Need some opinions :confused: planning on buying a BluRay player for Xmas and looking for some info,these are my choices.
Panasonic BD55K
Samsung BDP2500
Sony BDPS550
all are within the $3/400. range, leaning towards the Panny but would like to hear from youus guuyys :D

I would just get a PS3 irregardless of whether you want to play games on it or not. It is one of the best and most prolific players out there.

Everything is going to work for it and it will get frequent updates. It supports profile 2.0 and is also one of the better players at up scaling regular DVD as well. Add on to that it is a good overall media player with its ability playback video and audio files from your network including DIVX content. I haven't seen any other more compelling players out there, I'm sure the time will come but it isn't here yet IMO.

The only thing the PS3 doesn't do is bitstream the new dolby and dts audio but it will output them via lpcm and most receivers that have HDMI support that so in the end you are getting the same thing it is just the PS3 doing the decoding rather than the receiver.

Oh yeah and it plays games too. :)

I prefer to let my PC do all the work when it comes to audio/video.

I'm running an 80$ Sony player that's in my home theater PC. Much less problems than console systems and not even half the price of a player.

I would just get a PS3 irregardless of whether you want to play games on it or not. It is one of the best and most prolific players out there.

Everything is going to work for it and it will get frequent updates. It supports profile 2.0 and is also one of the better players at up scaling regular DVD as well. Add on to that it is a good overall media player with its ability playback video and audio files from your network including DIVX content. I haven't seen any other more compelling players out there, I'm sure the time will come but it isn't here yet IMO.

The only thing the PS3 doesn't do is bitstream the new dolby and dts audio but it will output them via lpcm and most receivers that have HDMI support that so in the end you are getting the same thing it is just the PS3 doing the decoding rather than the receiver.

Oh yeah and it plays games too. :)

I completely agree. I have a PS3 mainly for the Blue-Ray feature and it works great. I have it connected to my home network and to the internet and I rarely play any games. In fact I've only bought two games.

I would go with the bdp-s550. I've had one for a few weeks and think its great. Also you can't use a universal remote with the ps3 b/c its remote is bluetooth, not IR.

PS3 ALL THE WAY!!!!! I got it mainly to watch blueray movies, and I'm so glad i did. I love the fact they have either a 40, 60, or 80 gig hard drive!! So you can put all kinds of stuff on that thing, i have a grip of pics, and music! And it has wireless internet, which is awesome!! Plays games too...awesome clarity on most all the games! Definitely consider the PS3!!!!!
Good luck

I did forget to mention that the remote isn't IR and you would want to get the Sony remote that uses bluetooth. However it is an excellent remote.

Don't let the fact that this is a "game" console scare you off if gaming is not your thing. It is THE flagship blu ray player and Sony will ensure that it has updates when needed. In fact that may be its strongest point. It has the processing power and hard drive to give it the flexibility to handle changes and updates. Probably more easily that most stand alone players. There are many players that were not able to be upgraded to support profile 2.0 from what I read whereas with the PS3 it was added with a simple software update.

I'm going to chime in here with my 2 cents. Don't buy a PS3. I have one and before I was all for it but recently mine stopped reading discs (every and any disc) and i was looking on the net and this issue is all over the place. Being less than a year old I figured hey, I'll just send it in for repair. However, they first wanted to charge me $150 for the repair as it was a gift and I didn't have a receipt. Sony customer support/service is one of the worst in the industry.

It is nice that it is updated all the time through the net automatically, however, many of the new blu-ray players have the ability to update pretty easily through USB/SD or CD. So I don't think that's that big an issue.

Sony is junk always has been and always will be. :)

I don't know about you, but I have nothing but compliments for Sony. I have no problems with Sony products, and when my radio had problems a quick phone cal solved the issue easily.

But hey, if you did the same thing with a xBox 360 they would say the same thing, then you'd be cracking on Microsoft >.>

xbox rules! babba booey babba booey! Howard Stern!

Sorry couldn't help myself.. :D

I don't care for Sony at all but thats more for reason of the companies policies.. The only department that makes shoddy equipment is there car audio. The home stuff has always been good in my experiences in the past in dealing with them but just personally I would never purchase anything sony

I just bought the Samsung unit you listed and it works great. Wasn't interested in a PS3 as we have a Wii and that's been fun enough, for now.

Thanks guys for your input :D Don't care for the PS3 as all i'm looking for is a stand alone BluRay, Really leaning towards the Panny but i'm gonna look at all of them before buying.;)