Blu-ray & HD DVD & Hardware Steven Kippel on 15 May 2008
Wal-Mart stocks cheap Blu-ray player
Wal-Mart stocks cheap Blu-ray player
No matter what you think about Wal-Mart, they are the largest retailer in the world and have the power to literally change economies. Although this development doesn’t leave a South American country in shambles, it may help spur on the already fast-growing Blu-ray market.This week a Magnavox Blu-ray Disc player reached shelves in select markets at the price of $298. The Magnavox NB500MG9 (sexy name, isn’t it?) is a BD1.1 player manufactured in China by Funai. It features HDMI 1.3 output and upconverts DVD to 1080p.
This looks like a capable player. It outputs 1080p/24 video with Deep Color. There isn’t a multi-channel analog output on this player and doesn’t decode advanced codecs on board, but it does send bitstream audio out to your capable receiver.
It’s official, we now have generic Blu-ray players on the market.
View the manual
Editor’s note: We first covered this Funai Blu-ray player in our Blu-ray Disc Association Booth CES 2008 article.
Related Articles on WesleyTech.com:
Wal-mart Launching Hi-Def Blu-ray Experience Area
Toshiba HD-A2 blow-out at Wal-Mart for $198
Blu-ray integrated HDTV’s on the way
First “generic” HD DVD player announced
K-Mart contradicts Toshiba’s announcement
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on 15 May 2008 at 11:00 am 1.Wesley Novack said …
Nice! This player’s price & availability at Walmart will definitely help to spur additional Blu-ray adoption.
I would still recommend purchasing the 40GB PS3, at only $100 more, but I can certainly see that there will be some people that won’t want to dish out the extra $100.