BluRay player?

ramdor

ramdor

ramdor

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22 May 2003
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I am thinking about getting a bluray player of some description. Anyone got any advice on which ones to look at, and is a ps3 a viable option for a player or are there some issues with it?

Cheers !
 
Get the ps3 unless you want a front display.
Its cheap(ish) compared to the other players, its quick at loading the movies.
Its also more future proof than the rest because it can do the new profile 1.1(google it) with a simple firmware upgrade.

The only downside is that it needs a hdmi amp to listen to the 5.1 (or 7.1) loseless sound formats.
 
The only other things I can think of for not buying a PS3 are:
- It cannot play multi-region SD-DVDs, which at least one standalone player can
- No 5.1 analogue outputs
- Runs hotter than most standalones
If the above are not significant issues for yourself, the PS3 really is a no brainer. Everything I've read about BD players infers that if you compare firmware patched players, that there is VERY little in it between the various units on image quality.
 
I just got a PS3 for movie playback.

The drawbacks are this :

1: It runs hotter than the sun
2: It uses a stunning amount of electricity (circa 200w)
3: It is not silent, mine may be a 'noisy' one so i am getting it swapped but as is it is not 360 loud but still too loud to be a dvd/BD player

On the upside, 1080p/24 is staggeringly good - silky smooth and a joy to watch. I use a 720p Panny plasma and the PS3 wipes the floor with the HD-DVD add on for PQ and @ 24 it is silky smooth.
 
Shimmyhill said:
I use a 720p Panny plasma and the PS3 wipes the floor with the HD-DVD add on for PQ and @ 24 it is silky smooth.
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but arnt both BD and HD-DVD using the same or similar video codecs?? which would make the pic quality pretty similar? only if you compared Pirates of the Caribbean on BD or something (I hear this is one of the best high def films in terms of pic quality for both formats) to a HD-DVD of particularly poor quality would it come close to wiping the floor with it, and even then I wonder if their will be THAT much difference

Of course it will vary with every film as some are shockingly bad transfers but others are pretty good like Serenity and King Kong were for HD-DVD and like Pirates of the Caribbean is at the min for BD
 
cokecan72 said:
but arnt both BD and HD-DVD using the same or similar video codecs?? which would make the pic quality pretty similar? only if you compared Pirates of the Caribbean on BD or something (I hear this is one of the best high def films in terms of pic quality for both formats) to a HD-DVD of particularly poor quality would it come close to wiping the floor with it, and even then I wonder if their will be THAT much difference

Of course it will vary with every film as some are shockingly bad transfers but others are pretty good like Serenity and King Kong were for HD-DVD and like Pirates of the Caribbean is at the min for BD
Click to expand...

The 360 IMO has very poor analogue outputs, VGA is sharper but with terrible colours/contrast. I also found the motion to be better on the PS3 regardless of the 24hz(at 24 it is obv silky smooth) I was comparing the 360 add on to the PS3 really not hd-dvd to Blu-ray.

Playing movies @24hz is the only useful thing the ps3 does currently but it does it well bar the noise !
 
the 360 hd-dvd addon doesnt dictate the final output quality. It's a bit misleading saying the ps3 wipes the floor with it. What you're really saying is that your ps3 wipes the floor with your 360's outputs. i have the 360 hd-dvd drive connected up to my pc and output via vga to my tv. its not far of the ps3 at all but the ps3 does has the edge in detail, vibrancy and contrast.
 
james.miller said:
the 360 hd-dvd addon doesnt dictate the final output quality. It's a bit misleading saying the ps3 wipes the floor with it. What you're really saying is that your ps3 wipes the floor with your 360's outputs. i have the 360 hd-dvd drive connected up to my pc and output via vga to my tv. its not far of the ps3 at all but the ps3 does has the edge in detail, vibrancy and contrast.
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Indeed, i do blame the 360 for the output quality. I will get a hd-dvd standalone but only when they get an XE1 quality player without the noise. The E1 does a good job but i want the 1080p/24 and better disc recognition. (had some discs not play, updates required, glitches on some discs)

This is not to say Blu-ray is any better, if anything it's more of a mess then HD-DVD. Both formats have plenty of issues. We should have stuck with DTheatre ;)
 
ah i get ya now :)

and yes i also agree that the 360's outputs are some what...lacking compared to the ps3 in terms of quality

I have the hd-dvd add on connected to my PC and outputting via DVI to my projector, gives fantastic results, id actually say noticably better than the 360 via VGA but no idea how it compares to a ps3

ever so slightly stealing the thread but.....has anyone tried them new pioneer DVD-RW and BD combi drives? i've been thinking about getting one as it seems like quite a good cheap alternative to a ps3 or stand alone player at around £150, will also suit my HTPC and surely pic quality wise will be mostly down to PC hardware, software and connection to the screen?
 
cokecan72 said:
ever so slightly stealing the thread but.....has anyone tried them new pioneer DVD-RW and BD combi drives? i've been thinking about getting one as it seems like quite a good cheap alternative to a ps3 or stand alone player at around £150, will also suit my HTPC and surely pic quality wise will be mostly down to PC hardware, software and connection to the screen?
Click to expand...

That is what I have decided to go for at the moment. Think i'll pick up one of the combis and a 360-hd drive and connect them both to the htpc.

Richie.
 
It's hard to go for another Blu-ray player when the PS3 does the job as well if not better than the best players out there.
 
ramdor said:
That is what I have decided to go for at the moment. Think i'll pick up one of the combis and a 360-hd drive and connect them both to the htpc.

Richie.
Click to expand...

I went for the Pioneer drive and it works great. Watched '300' on the Sony 40" and it looked fabulous, once you allow for the grainy artistic style of the film. The drive is well recommended and a cheap way to get into blu-ray.

As far as HD-DVD goes there's an internal drive from Toshiba available for slightly cheaper than the 360 add-on. I might pick this up depending on how things pan out. If Universal start releasing films in blu-ray I might not bother.
 
lol i mutilated my 360's hd-dvd drive to fit in my HTPC's chassis (the drive it self is actually smaller than a normal cd drive). it also runs off a 12v molex now and onboard USB headers :)

May pick one of them bd drives up at some point then
 
The PS3 is easier to update than the Samsung BDP1000 which was our first BD player (now relegated to the bedroom) as it just finds our wireless router. It may just be perception but the playback (PQ and SQ) seems slightly better than the Sammy.

Downside to the PS3 is that you need to negotiate Sony's menu system to play discs and if you've been gaming on the TV need to manually switch the sound output across to the 5:1 optical out to the AV amp. It is also rather noisy.

Purely IMHO I would avoid HD-DVD until Toshiba get their act together. The format suffers from unreliable hardware and temperemental software! Frequent picture freezes or sound drop outs are not the best movie watching experience. Just sold our HD-DVD player and discs to concentrate on BD.
 
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