Philips BDP3000/05 Blu-ray Player

Ordering and speed of delivery were A1 - as has been everything else purchsed from Amazon.
Anyone wanting an excellent Bluray player should look no further than this Philips model. The picture quality and sound are up there with the best and, a great added advantage, is this player`s ability to play just about any type of disc thrown at it, including VCD SVCD! Additionally it is very easy to hack enabling it to play any regions DVD - note it is not possible to hack the Bluray side at present, so only Region 2 Bluray discs are playable.
Anyone interested in hacking the DVD side proceed as follows...........
1. Make sure there is no disc in the tray when you switch on.
2. Press "home" key on remote control.
3. Enter number "1389310".
4. Switch off. Wait a few seconds and then switch on...now region free.

Congratulations to Philips on producing such a great player at this price.

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*** Note Amazon have this player listed several times ! Search on 'BDP3000' in the 'Electronics' department to see them all. It's worth checking each listing as prices differ....!
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[I've added photos to the item page to help explain myself regarding my comments about the LCD, on-screen display and remote AND a picture showing the specific information in 'Step 3' of the firmware update guide, as of Nov 09, which I believe is the bit reviewer 'complainants' have missed, hence not been able to get the firmware update process to perform properly... If the process proves a problem for you please also see my 'help' comments in the latter part of my review.]

What a fantastic disc player this is. I got mine just a few days ago and am very pleased with it.

*** FURTHER UPDATE :

BY VIRTUE OF FIRMWARE UPDATE V10.15.1 DATED 27 APR 10 THE PLAYER IS NOW ENABLED TO ACCESS/PLAY FILES VIA THE USB CONNECTOR !!! SUPPORTED FILE TYPES ARE DivX, MP3, JPEG, WMV and WMA. Also see the customer photo I've added of the Philips info about the firmware update enabling this feature A 'USB' icon is added to the 'Home' menu and when selected it displays the contents of the USB device by folder. Folders can be selected, files viewed by type (eg photo, audio, video), photo previews are displayed along with specific file info. Media files can be paused, skipped etc just like if accessed on a PC. THE MULTI-REGION DVD 'HACK' IS STILL POSSIBLE AFTER THE FIRMWARE UPDATE !

It is certainly 'Budget' in terms of price (I managed to grab mine for less than £90 - Nov 09), but is not so in terms of finish or features. It has all the latest capabilities including things referred to as 'BD-Live'/''Profile 2', neither of which I know too much about but at least they are catered for !

*** The real bonus of this unit (unlike many other players) is that it is easily modified to be multi-region for DVDs and, as opposed to my other multi-region player, it can also can cope with the few additional so-called 'RCE' Region 1 DVDs and other non-UK DVDs it had problems with ! I did the multi-region 'modification' BEFORE updating the firmware (in case that update prevented the 'modification') and can confirm that the firmware update DID remove the multi-region capability BUT I was able to then 're-apply' it (only enter the numbers, DON'T first press the HOME key)....

Regarding those firmware updates, please see my comments later about their importance and some help as a result of various other Amazon reviewers who have stated they had problems applying the updates. The very straightforward process, if done correctly, takes about 2 minutes ! As of Nov 09 that specific information was in 'Step 3' of the downloadable 'Firmware Upgrade Readme File'; I've added a picture to the Amazon main page showing it, but the whole reason for reading the guide as a whole before performing the update is because things might change over time....

The other important features are :

HDMI output.
Enhancement: High Def (720p, 1080i, 1080p), Progressive Scan, Video up scaling.
Playback control for Standard Play, Pause, Search forward/reverse, Slow Forward, Resume Playback from Stop, Skip, Disc Menu, Repeat, A-B Repeat, Zoom, Angle.
Plays BD Video, BD-R/RE 2.0, DVD, DVD-Video, DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW, Video CD, DivX, CD-R/CD-RW, CD.

If you read reviews or peruse the specification you will see it has a few apparent 'shortcomings', which for most (including me) I think are either irrelevant or readily acceptable and are also in-keeping with other lower-priced Blu-ray players, so this unit isn't really 'special' in that regard. I have identified what I think the most important issues are and covered the importance and/or available alternatives in the unit at the end of my review with my opinions.

The unit is only 6cm or so high and has a pleasant glossy black finish; it appears to be well constructed, solid and makes no intrusive noises when in use (some players are apparently quite noisy).

I have just played my first Blu-ray disc ever and can confirm it works extremely well. I compared an up scaled playback of the 'Dark Knight' DVD with the Blu-ray version and even with such a recent DVD-issue the Blu-ray picture AND audio were reproduced very well and were noticeably better than the DVD. I have heard that disc-loading times can sometimes be lengthy with players; I can't say if the 'Dark Knight' Blu-ray presents problems in general, but for information on my Philips BDP3000 it loaded in 12 seconds...

