive. Most “average Joe’s” won’t go with the six channel output (or even know you can do that).

With all this going on, the picture quality is the main thing driving the masses to buy blu-Ray. At $25/movie at my local Costco, there’s no way I’m going for it. So it’s a waiting game…will the receivers and processors come down in price? Sure they will. Will the software/movies come down in price? Sure they will. But what is going on in the meantime? Many of us are loosing interest, and somebody is working on the next format + delivery method.

Aktchi—my advice (if it isn’t obvious by now) would be to get an Oppo…if you have $400 burning a hole in your pocket and you can’t find another toy, get a PS3. Either way don’t look back—enjoy your purchase..

-Sam

"I was at Blockbuster the other day, and they currently have a wall of Blu-ray disks"

The three Blockbusters in my area do not have a full wall of BR discs COMBINED...I am in the same zone as Calldr, $4 for 20 at BB and Oppo to play em. First, I would never pay retail for BR discs. Secondly, there really aren't that many titles out there. My initial thinking was to hold out till the format war was over and BR units and discs dropped in price. Now we are several months down the road from the demise of HD DVD and nothing has really changed. 2.0???? Who cares, they aren't selling enough of the current generation players. Its Sonys dog and pony show. Unless someone like Oppo gets in the game with an affordable player for the mass public, its only matter of time before this format goes the way of SACD, etc.......