Review: Insignia NS-WBRDVD Connected Blu-Ray Disc Player

I just purchased an Insignia NS-WBRDVD Connected Blu-Ray Disc Player on Nov. 23rd, 2009.  Why didn’t I wait until Black Friday?  As, I had suggested in yesterday’s post “Christmas Shopping starting early this year” I plan to spend some quality time with my wife on Friday morning.  While we were in Best Buy, we decided to look at the Blu-Ray Disc Player offerings.  It was a difficult choice, we had a few buying criteria had to be met before the purchase would occur.
Purchase Criteria:

• Below $150
  • closer to $100 would be even better
• NOT brand X or brand Y
  • When it comes to customer loyalty, some customers will not forgive a slow user interface
• User Interface
  • No Flaps or doors (control cover)
    • They’re too easy to break
  • Start video without the remote control

Believe it or not many of the issues the Blu-Ray Player vendors think are issues are non-issues.

Some non-issues:

• Don’t need composite video, I can use component video or HDMI
• Don’t need NetFlix, I currently use TiVo for my NetFlix needs.  At some point in the future I may compare the performance/user interface.
• Don’t need wireless, I have wired access
• Wasn’t planning on using USB, although I might try out that feature

Connectors:

• Video Out (Yellow)
• Audio Out (Red, White)
• Componenet Video Out (Red, Green, Blue)
• HDMI
• Ethernet
• Optical Digital Out
• Coaxial Digital Out
• USB port
• WiFi antenna

What comes in the box:

• Blu-Ray Disc Player
• Standard Audio/Video cable (Yellow, Red, White)
• Remote Controller & Batteries
• Manual

What’s missing from the box:

• HDMI cable
  • I understand leaving the HDMI cable out, maybe the user has component video
  • It’s better to not charge for it & have the customer decide what type of video or audio connectors to get

Features, I’ve checked out so far:

• Standard DVD 1080p upscaling
• HDMI interface
• Component Video
• Digital Audio
• Blu-Ray playback

Features I plan to check out in the future:

• USB
• Audio CDs
• NetFlix

Out of the Box experience

• Power-up – fast
• Power-down -fast
• Connection to Ethernet – easy
• Connection to Display – easy
• Connection to Power – easy
• Connection to Audo – easy
• Software upgrade – easy
• Play standard DVD – easy
• Play Blu-Ray DVD – easy
• Drive Door open – fast
• Drive Door close – fast
• Disc recognition – fast
• Drive noise
  •  made loud noise during SEEK operations
  • noise not detected during PLAY operation

 Recommendation:

If you’re looking for a very functional well connected entry level Blu-Ray player this is it.  It is ready to connect to upper end systems as well as lower end TVs.  The only feature, it lacks is S-Video.  I would have used S-Video instead of composite video.  It’s definitely a great buy in my eyes.

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