What to use as a blu ray player?

jamesgoss

jamesgoss

jamesgoss

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Hi guys,

It's my first foray into the home cinema part of the forums, because I've decided it's time to jump on the blu ray band wagon!

Now, I don't know what to do. These are the 3 options I have come up with:

1) Buy a stand-alone player

2) Buy a ps3 slim as a player + freeview recorder

3) Buy a blu-ray drive for my pc (the only problem for which would be freeing up a SATA port on my motherboard...not an easy task as all are HDDs...)

Obviously, 3) is attractive because of fact it'd be half the price of a stand alone player.

1) and 2) would be easier to use in the sense they're permanently plugged into the TV, and I wouldn't have to drag the movie onto my TV from my pc monitor to watch it (the monitor isn't even HDCP compliant, so movie won't play unless I drag it over to the TV!).

SO I'd like to know what you all think would be the best option for me, with your collective, infinite wisdom :D

James
 
Unless you want the Ps3 games, I'd say get an external blu-ray player; preferably one with LAN connection and HDMI bitstreaming; something like the Panasonic BD series, Sony or Samsungs. They've gone down a lot in price these days, to just a little over £100 to start with; making them much cheaper than a PS3.
The PC variants tend to be a lot more hassle; especially if you get one without player software; not to mention if you do decide to upgrade to HD Audio AV setup in the future; then its much easier to bitstream from a capable BD player with HDMI, than it is to get HD audio working via PC.

Oh as a side note; take a look at sites like High-def Digest. That will help you choose your first films and not be dissapointed by poor picture quality (some Blu-ray and HDDVDs have been very poor; and barely any better than DVD, if not worse).
 
PS3 slim has arrived and with the reduced power usage (<100W) and quiet operation, the new PS3 iteration of the console should be a serious contender if you want a home cinema hub. Plus it bitstreams, which helps give you that astounding feature of a more fancy light on your av receiver :p

Trading in my 60gb phat for one :D
 
I have tried all three options at one point. For me personally using a computer a player was the worst. Just due to the noise and the look of having a computer sitting in your living room. Unless it fits nicely under the TV as a HTPC. Though even then you may want the computer with a different moniter, for when other people are watching TV. Which will be hassle.

I had a standalone Samsung blu-ray player which was excellent. Cheap, quiet and the picture/sound quality was perfect. The arrival of the PS3 slim has moved me to trying that and it is just as good as the standalone. The only problem is its more expensive than some blu-ray players you can get. It all comes down to whether you want to use the ps3 as a games player/media hub? If not then there is no point in getting one.
 
Well, I've got an xbox360 for the games side of things, so it looks like an external player will be the best choice.

I was thinking of nabbing myself the Sony s360. Is it much of an improvement over the s350?
 
I voted with my wallet on a PS3 with PlayTV (and 250GB hard drive upgrade).
Standalones are cheaper, but then you don't get the option of turning it into a PVR or getting a free games machine.

The general feel I get on AVF is that there's virtually nothing in it between most BD players when playing back BD films. Some feel that some standalones can look better than a PS3 on DVD. I did try a comparison between a BD35 and my PS3. They did look a little different, but it turned out to be the fact that the BD35 was slightly brighter. Once I'd compensated for that, couldn't tell any difference.

The PS3 slim gives the option of both LPCM and bitstream. On some receivers owners report that there's a substantial difference. It's interesting how Audiolab and Meridian (amongst others) happily deal with LPCM without suddenly sounding rubbish, implying to me that the afformentioned receivers simply do a shabby job with LPCM.
 
Slightly OT but is there not a chance of the original PS3 being upgraded to send out bitstream? I can't see how it's a hardware limit personally unless it's an upgraded chip.
 
Apparently it is hardware, the PS3's chip apparently only has partial HDMI1.3 compliancy and the HDMI output doesnt support HD audio, so unless they can fix that with some sort of chip firmware we are screwed lol LPCM should be equal unless your amp treats it oddly however.
 
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Alexrose1uk said:
Apparently it is hardware, the PS3's chip apparently only has partial HDMI1.3 compliancy and the HDMI output doesnt support HD audio, so unless they can fix that with some sort of chip firmware we are screwed lol LPCM should be equal unless your amp treats it oddly however.
Click to expand...

It has changed.
 
The problem is the slim is at least £100 more expensive than a decent stand alone player...having an xbox 360 and a decent pc means streaming isn't a problem, so £100 extra is pretty unjustified, for me anyway
 
Don't forget there is another option, put a BD drive in your PC, rip the BD movies to very high quality (or don't compress them at all, if you have the space) and play them back through a media player server, even a mac mini or something will run 1080p output well. That way you can use a media server manager, like FrontRow or Plex, and not have to bother with the discs themselves!
 
fross said:
Don't forget there is another option, put a BD drive in your PC, rip the BD movies to very high quality (or don't compress them at all, if you have the space) and play them back through a media player server, even a mac mini or something will run 1080p output well. That way you can use a media server manager, like FrontRow or Plex, and not have to bother with the discs themselves!
Click to expand...

So every time you want to watch a blu-ray movie you have to wait three hours for it to rip it? And no matter how you rip it, it's bound to be lossy or alter the image to some extent. Doesn't sound like an option at all to me.
 
fross said:
Don't forget there is another option, put a BD drive in your PC, rip the BD movies to very high quality (or don't compress them at all, if you have the space) and play them back through a media player server, even a mac mini or something will run 1080p output well. That way you can use a media server manager, like FrontRow or Plex, and not have to bother with the discs themselves!
Click to expand...

Man, DVDs take long enough to rip! And it's even more hassle than dragging media player onto my tv as extended desktop...And then I'd need terabytes of storage...could get VERY expensive. Popping a disk into a player could save me hours :p

And the main thing: I actually really like discs! Might sound strange but I love having them lined up on my shelf :cool:
 
Robbie G said:
So every time you want to watch a blu-ray movie you have to wait three hours for it to rip it? And no matter how you rip it, it's bound to be lossy or alter the image to some extent. Doesn't sound like an option at all to me.
Click to expand...

You don't have to encode it. You can also do it when you first buy the disc.

I've hundreds of full BD's on my fileserver.
 
I cant warrant getting a ps3 slim when I already have the 80gb version so I'm going the Oppo bdp 831 route. But in your situation I would get the ps3 slim;).
 
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