Floodboy

Sony Blu Ray its the muts nuts

P1Fanatic

Got a PS3 a couple of months back and after Xmas have 6 blu-ray films which isnt much but I hadnt bought many DVD's in the last couple of years.

Watched Ratatouille (sp?) on sat with the mrs and the pic was spot on. Could see every single hair on Remy's body.

Like someone said above with the price coming further down and offers on play etc for 3 for £30 I wont be buying any DVD's other than stuff that is only on DVD (like entourage series 4 I just ordered).

Simon

IWatkins

I recently replaced all my AV gear (except the excellent KEF 5.1 setup I have) to all Samsung stuff, TV, AMP and Blu-Ray player.

Love the setup for the ease of use, put in a blu-ray or DVD and the TV chnages to the correct channel, the amp fires up and the player starts playing. Turn off the player afterwards and it shuts off the amp as well. Oh and everything through a single remote. Nice.

The player upscales DVDs very well so you actually gain an improvemnt in picture quality my old DVD player couldn't do, so mt DVD collection, around 100+ discs has a new lease of life and are slowly being rewatched. So still happy to buy DVDs although tend towards Blu-ray if I can get it.

Not really planning to replace many DVDs with Blu-ray though, although I did do so for Band of Brothers (and very much worth it).

Only have about 15 Blu-ray discs so far, but none of them have been pups. Most recent was the Dark Knight and that was fabulous.

Cheers

Ian

Geezer

DVDs do not have info that DVD players cannot use! Most base material has more info than a DVD can display, that is why Blu-Ray is better, it can show more of the original.

Upscalers guess, and they do a pretty good job of it, but if you watch an upscaled and a Blu-Ray of the same film, the difference is obvious, and not just in the detail, but the richness of the colours too.

That said, until the price of Blu-Ray comes down, I will still buy DVD.

Geezer

Mitchy260

Are the Blu ray players in the PS3 any good, or just a cheap compromise?

Im sure i read somewhere that they are not upto much when in comparison to their £500 rivals??

Deep Singh

The ps3 has a fairly good BR player in it. The only problems are that it is noisy due to the fan, runs hot and can only output sound through pcm not bitstream (some say this is not such a big real world difference).

You don't need to spend £500 on a BR player, something like the Panasonic BD30 is about £230 and is fantastic. Only problem with it is that it can't play multi region DVDs.

Iain Young

You can get a Sony BDPS350 for around £175 with multi-region dvd playback, and firmware upgradable etc. Get a much better picture from it than you do from the PS3 as well for half the price

Sony BDPS350B : MultiRegion - £174.89

wayne9t9

Thats what I thought, but I still dont get if blu ray is different to HD ?

Iain Young

No. Blu-ray is HD.

judgejules

Dont mix HD up with HD DVD. It can usually be worked out what someone is talking about by the context/content of their sentence.

BD = Blu-ray Disc
HD = High Definition or can be short for HD DVD

BD is not HD DVD
BD = High Definition when talking about picture/sound quality

BD is different to HD DVD, its just the type of disc that the High Def movie is stored on, but you cant play a HD movie (as in HD DVD) on a BD player.

BD = Blue case
HD = Brown case and no long being produced

Clear as mud?

Iain Young

Actually that's not quite correct

HD has nothing to do with the format of the disc. It is to do with the resolution of the picture/screen. There are essentially two major formats. SD (standard definition) and HD (high definition). SD is your normal old school tv, and HD is the new stuff.

Within HD, there are few different specifications. 720p, 1080i, 1080p etc. Basically these are all high definition specifications, and refer to the number of "lines" being displayed on the screen. The higher the better (and more expensive the tv).

Blu-ray vs HD-dvd is a different thing altogether. They are essentially different format discs used to deliver the high definition video to your tv. The actual video displayed is the same. the hd-dvd format is now dead, and blu-ray is now the only format disc available to deliver the video to your telly.

So in summary...

• HD - High definition
• SD - Standard definition
• Blu-ray - HD video on a Sony formatted disc
• HD-dvd - HD video on a Toshiba formatted disc (and now defunct)

Note you can also download HD video to your xbox 360 or PS3 (without using any discs at all).

Think that about covers it

kbsub

Actually that's not quite correct , But I suspect your hatred of the PS3 as something to do with your opinion.

Iain Young

Owning both machines (a PS3 and a Sony BDPS350) I can quite categorically say that the standalone player delivers a better picture and is much quieter in operation. Tested using the same tv and the same hdmi cable. So there

p.s. If I hated the PS3 why would I a) own one and b) have spent the last two days playing on the thing (check my PSN user id if you don't believe me)? You PS3 fanboys really can't take any criticism of your beloved machine can you

Daryl

The PS3 works well as a BD player and, if you want to play games as well, makes perfect sense.

If you don't want to play games, get a dedicated player.

kbsub

Firstly I'm not a PS3 fanboy infact I have been thinking about selling it for a standalone (Panasonic BDP55) I hardly ever play games on any machine. But you only have to look around the web and see that the PS3 STILL stands up well against any standalone, I've yet to read any review that says this standalone produces a much better picture than the PS3 as you put it .

I suspect your mind was made up about the PQ long before you turned the Sony BDP 350 on

Iain Young

Of course it was. That's why I bought the standalone player

Interestingly, I'm not the only person to notice the improved picture, (especially on upscaled dvds, but also on blu-ray discs). My brother commented on it the other day, and after seeing mine, has now gone out and bought the standalone unit as well

I've heard that Sony do use a very "cheap" laser in the PS3, so perhaps that may be some of the reason for the PQ differences. In any case ignoring that, the standalone unit is much quieter than the PS3, so it's worth it for that alone

SlimJ_2005

Buy it from Amazon and get 3 extra Blu-Ray movies thrown in for free

Sony BDPS350 Blu-ray Disc Player 1080p Full HD: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

Also 2 free Blu-Ray movies redeemable in the box (Casino Royale and Batman Begins).

Bargain!

Iain Young

Certainly is. The Amazon one isn't a multi-region dvd player though.

Ant

I'm going to buy this model tommorrow just got rid of my PS3 ( as i dont use it enough for gaming).

and im off work all week can't wait.

so i'll be able to give a opinion tommorrow about difference (PS3) in quality tommorrow.

SlimJ_2005

It's hackable by remote apparently!

Need an all in one jobbie though, something like a Logitech Harmony One. Harmony Remote Multiregion DVD Hack for Panasonic, Pioneer & Sony Blu-rays - AVForums.com