Why would anyone who is thinking about buying a bluray player not go with the ps3? PS3 is $500 and the cheapest blurays are about the same price. I want one and am thinking of buying the PS3 just so I have a bluray and another gaming system.
I have a PS3 and from everything I hear it's a very good BluRay player, I don't have any complaints when I'm playing movies
Right now there is no reason. Profile 1.1 players won't be out until later this year. The PS3 is the only current player that has a shot of being upgraded via a firmware update to meet the new spec - I doubt any of the current players have the 256 MB of storage space and the 2nd video decoder that are mandated in 1.1. I use my PS3 for Blu-ray playback on my HDTV and it's been a great player. I also own a Toshiba HD-A1 for HD DVD and it's slow and clunky in comparison.
PS3 is getting a TV tuner making it a legit DVR. Another reason to go with PS3, even if you aren't a gamer.
i don't like playing movies on videogame consoles because i worry it might damage the drive over the long haul. i'd rather have a standalone player. that said, i'd get the ps3. getting a standalone dvd player in addition to a console is like another 50 bucks. getting a bluray player is significantly more.
i have the samsung bdp-1200 as my blu-ray player and absolutely love it. I got a great deal on it through working the system but i think the retail on this player has recently dropped to 600 from its original 800 msrp. it has a lot of great features and upconverts beautifully standard dvds. whats also great about it is that is has a built in rj-45 connection so upgrading the firmware on it is a complete snap and painless. its hdmi 1.3 and does a 1080p/24fps output if your tv supports it (unfortunately not many do just yet) the only downside is that it doesnt demux some of the higher end (like dts-hd and true dolby? ) audio but that may not be a issue for most people like myself who dont own (yet!) a 1000+ receiver than can decode it. Also once the hdmi 1.3 is set then you wont need the player to decode it anyway since the audio would just be sent to your A/V receiver to be decoded. Personally I am hoping by the end of next year (early 09 maybe) the price of these 1500-2000 A/V receivers will be dropped like crazy so an average shmuck like me can pick one up without totally screwing himself over. all this being said i think the samsung i have above is one of the first 2nd gen blu-ray standalone and one of the best features it has is one of the stronger features of the ps3 "blu-ray player" in that its really easy to upgrade the firmware with the built in rj-45 port. i got mine bdp-1200 about 2 months ago cheaper than the new ps3 price tag, but if i had to choose between the two at the same price i would probably still go with the sammy because i prefer an actual player and it has some abilities that i dont think the ps3 will have. plus it looks a bit awkward to have a "home theater" where the center piece is a gaming console. i dont play too many games anyway so the whole "you can play games on it" isnt a huge selling point for me.
You don't really need a receiver with HDMI 1.3. My older receiver has 2 HDMI inputs. The PS3 and Toshiba HD DVD player I have decode Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus soundtracks and output them via HDMI as multichannel PCM. Full, lossless quality. Almost any player I can think of can do this. Indeed, many Blu-ray disks such as The Departed and the Pirates movies use PCM for the lossless soundtrack, bypassing the new codecs altogether. Most players don't decode DTS-HD yet, although that's expected to be a future update for the PS3 at least. HDMI 1.3 comes into play if you want your 1.3 player to output DD TrueHD or one of the newer codecs as bitstream so that your 1.3 receiver can do the decoding instead of the player. In the end, there's no real difference, so I'm taking advantage of the better sound now instead of waiting to purchase a more expensive receiver for no actual gain in capabilities. Here's a post with a bit more info. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=789994 "Official" "Why you don't need HDMI 1.3" thread (I edited this thread to append a post by Bob P. on the ins and outs of HDMI audio. This was done because it's an excellent explanation of a topic many are confused about - and is directly relevant to the intent of this thread. I apologize for the length of this first post. If we ever sticky his post, we can move it out of this post. Orignal Thread ) With the advent of high definition optical players (Blu-ray and HD DVD,) a number of new audio codecs has been made available. TrueHD and DTS-HD are lossless audio codecs and have higher fidelity than Dolby Digital. Current HD players are designed to decode these internally and can provide the output in three ways. The first way is over HDMI using multi-channel PCM which is sometimes referred to as MCPM (Multi-channel PCM) or LPCM (Linear PCM, referring to the type of PCM used.) Unfortuantely, not all receivers can properly handle 5.1 channel PCM over HDMI, in which case there are two other options, analog outputs and Dolby Digital over S/PDIF (the standard digital connection featured on receivers and used with DVD players.) If you are buying a new receiver for it's ability to handle the new audio codecs, you will want it to be able to properly handle multi-channel PCM over HDMI. Newer HDMI receivers usually do this properly, some older models don't. This thread ("future" proof receivers ) covers that topic. Some newer receivers have HDMI 1.3 along with the ability to decode DTS-HD and TrueHD. This ability is not as useful as it would seem. Firstly, there are no current players can send these as bitstreams (meaning the actual bits stored on the optical disc.) I believe Denon has announced a Blu-ray player that can do this, but no known HD DVD players can do this. Because of a feature on HD DVD called known as advanced content (audio present in menus and such,) players need to be able to decode the soundtrack and mix advanced content audio with it. Which is another reason players provide internal decoding. HDMI 1.3 also has the ability to support a feature called Deep Color. There are no current sources of Deep Color. Another HDMI 1.3 feature xvYCC will probably not see wide adoption. Sony is using this in some high definition camcorders (they call it xv.color). If you have an camcorder with xv.color and a display with xv.color, a receiver which pass this information over HDMI 1.3 could be useful to you. HDMI 1.3, along with the other versions contains many optional features, so when shopping for HDMI 1.3 products you have to read the specifications to see which of the various features is implemented. This led to some confusion regarding the ability to pass 1080p. Many HDMI 1.1 receivers did not pass 1080p even though the spec allowed for it. I am not trying to steer people away from buying HDMI 1.3 receivers, and they will become more common. Instead, the my purpose is to educate buyers on what HDMI 1.3 will and won't do for them. In summary: * You don't need HDMI 1.3 to take advantage of Dolby True HD * You don't need HDMI 1.3 to take advantage of Dolby Digital Plus * You don't need HDMI 1.3 to take advantage of DTS-HD Master Audio * While you do need HDMI 1.3 to take advantage of Deep Color, there are no imminent sources for Deep Color * A small number of people might want xvYCC * HDMI 1.3 receivers don't HAVE to decode the new audio formats, and even if they do, players that can send the formats via bitstream aren't available yet (and for HD DVD may never be available) * Some of the new HDMI 1.3 receivers pass 1080p24 and 1080p60, but that's because 1080p sets are becoming more common, HDMI 1.1 allowed for 1080p
That's probably the best reason to not use a PS3 as a Blu-ray player, although as you said, it doesn't really matter much when other players are still expensive. I've been testing out some Blu-ray movies recently on my PS3, and I haven't had any complaints (thought I might not like the load times, but they seem to be about 20-25 seconds or so from the movies I've watched). Upscaled DVDs also look very good on the PS3, given the source. To be fair, I don't really have the equipment to check out everything it is capable of doing (no sound system, no 1080p/24fps TV, no SACD discs, no Wi-Fi to test media streaming or remote play, etc.), but I've read positive things about how it compares to other players in those areas. Just out of curiosity, what are some of those abilities? I haven't really followed what some of the other players might be capable of doing that the PS3 might be incapable of doing.
