Sony has lowered the list price of the BDP-S300 Bluray player to a $499 list price. I’m not sure this will sway the war on bluray versus HD DVD. I think average consumers are still going to wait this out. In their eyes blu-ray and HD disks look like a regular DVD, so why should a blu-ray or HD player be so expensive when I can buy a DVD player for less than $100 ?

Personally I may be willing to shell out $200 for a HD player. In the end I wouldn’t be surprised if players capable of playing both formats and regular DVDs become available.

I was in the market for a small footprint DVD player that would not look obnoxious on a coffee table. I had wanted to get a legendary CyberHome CH-DVD 300S player but it appears they have been pulled off the market due to it’s region free playing.

I was in Walmart and noticed the Durabrand DVD-1002 DVD player. The unit has progressive scan, component video output and coaxial audio output plus composite RCA outputs. The unit also comes with a nice little remote.

This DVD player is a top loading unit and actually feels pretty well built.

All this for less than $30.

Overall I am quite pleased with the unit. I really like the top loading feature and it looks nice on a coffee table. The picture and sound quality are excellent. The remote, though small has a nice feel to it.

This is a can’t miss buy. If reliability ever become an issue who cares ? It’s at a disposable price point.