Well, I'm thinking of jumping into the Blu-Ray format.

To help this is my current setup.

Audio goes through a receiver that only has phono jack inputs. The video for all video equipment goes through the receiver to the standard TV via a basic RCA phono jack as well.

So my questions are.

1. Does all Blu-Ray players have the capability to connect to an audio receiver via phono jacks?
2. Does all Blu-Ray players have a video output via phono jack?
3. What is this thing about versions 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0?

I see Walmart has a Magnavox player on sale on Black Friday for $78, is this a good entry level BR player?

Quoting Forget_the_Rest:

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Quoting CubbyUps:

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3. What is this thing about versions 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0?

There are three different profiles for Blu-ray players, 1.0, 1.1 & 2.0.

1.0 was the original and didn't support Picture in Picture (PiP) or BD-Live (internet bonus features) access.

1.1 added PiP but still didn't support BD-Live.


2.0 added BD-Live.

If you buy a new player, it will almost certainly be 2.0. A few are still only 1.1 but they are becoming less common and the chance of a 1.0 player is very minimal.

Not at all, Forget. The Magnavox is a Profile 1.0 deck, this is how the cheap prices will be seen this year for BD decks by the sellingof old technology. Personally speaking, I wouldn't buy anything that did not support Profile 2.0, and the cheapest oneof those I am aware of is an Insignia on sale at BB for $129.98, that's about $70 cheaper than the next cheapest machine, but I am a firm veliever in you get what you pay for, so it would not be my first choice of deck. I would be looking at the Samsungo or the Sony at about the $200 price point, though Sam's Club sells them about $20 less.

I have notconvinced myself of the usefulness of the latest toys that use wireless technology.

Skip

Quoting CubbyUps:

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So my questions are.

1. Does all Blu-Ray players have the capability to connect to an audio receiver via phono jacks?
2. Does all Blu-Ray players have a video output via phono jack?

I wouldn't assume standard RCA connections.  Probably most still do have them but i wouldn't assume it. 

For example my PS3 require a special cable.  The PS3 end is proprietary (i think) while the other end can be RCA Audio and Component (i have this cable) or RCA Audio and Video.  I don't recall if they came with the PS3 or i had to pick them up separately.

Quoting Woola:

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Quoting Forget_the_Rest:

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If you buy a new player, it will almost certainly be 2.0. A few are still only 1.1 but they are becoming less common and the chance of a 1.0 player is very minimal.

Not at all, Forget. The Magnavox is a Profile 1.0 deck, this is how the cheap prices will be seen this year for BD decks by the sellingof old technology. Personally speaking, I wouldn't buy anything that did not support Profile 2.0, and the cheapest oneof those I am aware of is an Insignia on sale at BB for $129.98, that's about $70 cheaper than the next cheapest machine, but I am a firm veliever in you get what you pay for, so it would not be my first choice of deck. I would be looking at the Samsungo or the Sony at about the $200 price point, though Sam's Club sells them about $20 less.

Actually, new players MUST be at least profile 1.1. Blu-ray licensing rules states that any model launched later than November 1st 2007 (I believe) MUST support profile 1.1 to be allowed to use the Blu-ray logo. Of course, they can continue to produce the old model for as long as they like, but once they make any hardware changes to it, it's a new model, and it has to support profile 1.1.

Supporting profile 2.0 is still optional, though, and I don't know of any efforts to change this, so I expect 1.1-players to be on the market for a long time still.

My personal opinion after having used both PS3s and standalone players is that the PS3 is by far the best option.  The standalone players I've used have been *very slow* and require external storage added for 2.0 profile support so you need to add that in.  Also many do not have on-board decoders or down convert the newer formats to something older receivers can understand.  This means you may not be able to hear audio on some discs.

I recently replaced the last standalone player I had with one of the 120Gb PS3 slims and I much more happy with it.  It also adds support for streaming of new HD formats nativaly instead of as LPCM (The older "fat" PS3s always sent HD formats converted to  LPCM due to a HDMI chip issue).

Tom

Quoting tkinnen:

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My personal opinion after having used both PS3s and standalone players is that the PS3 is by far the best option.  The standalone players I've used have been *very slow* and require external storage added for 2.0 profile support so you need to add that in.  Also many do not have on-board decoders or down convert the newer formats to something older receivers can understand.  This means you may not be able to hear audio on some discs.

I've only used standalone players and while my first gen player was very slow, those I have now are much faster. I can't compare with a PS3 as I've not tested on one of those, but they certainly aren't very slow.

While some require external storage to be added, there are also players that have this built-in.

