10.26.2009 — Look out, Roku, there's a new $99 Netflix streamer in town and it comes with a Blu-ray player to boot: the Insignia NS-BRDVD3.

The Insignia unit currently is available for $99 from Best Buy, which owns the brand. That's $50 less than the everyday price.

The product was just a cheap Blu-ray player until it recently added Netflix streaming capabilities (via a free firmware upgrade). Now it competes with Roku's media player, probably the top sub-$100 Netflix products on the market.

Stephen Hopkins, DIY correspondent for Electronic House magazine, writes:

While I wouldn’t expect DVD scaling performance to be much different than past Insignia models (read: mediocre), the point-of-entry and Netflix capabilities make this a very solid deal.

In lieu of a full review, I spent about 20 minutes playing around with one of these hooked up at my local Best Buy and found ergonomics, menu performance, and usability to be quite impressive. Menu functions are responsive and Netflix streaming via Ethernet started quickly and maintained the picture quality I’ve come to expect from most Netflix enabled devices.

One very nice feature not present in most Netflix implementations is the ability to browse the various Watch Instantly categories, not just what you’ve added to your queue from you PC. From my brief hands-on, I would definitely recommend this player for small displays (under 50”), bedrooms, or any application where [high-quality] DVD playback is not going to be the primary function.

Prior to this product, it seems only Windows Media Center offered the full feature set of Netflix Watch Instantly, including the ability to browse categories. The other guys just let you view and select the queues that you set up separately via a PC.

Hopkins reviewed four Netflix streaming products (including Roku) earlier this year.

After trying out the new Insignia product, he concludes, "With so many devices adding Netflix (PS3 coming next month), Roku is going to have to drop prices or add features to stay competitive."

At least Roku is on the ball in the streaming department, with options such as Amazon video on demand and, most recently, MLB.

Insignia NS-BRDVD3 Features

• Blu-ray Disc format compatible
  For high-definition movie playback with resolution up to 5 times greater than DVD.


• Delivers greatly enhanced video performance with standard DVDs
  By upconverting their video resolution to HDTV compliant 720p, 1080i or 1080p via the HDMI interface.


• Plays BD-ROM discs
  Backward compatible with DVD, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD and CD-R/RW discs. Compatible with MP3 and WMA formats.


• Plays Blu-ray media
  That can store up to 50GB of high-definition video and audio.


• Dolby TrueHD decoder
  For high-quality surround sound.


• HDMI output
  Provides an uncompressed all-digital audio/video link for the highest quality connection and supports copy-protected HD broadcast content.


• USB port
  For expanded connectivity options.


• Netflix streaming capability
  Via Ethernet. Firmware update required; Firmware available mid October.


• BD-Live ready
  For access to expanded Blu-ray Disc features.