Sub-£120 Blu-Ray player?

[vtecstu]

My trusty 7 year old Pioneer DVD player bit the dust last night, and I'm wondering if I can get a reasonably decent Blu-Ray player to replace it but without yet replacing anything else in my setup...

Requirements
- No more than £120 including delivery, or can be picked up in / near Reading
- Does 1080p DVD upscaling (think most do this - I only have a 28" CRT at the moment but hope to upgrade in the next couple of years)
- SCART output (as well as HDMI)
- Coaxial digital out (for also slightly aged AV receiver)
- Manufacturer that I'd be confident with (i.e. none of the 'Proline' or similar budget brands)
- New, not second hand

I've looked at Richer Sounds and nothing there seems to tick all the boxes - the Panasonics don't have co-ax digital out, the really nice looking £70 Pioneer has no SCART connection, neither does the Sony.

Do realise that I'm looking for something specific and "not budget" despite having a pretty tight budget, but can anyone help...?

Failing that I've seen a couple of decent looking Pioneer and Panasonic DVD players for about £50 and will just have to get one of those as a stopgap until I 'need' a Blu-Ray player and will probably then spend a bit more.

[pmanson]

I've got an LG BD360 which has been perfect for the last year. I don't recall it having coax though.

I paid £130 for it IIRC

[vtecstu]

Cheers PM - an LG on Richer's website does have co-ax by the look of it, so worth looking at.

Also spotted that this seems to tick my boxes: http://www.richersounds.com/product/blu-ray/denon/...

A more general question that I meant to ask in the OP - would I lose any of the 'benefits' of DVD by using a Blu-Ray player to play them? More specifically features such as progressive scan and DTS sound that I've been used to with my current setup - would the Blu-Ray player be able to pass these 'higher spec' DVD features (albeit lower quality than standard Blu-Ray) to my TV and DTS-capable AV-receiver respectively?

[vtecstu]

Right. Closer inspection reveals that approximately no Blu-Ray players have SCART outputs and the only option with my current setup is with some kind of adaptor that will almost certainly make the picture quality worse than expected from a DVD...

Operation Buy A Blu-Ray Player has been shelved until Operation Buy A HD TV is completed.

In the meantime, it's a £50 DVD player that can upscale to 1080p for me, thus allowing me to put off buying the BD player for quite a while...!

Cheers for any time you've wasted reading this thread!

[OldSkoolRS]

Does your TV have a component input? These are usual 3 phono sockets, red, green and blue. Depending on the TV you might be able to input at upto 1080i which may well give better results that you were getting via scart.

Otherwise your next best option is to use the S-Video connection (looks a bit like the old style computer mouse connector). Worst case would be to use the single phono connection (usually a yellow phono), but that will likely be worse that you're used to via RGB scart.

All of these options will require you to manually select that input as they won't switch automatically like scart.

[theboss]

I just bought one of those as, although its been superceded, I thought it had to be a bargain for £99 (note discount code beneath headline price)

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/-/3110...

If you're not using HDMI then it has component and composite ('phono') video outputs as well as both toslink and coaxial. I'm using it with a Panasonic G10 and it's great.

[hairyben]

theboss said:

I just bought one of those as, although its been superceded, I thought it had to be a bargain for £99 (note discount code beneath headline price)

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/-/3110...

If you're not using HDMI then it has component and composite ('phono') video outputs as well as both toslink and coaxial. I'm using it with a Panasonic G10 and it's great.

Looking at the OP's comments on PQ I'm guessing he was after scart equipped for S-vid or RGB (as an interim until he goes HD), which isn't avaliable at this price point. The CRT's unlikely to have component and watching a blu-ray via composite's a pretty big fail.

If I'm correct, the logical way forward would be to buy a HD amp as well which can output S-vid from all sources