Memorex Blu Ray Player
Let Memorex entertain you in high definition with Full HD 1080p Blu-ray Disc player. Step up to superb resolution, excellent contrast, and vivid color with Blu-ray Disc while the integrated DVD up-conversion lets you continue to enjoy your DVD collection. You will even experience the enhanced listening pleasure of Blu-ray Disc/DVD and CD playback in surround sound with up to 7.1 channels.
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars Works Just Fine
I got this Blu-ray player for x-mas and it works great. I assume that mine shipped with the firmware update already installed.
I have played a dozen or so blu-ray movies & regular DVD’s on it already without any problems at all. One movie skipped and caused me to restart it, but upon further inspection of the disc (regular DVD) it had a pretty deep scratch on it.
This would be a 5 star product except that it is slow to load, and slow to eject. Standing there hunched over, waiting for the tray to open / close is annoying… so I just hit the eject button, walk over the the kitchen, grab a drink, and when I come back the tray is finally open. I can live with that.
*** UPDATE 01-31-2009 ***
As it turns out, I DO need to install the firmware update. Initially all of my BD movies worked fine, but I was proven wrong when I got the new X-Files movie in from Netflix (my mistake). I downloaded the firmware update, burned it to a CD-R as vaguely described in their manual, and loaded the firmware from the player’s settings menu. After several attempts at this, including the system freezing up, several different CD-R burns, and hours of frustration… It STILL does not work. I emailed tech support 3 days ago and have yet to get a reply. Oh, and because this unit is sooooo slow, it really has taken me over 5 hours of waiting and waiting for the player to attempt to load the updates. I will call on monday, and if I don’t get the issue resolved I will find a way to return it.
4 Stars Great Blu Ray for the price
I bought the Memorex based on price and the reviews of others. It performed perfectly right out of the box. I haven’t even attempted a software “update”, since it has played every movie I’ve given it so far without a hitch. Only negative is the seemingly long star-up time (compared to my old DVD), but this may not be unusual for Blu Ray…especially a low-cost machine. Hooked up the HDMI output to my SONY 1080p and got a great picture. Set-up was fast and easy.
1 Stars Memorex should be ashamed of themselves! *NO STARS*
I received this player for Christmas. I hooked up the player and turned it on..& the Memorex logo pop up…and then nothing. A blank blue screen. I hit the open button, and the tray got hung up on something. Afer playing with the tray, I finally got it to open. I put in a BR Disc. Still no video signal just a blank blue screen. Couldn’t access the set up menus and the movie wouldn’t play. Defective player. I called Memorex 3 times, and waited on hold over FOUR HOURS total before finally speaking with someone. Memorex agreed the player was defective, and asked for a check for $7.50 so they could send me a new player upon receipt of the defective player. Before packaging the player, I marked the underside with a small bit of chalk. It cost me $18 to ship the player back to them…so I’m out $25.50 in shipping alone. Five weeks later, I receive a package from Memorex. I open it to find it’s the exact same defective player that I sent to them, with the same chalk marking on the bottom of it. It wasn’t repaired and had the same issues as when I sent it to them five weeks earlier. I finally gave up after calling them back three times and waiting on hold almost three hours. A total of seven hours of on hold time and still a defective player to show for it. With customer service like this, it’s a miracle that Memorex is still in business, and should be ashamed of how they treat their customers.
4 Stars A good VERY Basic Player. Needs many software updates.
I picked this up for less than 150 when they first came out. It works well, although it has required several software updates which is not a seamless process. The software updates are mostly a result of the blu-ray disc manufacturers coming out with a new flavor of copy protection each week.
The unit is slow. Slow to boot, slow to load, slow to respond to the open command. Still, it works as it should. Currently, after 3 software updates, it seems to play everything I throw at it. Picture quality is excellent.
The software updates will require downloading files and burning a disc via your PC. One thing the instructions are not clear about is to make sure disc tray door is open when you start update process on this DVD player. I do not know why it matters but unless you want lots of messages about wrong disc format, just do it.
If you think Blu-ray is actually going to be around for a while, you might be better off with a Panasonic or other unit that can do live updates via the internet. If like myself, you think your bluray player will eventually join your betamax, laserdisc, and Voom satellite, then this is not a bad way to get in at a low price for a format that may be obsolete in 2 years.
If you can not get it on sale then it may not be worth it. Definitely not the unit for grandma or any technophobe.
4 Stars Memorex Blu-Ray player
This player was a great price, and for the most part would get a good review. But I did have to upgrade the firmware, available on the Memorex website, to watch certain movies.
Filed under: Blu Ray Player Reviews