Customer Reviews

Magnavox NB530MGX Blu-ray Disc Player

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great player that offers an excellent picture, and is easy on the wallet. I bought this at Walmart for under $200 and I have been very pleased with the quality. I was blown away by the great picture blu-ray has to offer! Dont expect to many frills such as BD-Live, but do expect a great, "pop in your movie and go" player! It does have an sd-card slot that allows you to save bookmarks and view photos and video clips through the player onto you tv which is really great.

So if your on a budget and want an excellent player for any price, you cant go wrong with this one!

On a side note, some people complain about load times, and although it takes a bit longer to load BD discs than regular DVDs, its quite understandable and really only takes about 30 seconds (give or take a few).

I just could not pass up the deal when i saw this on the other online store. It was 99 dollars. I thought it will be great for my bedroom with my Toshiba Regza. I own a Sony BDP s300 which i purchased 2 years ago. The quality is even better than the latter. With regards to other user's comment there is no available update online. You can actually get an update at funai corporation who makes Magnavox blurays. I upgraded mine rightaway when i received mine. Enjoy it everyone. [...]

This is a very good blue-ray player for its value. I got it from Walmart for $98. And for that price I think its awesome. Also the picture quality is awesome. The load time is short. The menus and remote are simple and the build quality is good. It looks much better than some of the popular models out there. NB500MGX and NB530MGX are 2009 models (hardly any difference). It has also optical and component outputs along with HDMI (of course).

I just picked this up at Wal-Mart this morning, and it played Avatar (released yesterday) out of the box. The startup is slow, but not annoyingly slow.

I've only had it on for a half-hour, but everything is running great.

$78 plus $6 for the protection plan...not bad.

I'm not sure if these reviews saying there isn't firmware updates were written before there were or if they just didn't understand how to do it, but I assure you you can update the Firmware - I just did it. You simply go to Magnavox's website, download the update, unzip the file, and burn it to a data dvd-r disc and pop it in.

Now about the Blu Ray player, I'll have to say it's pretty good for a basic one. I think Blu Ray technology will be growing more and more as years go by, we already have Netflix and Amazon movie streaming, youtube watching, and online features available. This Magnavox doesn't have most of those nifty features, so if that's something you are specifically interested in then you may want to look elsewhere. Overall I'd say this is an excellent starter blu ray though. The Blu Rays I've watched have looked absolutely stunning, and I only have a 720p TV. Sound is noticeably better as well. Don't waste another penny buying DVD movies, they're officially outdated. Blu Ray is sooo much better.

If you can find this for a cheap price then by all means grab it. The picture and sound quality are as good as it gets, it's a very simple unit with a remote so easy anybody can use it. If, however, you know specifically that you are interested in BDLive, Youtube, Netflix, or other online features you can probably pass this up for something else that might be nearly as affordable. Rest assured though, you WILL be able to play any Blu Ray movie with it. Firmware updates Are available, and it's very easy to do.

Apparently there is an incompatability with some newer BD's (ex. Disney's Bed Time Stories. Other people are having the same problem. A firmware update is supposed to fix the problem. Player is made by Funai, but no firmware for the Magnavox model yet. No mention of player on Magnavox web site.
Inexpensive and adequate for most BD's.

I have had great luck with this Blu-ray player and got a great deal on it over the holidays. I would definitely recommend it and may even buy another one for the other room in my house. Last night a recent disc (Inglorious Basterds) refused to play past the menu screen. Seems that a few other reviewers on here have had the same experience. I was told that I needed to update the firmware and after a few wasted tries (and a few wasted discs) with a file I got from Magnavox's website I called customer support. It turns out that the file can be found on the following website: [...] Put your mouse over the '+firmwares' title at the top of the page and click on 'download firmwares'. You'll see the model number listed about halfway down the list. Left click and save to your desktop. You'll need to extract the file, so go to the folder and right click and choose 'Extract All', I saved the extracted file to my desktop as well. You'll then need to copy it to a DVD. I'm using Vista, so I popped in a DVD+R, navigated to the disc drive from My Computer, dragged the file to it, clicked yes to format disc, let it copy, then clicked eject disc. My computer finalized the DVD+R for me and I put it in the Blu-ray. I got a menu that asked if I wanted to update the firmware, I clicked yes, then waited for about five minutes while the disc ran. Viola! The disc plays just fine now.
Good luck to anyone out there who has been having trouble with this, it's not too tough once you figure it out.

Good basic player, but and it's a big but, Magnavox does not support any firmware updates. That means that you can't update the player and you will not be able to play the new BluRay DVD's. Bottom line don't buy this player if you want to watch movies in the future!!

I purchased this Blu-ray player at a Walmart for $168. I had previously purchased a Phillips BD-Live player for my parents, and decided that I wanted one too. Well they were out, but they had one of these and the price looked great, so I bought it.

I am impressed. There is negligible (if any at all!) difference between my Magnavox and my parents' Phillips. The quality is beyond excellent, the sound, the compatibility, comparable to the higher end Phillips. The only thing missing from this Blu-ray player is the ethernet port, but you can also update Blu-ray players with a DVD or an SD card, and yes, this Blu-ray player has an SD card port.

So I popped in "Twister" on Blu-ray, one of my favorite movies, and was astonished at the picture quality. Absolutely gorgeous color, sharp, crisp images and clear as crystal sound. I feel like I got this Blu-ray player at a steal considering the price listed here. I am very pleased with it, and plan on purchasing the new Star Trek movie when it finally arrives on Blu-ray (and out of the theater, but I'm impatient like that!). Highly recommended for those of us on a budget!

~J.W.

I'll make this plain and simple. I have had zero problems with this player. I have yet to experience a disc that will not play in it, new releases included. Wolverine, Sleeping Beauty, Up, Gladiator and Braveheart for example.

Quick facts:
-It looks good
-Loads quickly
-Outputs 1080p video
-Decodes DTS-HD and TrueHD audio
-Has a good remote
-Upconverts standard dvd's very well
-Awesome price

About Internet connectivity:
I believe it was a smart choice in fact to not include an ethernet port as it seems that many players that do have one seem to have more problems playing movies. I've seen many complaints from people who couldn't get discs to play on their expensive players that had no problems on mine. From my understanding, as long as there is some internal memory inside the player, it doesn't need internet capability. The memory allows the disc to load up, then it's ready to go. The internet feature is for firmware updates for players that need it and extras on the movie that require it. A firmware update is still possible for this player though. Just go to the Magnavox website, find the updates, find your player, download it, burn it to a disc, and insert it in your player. I still haven't found the need to do this but it's possible if it's ever required.

To sum it up. I picked this one up for $98 at Walmart. A few weeks ago, it came back for $89. If you can get it, get it. It's a great value player that'll get you enjoying hi def audio and video without breaking the bank. If your not interested in web enabled extras on discs (like me), why pay more? Highly Recommended.

12/23/09 Update: I decided to give the Nb530mgx a real test for any doubters or nay sayers out there. I just purchased Terminator 2: Skynet Edition, which has been notorious for not working on newer, more expensive, internet capable Blu Ray players. Many have said it'll only work on a profile 2.0 player or that you need a code for a profile 1.0 player. The Nb530mgx is a profile 1.1 player and it booted up and played just fine. No firmware update or code needed. It took a couple minutes to pull up a message stating that it knows I don't have a profile 2.0 that's not connected to the internet. That I should get one to take advantage of all the features but that it'll load up anyway. It took another minute and filled in 3 triangles on the same screen and I was at the main menu. I went straight to the extended version, pressed play and it started up as normal. So there you have it, you don't need to spend alot for a quality player. I state this again, if you can find this one out there, get it.