come on Cola, you need to upgrade your TV, how can you the video game man without the best TV? oh by the way, its a myth that the PS3 is the cheapest Bluray player. http://www.guidetohometheater.com/news/051908bluray/ Blu-ray Player Prices Falling By Scott Wilkinson May 19, 2008 — It seems that predictions of higher Blu-ray player prices now that the HD DVD competition has been eliminated are somewhat unfounded. Wal-Mart just announced it will sell a Magnavox-branded Blu-ray player for under $300 starting May 26. The NB500MG9, which is built by Funai, will conform to BD Profile 1.1 with picture-in-picture functionality. The same player will also be sold by Best Buy under the company's Insignia house brand starting in July. However, the price will be around $350, which is still less than the least-expensive PS3 at $400. Despite Blu-ray's victory over HD DVD, the format's real competition is good ol' DVD, which offers much less-expensive players and media that many consumers say is good enough, even on their new HDTVs. In my opinion, anyone who takes that position has never seen Blu-ray in all its glory; nevertheless, this remains the biggest hurdle to widespread adoption of the new format. The announcements from Wal-Mart and Best Buy could help Blu-ray meet the challenge of DVD, as long as disc prices start falling as well.
DVD player... WTF? Do you live in the 1900's ? Expensive??? Aren't you a company owner? You can't be serious. WTF are you putting in the drive... LIQUIDS? FOOD? Your reasoning makes no sense, man. How in the heck could you POSSIBLY damage a drive where all you do is SLIDE a freakin' 1/10th of an INCH thick piece of circular plastic?!?!? I don't get it. I am saving up to buy me one... but all I see is the freakin' 40GB models and I can't play my old PS2 and PS1 games.
Agreed...I bought my tv (mitsu) and receiver (onkyo), both which have 1.3 to future proof my system, Deep Color (xv)...Nothing is out now, but when it does come out, I'll be prepared...I don't get why anyone would not buy a ps3, even if you don't game (which you should)...
The 80gb was discontinued temporarily. It will be re-released in June with a new game (I think Metal Gear Solid.) Just hang on. I'm waiting as well. Edit: My question about it is will it negatively impact the PS3's life span by any significant amount?
The fact the PS3 can be updated via the internet is what sold me on it. I absolutely love it, and do not own a single video game for it. That is what my xbox 360 is for, I use the PS3 strictly for movies.
Haha seriously. It reminds me of a story my friend told me when he was a kid. He tried to feed the VCR a PB&J Sandwich. Hilarity ensued.
Oh sorry i stopped looking at this thread a while ago i bought a ps3 now and gave away my bdp-1200 not because i didnt like it. the biggest reason why i had to pass it on was Samsung decided to stop supporting the system despite its easy upgrade features via RJ45 connection. It was not going to get a profile 2.0 support. the biggest drop off for me was the upconversion while the ps3 is admirable the reon chip inside the bdp made it the best upconverter out there along with the toshiba models with the same chip in it. Its noticeable to the differences in the upconversion. If it wasnt for the fact that I am buying less and less dvds and more hd media I would have nevered bothered with the ps3. only reason why I got the ps3 was the reason why I had to ditch the bdp. Support. In the future if any feature profile upgrades/features come out for blu-ray, I am damn sure Sony is going to have it available for the ps3 which is like anywhere from 70-80% of the blu-ray player base right now. I think the ps3 was the first player to have profile 2.0 released for it (i could be wrong though)
The PS3 is the cheapest and most effective Profile 2.0 player out there. Oh, and it plays video games as a nice little added bonus. With the recent firmware update that enabled DTS-HD MA decoding, there's no reason to not get the PS3 as your Blu-ray player provided you have a HDMI receiver.
Wait...don't you still need a receiver which is DTS-HD sound capable? I have one of those receivers. I thought the PS3 would just pass the signal and the receiver would decode it. But, you seem to be saying the PS3 decodes it.
The PS3 decodes it and passes the PCM signal to the receiver. The PS3 actually can't pass the DTS-HD MA track to the receiver for it to decode.
