Designed for the living room rather than a server closet, this Blu-ray box has a petite 17 x 9-inch footprint and flaunts an attractive display, all beveled edges and hues of mirrored blue. The form may be cool, but the function is eye-poppingly hot. Images were crisp, with no noticeable digital detritus. Though it lacks an onboard DTS-HD decoder — bad news for older receivers — audio sounded first-rate.
Denon DVD-2500BTCI 
$1000 
Handles a full spectrum of formats — including DivX — and wins on quality. Bummer it's so expensive and lacks BD-Live capability.
Samsung BD-P1500 $400
Audio and video are superb. Still, the unit doesn't quite match the Sony in style or substance.
Insignia NS-BRDVD $280 
Cheap, but you get what you pay for. Spatial audio effects fall flat, and the picture reveals more artifacts than the Wayback machine.