There are a number of other very handy features on this player, such as incremented picture zoom (not always available; it seems to be available with DVDs but not Blu-ray) and search by time. Notably, the remote has an 'Eject/Close' button, which is very useful (but see below for some gripes !).

I have 2 very minor gripes with the BDP3000. Firstly, either through cost-saving or intentional design (I've added photos to the item page to help explain myself !) :

1. The LCD does not display much information and only uses characters (ie no graphics), so you really have to rely on information displayed on-screen and it is not always readily shown. For example, when a disc is playing the elapsed time is on the LCD as 'normal', but if playback is paused the LCD instead displays ''PAUSED' and a 'II' logo is temporarily displayed on-screen; you have to select the 'Info' button to see what elapsed time playback has been paused at...

2. The remote is a useful size and offers a lot of functionality, however, some of the buttons are likely to be totally redundant as, for example, the 'Volume' and 'Channel' buttons can ONLY be used with Philips TVs; even more annoying is the fact that they are in the prominent central position on the remote whereas the universal (and often used) 'OK' and navigation-ring are at the upmost part of the facia; I have lost count how many times I have incorrectly been trying to use the remote upside-down ! In addition, several of the playback buttons are in my opinion the 'wrong way round': I think the position of the FF/REW and 'SKIP' buttons should be transposed and the STOP button is too-close to those often used buttons and is easily pressed (and with my Blu-ray discs seems 'terminal', forcing you have to completely restart the disc load !).

Leaving those issues aside (and the specification matters I cover below), this is an excellent Blu-ray/DVD player which performs well, has just about all the features you could want and is an affordable price.

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If you read reviews or peruse the specification you will see the BDP3000 has a few apparent 'shortcomings', which for most (and me) I think are either irrelevant or readily acceptable. I have identified what I think the most important issues and will cover their importance and/or alternatives :

1. Without a firmware update certain DVDs such as those, for example, from the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy or 'Planet Earth' might be unplayable - the latest firmware update resolves this.

My player out of the box (firmware version 919.2) had such a problem, but after downloading and installing the most recent firmware version (941.4) from the Philips website I can confirm that problem disappeared.

Firmware updates seem to be a common factor for Blu-ray as the latest discs seem to have an increasing number of 'features' embedded into them; that is clearly why the firmware update is so readily incorporated into players and available for downloading. I see that the revision has now been updated again, to 948.4, to cater for problems playing the 'Terminator Salvation' Blu-ray disc, so it's good to see Philips seem to sort things out quickly...

*** As someone else has mentioned, I would respectfully suggest the problems some people are experiencing performing the firmware update are because they did not follow the (straightforward) 'Firmware Upgrade Readme File' which comes in Acrobat/pdf format and is 'posted' as a link below the link for downloading the firmware update 'zip' file. Yes, the printed User Guide which comes with the unit does (obviously) cover the process, but only in general and it just states 'copy the software' which is actually correct but unspecific; you are expected to read the guide mentioned earlier that is available to read on the firmware update page. Specifically, you must ensure that you 'unzip' or 'Extract' the files (rather than for example look in the 'zip' file and copy over the files in it) then copy to your intended update media the specified folder that is created by that process (which is mentioned in those instructions). Otherwise, funny old thing, the unit won't be able to 'find' the firmware update files when you try to perform the update as it isn't 'located' where it expects to find it ....

[As of Nov 09 that specific information was in 'Step 3' and I've added a picture to the Amazon main page showing it, and the folder to copy over is called 'UPG' - but the whole reason for reading the guide is because things might change over time....]

2. There is no internal memory to store downloaded 'BD-Live' data - if you want to achieve that you need add some form of flash memory (1Gb minimum is recommended) via the USB port.

I can confirm, having done the firmware update this way, that you can even add this capability by plugging-in a USB card-reader loaded with an SD card (from my camera); this means that should I want to use this feature it is easily achieved - and for no additional cost !

3. The unit has no WiFi capability for downloading firmware updates or accessing 'BD-Live' Internet data - you can still access 'BD-Live' via the Internet as the unit has an Ethernet port. Read more ›

I had a problem with this blu-ray player when I found I couldn't upgrade the software via a USB drive formatted on a Mac. It worked fine via ethernet, but connecting it to my router was difficult, so not being able to do it via USB was a major pain. I was trying to upgrade the software using a flash drive formatted as MS-DOS (FAT) on a Mac. It would seem to upgrade okay, but whenever I checked the version number it was always the old software. The following solved the issue:

In Disk Utility in Utilities select the drive, then:

1) click on the Partition tab and change the Volume Scheme to 1 Partition
2) click on Options and select the Master Boot Record button - click OK
3) make sure the volume Format is set as MS-DOS (FAT)
4) click Apply
5) transfer the unzipped upgrade files to the drive and it should now work

It seems to have been not having the Master Boot Record option selected that was causing the problem. WARNING: this will erase the contents of your USB drive!