Send in the clones -- the Insignia NS-BRDVD is another
dead ringer for the Funai
NB500, which started showing up under its various monikers
three months ago. The Best Buy house brand is taking a stab at igniting some excitement in the sub-$300 Blu-ray player market. But reading CNET's review, it sounds like it comes up a bit short. First the good news: the NS-BRDVD is a benjamin cheaper than the
ubiquitous PS3, it does a good job with 1080p/24 content and even outputs Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA via bitstream (to a comparatively upscale receiver, we assume). But the unit was marred by lackluster 1080p/60 output. As we've seen, you can pay a
lot more for a Profile 1.1 player, but we're with CNET on this one -- save up just a little more dough and spring for a PS3.
Read 
Tags: best buy, BestBuy, cnet, funai nb500, FunaiNb500, insignia ns-brdvd, InsigniaNs-brdvd
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Pops @ Aug 19th 2008 6:55PM
Id rather have bitstream output though. That is the only thing that would push me remotley close to buying this thing, and the fact that its 299$
THizzle7XU @ Aug 20th 2008 1:12AM
Actually, Best Buy has been selling it at $280 the last few weeks. Even better.
Ken @ Aug 19th 2008 7:52PM
Realize this thing will probably be $199 for Thanksgiving, and if you are pairing it with a 'matching' Insignia television, it would probably be just fine.
britboyj @ Aug 19th 2008 8:52PM
Did you read the bit about it not working well at 60fps?
I actually offered Engadget a review when I had Best Buy's test unit BACK IN APRIL. But no one responded.
I thought it was fairly ok, it certainly performed better than the Panasonic BD30, which it shares a lot of similarities with, it was easier to set up and booted up quicker than the Panny.
It is, however Identical to the other Funai units, but no one at Best Buy would ever admit that and so they charge more. Try calling them out on it and see what happens. It's kind of amusing.
Disclaimer, I no longer work for Best Buy.
Evan @ Aug 20th 2008 12:00AM
Regardless of image quality, I agree with Ken, this will almost certainly be a Black-Friday "door-crasher".
THizzle7XU @ Aug 20th 2008 1:17AM
How many discs are actually 60p though. All but maybe one of my 30+ Blu-rays are 24p, and the one is Planet Earth. I would think all feature film Blu-rays are 24p and that's perfectly fine for this player.
DrXym @ Aug 20th 2008 6:17AM
It's a cheap no-name box which plays Blu Ray movies. It's never going to win a prize for looks or performance but it does what it says and is cheap - IMO $200 for Christmas. Whether it is worth buying or stumping out a bit more for a Samsung is really up to the people thinking of buying it. The Samsung BDP 1500 is bound to hit $300 for Christmas and possibly a little less.
Erwos @ Aug 20th 2008 3:01PM
The 1080p60 issue is _outputting_ at 1080p60 from a 1080p24 source. If you just tell it to output at 1080p24, it's perfectly fine, but your TV has to support 1080p24 input properly.
$300 is a bit much for this player, but I think it's a pretty reasonable choice if it hits $200, especially given that it upscales regular DVDs pretty well.
Ken @ Aug 19th 2008 11:02PM
My point was hooking it up to a cheap 42" house brand LCD, not sure you would see the difference. From a business point of view, people just want cheap, and this unit does just that.
Not saying its good or its the one I would have, but cheap sells.
Darkflight @ Aug 20th 2008 12:39AM
They hope to become the Apex of BluRay players, which is great from a price point, but sucky on a technological aspect. I say pass. And preferably Fail.
squiggleslash @ Aug 20th 2008 10:03AM
Apex made very good players, at least their initial players were comparable to the other high end DVD players of the era but were all well under $200 and came with more features, some that everyone agreed upon as useful (VCD/SVCD/MP3 support), some more controversial (the AD-600's region and Macrovision disabling features.) Apex really shook up the industry, players fell in price rapidly and generally gained the same features.
If the NS-BRDVD were comparable, then this would be very good news. It sounds, though, like it's a basic, cheap, BD player.
Mike @ Aug 20th 2008 4:35AM
$300??? Thought the lack of competition would bring prices down. I want a $120 2.0 BD player. Bought the HD DVD player for less then that last year