Personally I don’t think the Sylvania is worth consideration. It is a Profile 1.1 deck, one of the many rebadged versions of the Funai NB500. With the Profile 2.0 Samsung less than $12 more, there is no point in considering the Sylvania. So it really comes down to the PS3 vs. the BD-P1500. They’re both Profile 2.0 / BD-Live with the latest firmware. The PS3 is generally reviewed as one of the best, if not the best, BD deck available, but the Samsung is no slouch either. So if you’ll use the PS3s other features – gaming, broadband content downloads, etc, enough to justify the extra ~$200, go with that. Otherwise the Samsung is a solid choice and a good value.

According to the offer details, it is running through December 31, 2008. Though I expect they may shuffle the products available in the bundle over the next few months.

From Blu-ray.com

It had been rumored that Funai was going to cut the MSRP of the NB500 from $299 to $249 to remain ahead of expected price cuts coming from Sony. Perhaps this is a manifestation of those cuts. The unit had already been selling for less than the previous MSRP, so this would be in keeping with the pattern.

Picked up from EngadgetHD.

Sony will also reportedly introduce the previously announced BDP-S550 with an MSRP of $399, instead of the expected $499 price point, in mid-October.

The price reductions will certainly result in competitive pressure on other vendors.

In fact, HD Guru reports that Funai will cut the MSRP of their NB500 from $299 to $249 to remain competitive. The NB500 is a Profile 1.1 / BonusView player sold in the US under the brands Philips, Magnavox, Sylvania, Insignia, and others.

Since these are the MSRP prices the players will almost certainly be available for less online, and even at retail. While the NB500′s MSRP has been $299, it has been selling normally at stores such as Wal*Mart and Best Buy (under the other brands) for $280 or less. So the cut to MSRP will likely result in a further reduction in retail pricing.

I expect that this is just the beginning of price cuts for the holidays. With the inevitable sales, there should be some good deals on Blu-ray players. And the price cuts on BD-Live units will finally make them competitive with the PS3, unless Sony also cuts the pricing on those. While an entry-level PS3 remains $400, with the BDP-S350 at $300 (and less online) it becomes an option to consider.

From HD Guru via Gizmodo.

You can also save 5% to 15% on four other Blu-ray decks. The LG BH200, which handles Blu-ray and HD DVD discs (for those of you who made the mistake of investing in HD DVD media), normally $599.99 is now $509.99. The Panasonic DMP-DB30K Blu-ray deck, normally $399.99, is $359.99. The Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray deck, also normally $399.99, is $339.99. And finally the Sharp AQUOS BD-HP20U, yet again normally $399.99, is $379.99.

Personally I can’t recommend the LH BH200 to anyone who doesn’t have a number of HD DVD discs they still need to play. It just isn’t a good value as a Blu-ray player, and it is BonusView / Profile 1.1 only, despite having an Ethernet port and supporting Internet connectivity for HD DVD. While the Ethernet port means it is possible it could be upgraded to BD-Live someday, it doesn’t seem likely as LG has really stopped work on this family with the death of HD DVD.

The Sharp unit is not only the most expensive of the remaining three, but also the least capable, being just Basic Profile / Profile 1.0, and not even BonusView. Give it a pass. The Panasonic DMP-BD30K is a nice player, but it is also only BonusView and as it lacks an Ethernet port it will never be updated to support it. The one recommendation for the Panasonic is that it has 5.1 analog audio output.

The real pick here is the Samsung. Not only is it the least expensive, but it is the most advanced of the lot. It is ‘BD-Live Ready’, which means that while it is BonusView-only today, Samsung plans to add BD-Live support via a firmware update.

Picked up from TWICE.

But it is still nice to see the general trend for more Blu-ray players hitting the market with lower prices.

Via EngadgetHD.

Funai OEMs hardware for a number of brands. The NB500 is also the Sylvania NB500SL9, and is expected to appear under the Emerson, Insignia, and Pye brands as well. The owner’s manual for the Magnavox deck is available online as a PDF. According to the manual (page 14), the system is capable of bitstreaming advanced audio codecs such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD HR/MA over HDMI, but it cannot internally decode them. If LPCM output is selected instead, then Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD fall back to Dolby Digital, and DTS-HD falls back to DTS. A similar fall-back happens if you use the coaxial digital output for audio instead of HDMI. Video output is supported as 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p/60, and 1080p/24.

All in all it doesn’t seem like a bad player, if you can forgo BD-Live, for under $300.

From Blu-ray.com via EngadgetHD.

There has been a deluge of Blu-ray news at CES this year, and really nothing of note from HD DVD thus far.