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
- No Flaps or doors (control cover)
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.
