Now I need a new one. I am waiting for the BDP-83 but in the interim I need a replacement. BluRay, or not? Price is less important than value so perhaps this very helpful group could start a discourse to point me in the right direction.

It’s sort of difficult to make any recommendations without knowing what features you want and what if anything you want to use it for after the Oppo comes out.

Either the Oppo DV-980H or DV-981HD are both great but they are about $170 and $230 respectively. If you just want something to tide you over then a Philips DVP5982/37 DVD Player could work but at that low price likely wont play SACD.

Sorry to hear about your player hope it didn’t damage anything else. Kind of curious how it caught fire?

It is srictly for movies as I have no hdcd or sacd. Quality of picture is the primary concern followed by multiple codecs.

Warrent, maybe this would suit you, upconversion is excellent and you get a record feature. Toshiba DR410 1080p Upconverting Tunerless DVD Recorder, $109 Amazon.

Me too, can't say I've ever heard of that issue before.

Oppo's are very good, they also have a Blu Ray player coming out soon.

Well I have no explanation beyond, my wife turned it on and it started to smoke. I will pull the cover off shortly to determine the source. Although a spiffy electronic piece fell out as I was carrying it to the garbage. Knowing very little about the black arts, I'm guessing it's cap.

Could it be that my wife is hot? ;-)

Could be, do you go up in smoke whenever she turns you on?

Ok, this is on sale at Costco for 319,99...Is it a good deal though?

This item may currently be in stock at your local Costco warehouse for immediate purchase at a cash and carry price.



The DVR-460H-K features a 160 GB hard disk to record up to 340 hours of your recorded shows. The convenience of the JPEG photo viewer, DivX® and MPEG playback on HDD/DVD/CD/USB allows you to enjoy hours of your most treasured memories on your HDTV, all up converted to 1080p. CD, MP3 and WMA music files can also be played directly from HDD/DVD/CD/USB. PC Connect lets you access your media files remotely from the comfort of your couch.



Features:

Built-in 160 GB HDD
HDMI up-conversion to 1080p
Playable formats: DVD, DVD±R/RW, CD‑R/RW, MP3, WMA, JPEG and DivX®
Dual layer DVD/DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD+R/DVD+RW compatible
SVCD/VCD/CD/CD-R/CD-RW compatible
WMA (Windows Media Audio)/MP3 compressed music playback compatible
Front USB to PC to transfer DivX® video, JPEG pictures, and music files
Front USB to digital camera to transfer pictures
Front DV input for digital camcorder transfer
JPEG photo viewer
Music jukebox - allows you to play music from the HDD, DVD, CD or USB
Disc navigator for easy browsing of recorded shows, music and photos
Inputs:
3 x S-Video inputs
3 x composite inputs
1 x front DV input
2 x front USB inputs (1 type A, 1 type B)
Outputs:
1 x HDMI output
1 x component video output
1 x S-Video output
1 x coaxial digital output
1 x audio output
1 x video output
What’s Included:

Remote control
2 AA batteries
RF cable
A/V cable
User manual
Specifications:

Dimensions (W x D x H):
42 cm x 28.8 cm x 7.5 cm
(16.5 in. x 11.3 in. x 3 in.)
Weight: 4.3 kg (9.5 lb.)
Warranty:

1 year

Hmmm, it could be a little "premature" to answer that

I have an Oppo 982 and a Denon 2500 Blu-ray. The picture on both with a SD Dvd is very coparable. The picture and the audio on the Denon with a BD is much better. I am definitely a convert to Blu-ray.

Greg

He must've bought that player from mdrew.

I was thinking Randy.

(The person. I wasn't thinking all randy because of the talk of the OPs hot wife)

The formats are the same for most $50 players (minus the USB i/p), and fewer than an Oppo (although you already stated you don't need DVD-A/SACD).

Just looking at the inputs, you're only gonna be recording off of S-video at best, so no HD recording if that matters.

When I recorded TV shows I just used an $80 Diamond external TV card thing hooked up to my laptop. Not an elegant solution perhaps, but functional. Doesn't seem like a good deal for me, but then I don't even have cable anymore.

Yo Warrant, if you are willing to spend $300 on a dvd player, you might as well go Blu and enjoy hi-def movies. For example, The Sony BDP-S350 is going for as low as $250 right now. There are other deals out there too. Check out this thread on AVSforum for more info.

Thanks for all the help so far...

It's however, time to show my ignorance. Whenn you have a dvd recorder does it work like a vcr for time shifting? Can you archive your dvds? Does the process remain the same for BD?

Does it matter if its a recorder and not just a player?

Warrant, I'm not sure I'm answering your question, but will try.

If you're looking to 'time shift' network programing, I'd strongly recommend a DVR over a DVD recorder. You'll save a ton of money in blank DVDs doing it this way.

As far as archiving copyrighted DVDs, most DVD recorders have copy protection built in that will _not_ allow you to copy purchased DVDs. This can be done much more easily on a computer using programs that remove the copy protection to allow you to make a legitimate backup of DVDs you own. This might be possible with some standalone DVD recorders, but I would think it would be very few to them due to copyright restrictions.

For BD, blank Blu-rays are even more expensive and I don't think it'd be practical right now to use them for recording due to the cost of blank blu-ray disks. (my opinion).

Again, with a computer, a Blu-ray burner, and the right software, you can copy Blu-Rays, but doing so would get expensive.

I'm not sure I follow your question here, can you clarify what you are asking?

Can you use the HD on a DVD Recorder to tape tv shows? Is a DVr part of a dvd recorder(with harddrive)? Why would I want a DVD recorder?

If you had a DVR with a built in burner, you could copy shows off of the DVR's hard drive onto the burner. Other than saving old TV shows, I can't think of a reason to have a DVD recorder.

Warrant - to be clear I wasn't suggesting a DVR with a DVD burner, I was just suggesting a DVR. Most DVRs can store hundreds of hours of content on the hard drive, which even for the most TV-addicted among us is a lot.

True, just be aware that if you are going to record HD content, it uses hard drive space at a much higher ratio than SD.

I can't remember the numbers but my PVR tells me I have 70 hours of SD recording space, it also says something like "OR" 19 hours of HD space.

Those numbers are not accurate, but it is a big ratio.

Yep, valid point. Some of the newer DVRs allow you to hook up an external hard drive to add content to your heart's content. I hooked up a 750GB HDD to mine and have never gone over 50% capacity (though I'm admittedly not that big of a TV junkie)

A pretty informative run down of the current cheap-ass blue-ray choices can be found at avrant The best info is in the comments part. If it were me, I'd get one of the oppo players.

Checked the numbers last night and the ratio of storage used for HD vs. SD is even bigger than I was guessing.

With 132 hours of SD space left, I alternatively have only 19 hours of HD storage left.

That's just a hair shy of a 7 to 1 ratio difference for HD.