Introduction

It wasn’t but about 18 months ago that Blu-ray players were still considered high end devices, selling mostly to enthusiasts, videophiles, and the like. Recently, the market for these players has really taken off, mostly due to the big box retailers dropping prices to DVD player levels. The fact that one can walk into a Wal-Mart and purchase a Blu-ray player for under $150 makes it somewhat of a commodity item at this point. Why not own one? Blu-ray discs are indeed more expensive (sometimes prohibitively so), but on the rental front, you can get them from Blockbuster or Netflix on the cheap, and enjoy your films in much higher quality.

With the DV-BD507, Onkyo has introduced their “most advanced” Blu-ray player to date. The player doesn’t seem to have many more features than the basic units from Samsung, Sony, LG, etc. right now, so there must be something in there that justifies the $499 MSRP. Let’s take a look and find out.