"Which Blu Ray player is best bang for the buck without sacrificing quality or features available?"

Why?

Well, it Has plenty of features but the big thing I hear is that sony intended to keep upgrading the blueray format to 'bluray 2.0' and beyond (or some crap) which leaves those of you without a Sony-specific player stuck with old firmware.

You _may_ find yourself with a blue ray player that at some point won't read the latest dvds.

The PS3 has an ethernet hole and can update its firmware via the net.   Since my house is networked out the butt it made the most sense to just go with the lowest end PS3 as blue ray player.

Now I'm not sure about the absolute facts on this-- rumors and emotions come down the gossip pipe since my husband's company works on content for the PS3 and based on his thoughts, he wanted to buy this one.   So we just went ahead and bought one b/c we really don't want to buy a blue ray player again for a long time.  Plus I may play a few games on it....

In terms of being a console, there is definitely bang for buck there!  And it costs about the same as the others on the market -- $400