Blu-Ray Player choice....

gonda

gonda

gonda

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Morning chaps,

Hoping some of you in the know with regards to Blu-Ray players could perhaps give me your opinions on which to go for out of the Samsung BD-P4600 @£180 or the LG BD370 @£140.

Have read various reviews on the net, but still unsure which to go for really - the LG sounds very solid, but the Samsung is that little bit more pleasing on the eye, and would go well with my Samsung 40"er.

Any thoughts will be much appreciated!
 
According my mate whos a member on here the Samsung BD-P1580 is a good BR player. He got it from Blockbuster. Its going for £129 plus 3 BR movies.

The things he said about it are promising as I am looking into getting a new BR player myself after my ex took the one we had. The Samsung 1580 supports DD and DTS master audio which is the most important thing.

Maybe its worth reading up on this player too.

 
Samsung: http://www.whathifi.com/Review/Samsung-BD-P4600/
LG: http://www.whathifi.com/Review/LG-BD-370/

I'm not sure if you pay any attention to WHF, but it's often a good place to start to make a shortlist. The Sony players are hard to beat below £200 (the current sub-£200s are the BDP-S360 or BDP-S363) and of course for about £250 you could be in PS3 territory where suddenly it becomes the only choice.

I'm not sure what you know about BR already, but if you have an HD-decoding amp which will handle bitstreamed audio, then make sure the player you pick up has this ability over HDMI (most do). If you have an older amp with analogue inputs then make sure the player you pick up can decode the HD formats and output over analogue. You usally have to pay a bit more for a mid-range player to get into this territory. If you're just hooking it up to your telly for the picture then this is less important, but it might be something to consider by way of future-proofing yourself. For me, HD-audio is a more important aspect of BR vs DVD than picture quality, particularly for concert/music disks.
 
the 1580 can be had for £90 if you look around. I didn't buy one as samsung have a shocking record on them breaking.

Sony S360 is a good shout. I personally bought a panasonic BD60.

The converting HD audio trick to DTS is not worth worrying about has like 90% of blu-rays use DTS-HD, which has a DTS stream already in it.
 
my bro bought my rents a 1580 for xmas and it is fine blu ray player - had no issues with it - also they have a Samsung LCD so it integrates well with it uisng Anynet. also i think you can find them for as low as £70 new if you look around. It is comparable to any LG, Panassonic, Sony etc... - so I wouldn't worry about which you choose tbh. In the end it depends what you want (wifi, upsacling DVD etc...). There really isnt any real difference in audio and PQ for blu rays between any players expensive or not. I personally have a Pionneer Blu Ray player which is more expensive and will not pretend it has superior PQ and AQ for blu rays, it may be better for upscaling DVD and for audio CDs; but If you wish to listen to audio CD then I think a dedicated CD player will be better than any BDP player, since they will load audio discs a lot faster ;)
 
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Oxy said:
The converting HD audio trick to DTS is not worth worrying about has like 90% of blu-rays use DTS-HD, which has a DTS stream already in it.
Click to expand...

If that was in response to me... I meant players which take the HD audio track, decode it themselves and output the HD audio over analogue outputs. This is a slightly different thing.
 
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