When it comes to Blu-ray, the only question these days is whether to buy a player now, or wait for v2.0? And it’s not really an easy question to answer given the myriad of factors involved.

First, are you cool with blowing $300-600 on a machine that will be “ancient” in just 7 months (is that too optimistic)? Second, what will the next gen of players bring to the table, or rack as it were? And third, how impatient are you?

If you are, in fact, OK with buying a throw-away box and upgrading when the improved/enhanced units roll out, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that prices are coming down… albeit rather slowly and only on select models. Today’s deal is probably the cheapest out there (excluding refurbs) coming in at just under $300. The Samsung BD-P1400 gives you all the usual high-def goodness, supports 1.3 hdmi and of course handles the Dolby DigitalPlus and TrueHD audio formats. It also features Anynet which is Samsung’s one-remote-to-control-them-all technology.

Now for the bad news - it’s only Profile 1.0 compliant, meaning no support for those extra-special extras to be found on many recent releases. For some salt on that wound I’ll also add that reviews for this model aren’t exactly glowing. Complaints range from random shutdowns and luck-ups, painfully long repair times (from Samsung), to slow firmware upgrades (again, from Samsung).

So while this might not be the deal of the century, it is a relatively cheap door into the wonderful world of Blu-ray. Your call.

Sale Price: $289.98

Deal Ends: n/a

Buy now: www.taaffephoto.com