Magnavox, Sylvania crack $300 mark for Blu-ray

The Magnavox and Sylvania brands are already selling a Blu-ray player that breaks past the $300 price range, according to tips passed along by Blu-ray.com forum members. Made by Japanese company Funai, the Magnavox NB500MG9 and Sylvania NB500SL9 have both been found selling at Wal-Mart stores for $298, or a full $100 less than Sony's PlayStation 3 and other more common players.

Despite the cost savings, the players share roughly as many features as more expensive models, including Blu-Ray Final Profile 1.1 for picture-in-picture commentary on movies, HDMI 1.3 for improved surround audio and imagery with supporting receivers and HDTVs, and upscaling for DVDs up to the player's native 1080p. Audio decoding is its primary limitation with raw bitstream the only option instead of internal decoding of some formats.

Filed under: gadgets
Other story tags: sony, blu-ray, PS3, Funai, Sylvania, Magnavox