Upcoming Black Friday deals: Blu-ray players for as little as $78

Blu-ray player prices appear poised to drop well below the $99 mark come Black Friday. Examples: A Sylvania Blu-ray deck that'll go for just $89 in the Great Lakes region, and a Magnavox deck at Walmart for just $78.

First up, Blu-ray.com found a leaked Walmart Black Friday ad featuring the Magnavox NB500MG1F, a bargain-basement Blu-ray deck that may not be the newest kid on the block, but it's definitely the cheapest—for now, anyway.

Set to go on sale on Black Friday as a $78 "doorbuster," the NB599MG1F lacks such features as on-board decoding for lossless Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio sound, as well as support for online special features on BD Live Blu-ray discs.

Then again, you can still expect 1080p video quality and DVD upscaling, along with picture-in-picture video commentaries—as besides, we're talking 78 bucks here, which makes for the cheapest Blu-ray deck I've seen advertised yet.

Moving on, Video Business spotted a separate deal in this Black Friday circular from Meijer, a regional retailer with locations in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky.

The flyer doesn't specify the model number of the $89 Sylvania deck in question, but based on the image on the ad, I believe it's this one: the NB530SLX, a profile 1.1 "BonusView" player with 1080p output and an on-board decoder for Dolby TrueHD audio.

Like the bargain-priced Magnavox NB500MG1F, the NB530SLX is missing some key features, starting with an on-board DTS-HD Master Audio decoder and full-on BD Live support (although, as with the Magnavox deck, you will be able to view picture-in-picture video commentaries). Also, bear in mind that bargain Blu-ray players often do only a so-so job at upscaling standard DVDs to 1080p.

But if you can live with those compromises—and frankly, even though I consider myself a movie fanatic, I rarely bother with BD Live—either Magnavox or Sylvania decks might make for pretty good deals.

In the meantime, I suspect we'll be seeing even more hot deals for cheap Blu-ray players come next Friday—maybe even as low as $49, as market analysts are predicting—while Blu-ray discs prices are continuing to fall, as well.

Related:
Black Friday: Walmart Offers $78 Blu-ray Player [Blu-ray.com]
Meijer offers $89 BD player for Black Friday [Video Business]