Stay away from the Insignia Blu-Ray players

[aphex]

I know this should be common sense around these parts, but after spending the day yesterday traipsing through a few different Best Buys looking for the right deal on a TV, I came across one undeniable fact that was confirmed by multiple BB associates, the Insignia Blu-Ray players are pure crap.

As many of you know, BB sets up a small demo "HT" right behind the department registers and historically the HT has been Panny gear (TV, Blu-Ray Player) with some Klipsch speakers. Well in the first store I was at, I noticed they swapped the old Panny 85z with the newer P50S1, I was excited to sit down and watch a bit of Planet Earth blu-ray I noticed it was playing. Immediately I was unimpressed, the colors looked bad, no lines were sharp, the blacks were crushed, the picture looked smudgy, to the point I actually pulled out the disk to check that it was actually Blu-Ray and not an upconverted DVD. I'm not kidding, it looked like SD material. Thats when I noticed, Insignia Blu-Ray player.

Must be the settings I thought, as I go to look to make sure its set up right, the sales guy I kinda know (i've been in the store a bit) notices what I'm doing and says it won't help, he tried too. HDMI cable, TV set fine, Blu-Ray set fine. It just looks like ass, and he confirmed it.

I proceeded to go to 2 more BB's yesterday, both had the Insignia Blu-Ray player installed as well, and ALL looked horrible. One even commented that it makes the S1 look like crap, so its doing a disservice to Panny and making him have a tough time selling the model since they swapped it.

I was under the impression that even a cheap blu-ray player would be better than any dvd player, but wow was I wrong.

 

[BoomerD]

Yeah, in my looking around at TV's, I quickly came to the realization that the Insignia brand was crap. About like "Audiovox" used to be. (or still is if they're still around)

 

[JaYp146]

Insignia is Best Buy's "in house" brand ... always avoid those like the plague.

 

[Slick5150]

Insignia varies wildly by product. They are all rebranded products from other companies. Some are actually quite good (some of their LCD tvs are rebranded LGs for example), some aren't. I've actually read some pretty positive reviews of their newer 2nd gen Blu-Ray player. The 1st was made by Funai and was the same player as Magnavox and Sylvania were selling. The newer one is made by Desay, which I believe also makes Samsung's Blu-Ray players.

So, my point being, I'd suggest there was something else wrong with their setups. The Insignia's aren't the best Blu-Ray players out there (and are notorious for having some incompatibility problems due to BD+), but their picture quality is fine.

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: Slick5150
Insignia varies wildly by product. They are all rebranded products from other companies. Some are actually quite good (some of their LCD tvs are rebranded LGs for example), some aren't. I've actually read some pretty positive reviews of their newer 2nd gen Blu-Ray player. The 1st was made by Funai and was the same player as Magnavox and Sylvania were selling. The newer one is made by Desay, which I believe also makes Samsung's Blu-Ray players.

So, my point being, I'd suggest there was something else wrong with their setups. The Insignia's aren't the best Blu-Ray players out there (and are notorious for having some incompatibility problems due to BD+), but their picture quality is fine.

That's what shocked me as well. Insignia is to Best Buy just as Kenmore is to Sears, all re-branded just for the company, but I really was amazed how bad it looked at the 3 Best Buy's I went to. Could this have possibly been the 1st generation that was placed in all stores? I dunno.

I can't even imagine though what setting could cause it to look so bad though, short of using a composite connection instead of hdmi/component, but the TV was indeed using its HDMI input and nothing seemed awry.

 

[BoomerD]

Re-branded products does not mean the same quality as the original manufacturer's products. All too often, it lacks features or build quality that a person might expect from the original.

T'was a time when "Kenmore" meant Whirlpool with a couple of extra features. Not anymore. Nowadays, Sears lets their appliance contracts to the lowest bidders for most things...and consumer quality has suffered. (remember, Sears is now K-mart owned...and quality has declined.)

 

[JackBurton]

Here was your first red flag, Insignia.

 

[macrosszero]

I quote the gods of retail...

"You get what you paid for..."
and
"If its too good to be true than it usually is."

I do not buy anthing at Worst Buy..

 

[Slick5150]

Originally posted by: macrosszero
I quote the gods of retail...

"You get what you paid for..."
and
"If its too good to be true than it usually is."

I do not buy anthing at Worst Buy..

Very insightful, thanks for that. :roll:

 

[Rio Rebel]

Stay away from Best Buy in general, and you will never see Insignia.

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: Slick5150
Insignia varies wildly by product. They are all rebranded products from other companies. Some are actually quite good (some of their LCD tvs are rebranded LGs for example), some aren't. I've actually read some pretty positive reviews of their newer 2nd gen Blu-Ray player. The 1st was made by Funai and was the same player as Magnavox and Sylvania were selling. The newer one is made by Desay, which I believe also makes Samsung's Blu-Ray players.

So, my point being, I'd suggest there was something else wrong with their setups. The Insignia's aren't the best Blu-Ray players out there (and are notorious for having some incompatibility problems due to BD+), but their picture quality is fine.

This is true. Some of their products are actually pretty good for the price. Many aren't, of course. Same goes for Dynex, another Best Buy in-house brand (I believe).

 

[Shawn]

They video quality shouldn't be much different. Something else was wrong. The probably had it hooked up with a composite cable.

 

[mshan]

Any website that shows who actual manufacturer for various Insignia products is?

 

[hclarkjr]

i have this insignia TV i bought in december. when i bought it i was prepared to buy a samsung or sony based on what i have heard here and other places. when i went to make the buy my local best buy had a section of 37 inch 720P TV's all together which inclused several brands and to me the insignia looked just as good as them at a lower price. i am very happy with it and have had zero problems with it. i have had friends over who have the name brand LCD TV's and they say it has nice picture.

 

[unfalliblekrutch]

Not all insignia products are bad. you just have to be careful and pick out a good one. They are, after all, mostly rebranded products, so some are good. For example, some of their TVs and home audio stuff is pretty good. Their current line of receivers are rebadged sherwoods. The insignia 6.5" carbon fiber bookshelf speakers are the same ones as the Radiiant speakers, except without the extra tweeter. However, I don't know anything about their bluray player

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: Shawn
They video quality shouldn't be much different. Something else was wrong. The probably had it hooked up with a composite cable.

Bingo. I don't think I've ever even heard of a BR-D player that had image quality issues when doing BR-D playback, and that includes a lot of no-name ones. They almost certainly screwed up the connection.

 

[RagingBITCH]

Originally posted by: erwos

Originally posted by: Shawn
They video quality shouldn't be much different. Something else was wrong. The probably had it hooked up with a composite cable.

Bingo. I don't think I've ever even heard of a BR-D player that had image quality issues when doing BR-D playback, and that includes a lot of no-name ones. They almost certainly screwed up the connection.

Yep. I know from shopping around that Insignia is a cheaper brand...but to say it does a piss poor job of even displaying BR content at an acceptable level...well, either it's a defective unit, or more like what you said above, it was hooked up to an inferior source.