At least with UK players, more and more do have internal decoders for the HD audio. When they don't, what you should get is the core audio. For example, if it doesn't support DTS HDMA you should still get plain DTS with the same quality that you'd get on a DVD. When I had my profile 1.0 player that didn't support any of the new formats, I was always able to hear audio.

Quoting Cubby Ups:

Quote:
Well, I'm thinking of jumping into the Blu-Ray format.

To help this is my current setup.

Audio goes through a receiver that only has phono jack inputs. The video for all video equipment goes through the receiver to the standard TV via a basic RCA phono jack as well.

So my questions are.

1. Does all Blu-Ray players have the capability to connect to an audio receiver via phono jacks?
2. Does all Blu-Ray players have a video output via phono jack?
3. What is this thing about versions 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0?

I see Walmart has a Magnavox player on sale on Black Friday for $78, is this a good entry level BR player?

You don't say exactly what type of TV you have, but it sounds like a regular Tube TV  or 480 DPI... before you buy the $78 BD player., maybe upgrade your TV to a flat screen 720/1080 along with HDMI connections., Enjoy a month or more of Digital HD programming and that will develop you tastes for what to expect in Bluray..  because if you do buy the $78 player there are still going to be a sea of titles you would want to buy or rent  and that will costs more of the buck$ down the road..
Hold off for another year on the BluRay player purchase and upgrade your TV (good size screens at a great price these days ) --and/ or HD cable package. ( along with a HiDef digital PVR) .
Bluray players will come down even furthur, and theses digital TV's along with HDMI/component ( and RCA connections), will have to take precedence for now..
You'll enjoy your current DVD library even more before you rush out to replace all those little discs in BD with the same theatrical content . An up converter for your DVD's will make a world of difference. 
and don't forget these Bluray machines are like little computers, they take a long time to startup and open the disc tray.., Most of, if not all of the BD movies you cannot stop and start again in the same place., and watching these digital marvels of 720/1080 thru a conventional TV wil not make a lot of changes to your senses in 425/480 .. older TV sets ..
For an old guy who's been there- done that , in the past. you'll be a happier camper in the long run ..
and may even thank me  ...   

To expand on what I just said: here are the types of connectors (I'm assuming you are in the US based on your collection)

[li]RF connector: this is the screw and pin used for cable. This carries video and audio on one connecter and it looks and sound crappy. Don't use it.
Composite video. The yellow RCA connector. This carries the whole video signal in one connection, so it doesn't look that great. Does 480i only.
S-Video: This is those four-pin cables. It splits the luminence and color into two signal and is much sharper than composite as a result. Does 480i only.
Component video: the set of a green, blue and red RCA connector. This splits video into luminence and two color signals and looks somewhat better than S-video. More importantly, it has greater bandwidth. It can do 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p, though the last one is really only useable for video games as I am not aware of any Blu-ray players that let you play blu-ray at 1080p through component.
D-Sub minature 15 pin aka VGA connector. This is your standard analog computer monitor connector and has roughly the same capabilities as component video.
DVI: the squarish digital computer video connector. It's a digital connector, so has generally better fidelity when using a digital display device like plasma or LCD.
Red and white RCA connectors: These carry the right and left channels of audio, respectively, in analog form. Since you are limited to two audio channels, you can do Dolby surround at best. If you are connecting to your receiver this way, your player is converting the digital signal from the disc to analog. Many players skimp on their digital-to-analog converter performance.
S/PDIF: this is a digital audio format which is carried either on a TOSLINK optical connector or an orange RCA connector. It is limited to CD bandwidth, or about 1.5 Mbps. This means it can carry CD-quality PCM or any of the audio formats found on DVD, but not the next-gen audio formats. Blu-ray will still sound somewhat better than DVD because the audio is generally at higher bandwidths thanks to increased space.
multi-channel analog: this is a set of eight (or maybe six) RCA connectors: white (left front), red, (right front), blue (surround left), gray (surround right), green (center front), purple (subwoofer), brown (surround back left) and tan (surround back right). The last two may not be present. In thsi case, the player decodes each channel on the DVD into analog and puts it out to your receiver. This is useful mainly for situations where you have an old receiver that can't decode newer codecs and a player that can. The player does the decoding and the receiver effectively is an amp.
HDMI: This is a digital connector. It is effectively DVI (with expanded color space) plus a high-resolution digital audio signal. This can carry anything required by Blu-ray.[/li]

Unless you can get the video signal from your player to your TV via component, VGA, DVI or HDMI, Blu-ray won't look significantly better than DVD. DVI and HDMI are compatible, so if your TV has a DVI input and you player has an HDMI output, you can buy a converter cable for a couple bucks. For audio, what's best depends a lot on what your receiver supports.