Laser’s $99 Blu-Ray player certainly fits the company’s general theme of offering tech products that might not be the shiniest or, indeed in this case the most fingerprint resistant, but in showing it off last week, company representatives did make one interesting claim for it — it offers region free capability for Blu-Ray playback.
Region free BR playback isn’t an entirely new feature, even in the budget space, but it’s still the case that most players sold in Australia are locked to Region B, limiting us to local discs as well as those from Europe and Africa, but locking out US and Japanese discs entirely.
Laser’s claim to me was that the player, similar to the region free models that Kogan’s offered in the past, can switch regions via a menu command. It’s worth noting that the web page for the player doesn’t make that claim, although that may be so that they don’t run foul of the Blu-Ray licensing conditions. Laser’s $99 price point is ever so slightly cheaper than Kogan’s offerings, with company representatives stating that the $99 RRP may be undercut by some retailers, perhaps making it the cheapest region-free Blu-Ray player on the Australian marketplace. Having to menu switch isn’t quite as handy as having a player that’ll flick regions for you without messing around, but it’s still potentially handy if you like the look or price of some of the discs that only launch stateside.
[LaserCo]
Matt
Monday, August 29, 2011 at 11:09 AMWill it do region free DVD also?
Michael
Monday, August 29, 2011 at 11:32 AMPretty much every device i have ever bought that had dvd playback was region free apart from my first gen dvd player which was huge and the laser died after 2 years. No doubt this one is.
Alex Kidman
Monday, August 29, 2011 at 11:36 AMYup — or at least that’s what they told me when I was querying the Blu-Ray playback specs.
Jem
Monday, August 29, 2011 at 11:19 AMCriterion Collection here I come!
Adam
Monday, August 29, 2011 at 11:46 AMI wonder if these will have the same return rate as all the other Laser products.
EckyThump
Monday, August 29, 2011 at 1:04 PMYeah see, this is the reason I stopped buying disc related products, and simply invested in a quality media player! I can just rip the iso off a Blue Ray/DVD and play it at max res no probs at all. Plus as a bonus. if I like it, it becomes a part of my HDD collection, or if it’s crap then I don’t have a disc I’ll never play again! Cheap Thursday at Blockbuster is the best thing that ever happened to movies! #]
Stephen
Monday, August 29, 2011 at 1:47 PMBlu Ray doesn’t offer enough benefit for the price, and I don’t intend to re-purchase every movie I have on DVD to get the latest format. And of course Blu-Ray will be replaced in another 5-10 years by “the next new thing”.
On the subject of region coding, this is why I stay away from Sony – they’ve been the biggest supporter of the idea that companies should use it. Sony’s content business has pushed the electronics side of the company to use region coding long after everyone else dropped it for DVDs.
EckyThump
Monday, August 29, 2011 at 3:56 PMGotta agree on the res value of BlueRay, I have a 42″ and you can see the difference,.. just! It’s just not worth the dick around till you upgrade to say 50″ or so! #]
Richard
Monday, August 29, 2011 at 10:59 PMNot sure anyone is really suggesting you rebuy all your old films. Still, it’s good to have the player so when one that benefits from the quality arrives you can grab that and for everything else you have a choice.
At $100 at least the entry costs are now low.
Chris McMahon
Tuesday, August 30, 2011 at 8:59 AMYou need to check out Amazon.co.uk with their free Australia shipping. After VAT is removed, I average around AUD$10 per Blu-ray. Newish releases I’ll pay UKP8 ~AUD$12.30. Some Blu-rays cost <AUD$8 delivered.
I end up paying less for Blu-rays from Amazon.co.uk than people in the UK do, due to removal of the 20% VAT for international sales.
Blu-ray.com is a handy site to keep a wishlist of titles and keep informed about Amazon sales.
brent3000
Monday, August 29, 2011 at 1:59 PMI don’t think its much of an issue these days… Most of the BD movies i have brought are all region free anyway… Unless your buying a Sony branded movie almost all of them are region free these days I have found..
Its good to note tho if im after a 2nd BD unit :)
attila
Monday, August 29, 2011 at 2:51 PMSony are generally okay – its Fox you have really got to watch out for.
James
Monday, August 29, 2011 at 3:57 PMlol $99 bucks for a Blu-Ray Player!? Man, we’ve come a long way.
Alan
Sunday, November 27, 2011 at 10:03 AMI have a Laser BLU-BD1080 player. Whenever I play a Bluray disc at start up I get the message:- Checking BUDA now, please wait. After a few seconds another message comes up, BUDA is not ready, playback is going on, but error may occur. So far I have been unable to find out what BUDA is or what the message is all about. So far I have not had any luck. Can anyone out there enlighten me.
Alan……………
Gavin Bollard
Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 5:37 PMWhile I can’t honestly see the point of blu-ray, the player is tempting because if nothing else, it will upscale my DVDs so that I’ll get better resolution from them. Maybe I’ll get/borrow some blu-ray discs and maybe I wont.
BTW: Does anyone know what the USB Capabilities are like? Can I attach a 2TB HDD with AVIs, MKVs, MP4s, VOBs, MPGs etc. Will it handle SRT subtitle streams? MP3 Music? Will it provide a nice menu? (I already have a WD box for this but I thought it worked well, I could give the box to my kids).
joe
Friday, March 23, 2012 at 1:02 AMLooks like the one i just got from Harvey Normans for $59……only reason i got it was not for the blu ray but for mp4x264 playback