Black Friday could turn blu if one goes by the low-price offers on Blu-ray players. Wal-Mart plans to offer a Magnavox BD player for just $128. The basic player will be available in stores and online on Friday, probably in very limited quantities.

No exact model number of the player is given in the ad, which could mean that several models will be offered at different stores. The deck plays Blu-ray movies at full 1080p resolution and can upconvert standard DVDs to 1080p. The player has a HDMI out and no other output sources are mentioned. Wal-mart is also reported to offering Samsung players for $198.

Not to be left behind, Sears’ website offers Panasonic's DMP-BD35 Blu-ray Disc player for $149.99 while supplies last. Customers can get two free BD movies from Disney by mail with the purchase of the BD35 - "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Ratatouille" - both of which have been noted for exceptional audio and video performance. The players current sells for £249 in the UK.

In terms of features, the BD35 offers support for BonusView and BD-Live, using the integrated SD/SDHC card reader for storage of downloaded BD-Live content (requires an optional SD or SDHC card). It also supports all of the HBR (High Bit Rate) surround sound codecs including Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and DTS-HD Master Audio.

Sears will also have the Sony BDP-S350 for a low $179.99.

As for Amazon.com, the online retailer began teasing a $99 Blu-ray player in the new Amazon Customers Vote promotion in which customers choose which discounted deals will be made available for the holidays. In the new promotion, an option available in the 'Round 3: Go High-Def' voting period is a $99 Blu-ray player from Sony. A total of 500 units will be sold at the discounted price should the item win the voting round.

Retailers are expected to make aggressive price cuts to Blu-ray products in order to spur holiday sales. Best Buy Co. Inc. in October began selling an house brand Blu-ray player at $199.99. The same month, Target started to offer a Blu-ray player at $229.99.

Former HD DVD backer, Onkyo is launching its first Blu-ray player – the DV-BD606 – at a not-so-cheap £399 pricetag. While providing a 1,920 x 1,080 output with a 24fps mode via an HDMI 1.3 connection (thus able to play discs in "Deep Color" mode, the player is Profile 1.1 compliant, making it compatible with picture-in-picture playback, but not with the internet-connected functionality now being added to some discs (BD-Live). It sports lossless DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD sound. Audio support is as good as possible though, with Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio both taken care of. Standard definition up-scaling is also part of the feature set, along with the playback of DivX content - pretty much a standard feature for such players now.

On the software front, a milestone was reached with the release of the 1,000th BD title.

Story filed 25.11.08