Its been awhile since I've checked in on these forums, been pretty busy.. I'm a little out of the loop on everything. Most everyone made or planning on making the jump to Blu-Ray this holiday season? I'm really considering, there's some sweet titles I'm wanting to pick up (mostly ironman).
I was one of the people that jumped on the 99 dollar wal-mart toshiba HD-DVD deal, and have enjoyed it quite a bit, however I can't get any new titles for that anymore.

So what are the cost friendly favorite Blu-Ray players out right now? I'd like to find one that plays nice with my Yamaha RX-V661 receiver.

Hey, I was one of those HD-A2 buyers last year too.

This year, you can always go for the PS3.

For me I just grabbed a new model from Sony, the BDP-S550. It has analog outputs so that I can have HD audio without having to upgrade my receiver to handle HDMI audio.

If you don't need analog audio (your Yamaha looks like it has HDMI ports, but I don't know their abilities), and you don't want a gaming system like the PS3, you can go with the Sony BDP-S350. I know that K-Mart of all places is going to have that one for $179 on Thanksgiving day.

You can get all of the Sony ones from SonyStyle.com and if you apply for (and use) a new Sony credit card, you get $150 back off of your first purchase from them.

Another popular stand-alone player is the Panasonic DMP-BD55.

All of the above get good reviews, it just depends on what features you need/want. Like I said, I needed something that could decode ALL of the HD audio formats and send them to my receiver via analog audio connections, and the first good player to do that (for a reasonable price) was the BDP-S550. If you want games, go for the PS3, etc...

Hope this helps to trim your list down...

ps3! :-)

I've heard that the sony bdp-350 is really nice.

Cool, thanks for the suggestions. I've heard the PS3 is the best deal and from what I saw over the course of the last year, it was.. however I rarely play console video games (or have any interest too, i'm a PC gamer), so I'm thinking something else a little cheaper/more features might be a better choice. This gives me somewhere to start.

Not me. To hell with all the different formats. When I can't use my Toshiba for upscaling any more I might, that's a big might, look into one.

GM, since the HDMI input on your 661 does in fact process the audio, the Sony 350 would be suitable, especially if you got a deal like the one Nick mentioned.

Does the 350 decode and output M-PCM? The Yamaha 661 does not decode the formats, but will accept M-PCM.

It looks like it decodes Dolby TrueHD but only bitstreams DTS HD.

That's cute, there's still PC-only gamers? *squeezes his cheeks*

Thbbt.