New to Blu? Buy a PS3: the most featured BD hardware available... (1 Viewer)

[TonyD]

and how to do it.

 

[DavidJ]

Wow that BD50 sounds (and looks) like a great player. Add me to the chorus of those who tout and are impressed with the PS3 as a Blu-ray player and until a week ago I would have called myself problem free, but...

My PS3 no longer plays PS3 game discs. :frowning: It will play PS2 games, DVDs and strangely enough Blu-Ray movies. I say strangely enough because there have been limited reports of complete drive failures or Blu-ray failures. It is weird that my problem is just with PS3 games. I will be shipping it to Sony soon and they are doing the repair under warranty even though it has been just over a year-- good for them.

BTW, I haven't done the drive upgrade, but every thing I have read seems to indicate it is super easy.

 

[Shane Martin]

The owners manual spells it out for you.

 

[KurtEP]

Well, I just did it. It only took about five minutes. The only hard part was loosening the screws. Now I have a 120 GB model.

 

[Anthony GT]

That makes my player decision very hard. No analogue outs mean I have to upgrade my receiver.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

The Panny 50 has 7.1 analog out and internal decoding for all advanced audio (as well as HDMI 1.3 bitstreaming). That would take care of every possible connection need.

 

[Carlo_M]

Wow, good news. That will make the product very tempting to me, as my current receiver does not do TrueHD/DTS-MA/5.1 PCM over optical, and has no HDMI inputs.

Of course I'm itching to upgrade the receiver as well, and if the BD player costs are too high I may decide to stick with my PS3 and upgrade my receiver over the summer (assuming Sony/DTS come to an agreement over DTS-MA bitstream through the PS3's HDMI output).

 

[MarkHarrison]

Thanks DaViD! I was already considering the PS3 for a Blu-ray player, but your post answered all the little questions I was unsure about. And I'm sure my 10 year old won't complain either.

I'm thinking of picking up the 40GB model tonight. And this morning I picked up The Fifth Element (remastered edition), A Clockwork Orange and Lost: Season 3 from Amazon. I also picked up the Nyko remote so I can control it with my universal remote and not have to mess with a second remote.

I was planning on doing this anyway, but the Warner news just made me jump a month or two sooner than I had planned.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Carlo,

I just got the Marantz 8002 which is HDMI 1.3, does internal advanced audio decoding, and sounds BETTER than my highly-regarded B&K receiver I had prior. Mark my words, this thing will outperform Denon, Onkyo, Pioneer, and Yamaha. I'm amazed how "high end" the sound is... and online you can get the 8002 for under $1600.

 

[Carlo_M]

Hi David,

Wow, talk about tempting...I think I'm going to wait one more gen of products. I've read quite a bit over at AVS about various problems that this first batch of HDMI 1.3 switching receivers (from all manufacturers) that I'd like to wait until they iron out these bugs. I have no doubts they'll do so in short order. Maybe this summer.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

I am not knowing the Marantz as it's a great unit, but the Marantz and the Denon are owned by the same parent company and share a lot of common parts, thus will most likely sound the same. The featureset of the 8002 puts it right between the Denon 3808 and the 4308. I actually think featurewise the Denon 3808 is a better buy and for a small fee can be upgraded to include the equivilent of the $2000 stand alone Audyssey Pro processer. Out perform Pioneer and Yamaha? Yep. But I'd put your Marantz up against my Denon and I don't think you would be able to tell the difference as long as I have Audyssey deactivated. With Audyssey turned on I bet the Denon would win hands down.

 

[Ron Reda]

I just put an order in on the Integra DTC 9.8 pre/pro for that same price and it does it all! I'm REALLY looking forward to hearing all of the new formats through this baby!

Integra Delivers Powerful DTV-9.8 Preamplifier/Processor

Integra DTC-9.8 THX Ultra2 7.1 SSP | Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity

SoundStageAV.com Archives - Review: Integra DTC-9.8 Audio/Video Processor

 

[DaViD Boulet]

They don't, and their internal design is very different (and the do not share many common parts, this is a common misunderstanding).

I sold Onkyo, Denon, and Pioneer (and had a top-denon receiver I traded back for my B&K which sounded vastly superior). Having heard all of them (and owned several), I can assure you that the sound quality of the Marantz 8002 is in league above any of these others.

 

[Adam_R]

I fully agree with David. The PS3 is the best choice for MANY reasons.

How about a BD player that has a web browser, plays games, stored high def video on a HDD, has chat, both text and video, is future proof, yada yada, so on and so forth. It's an incredibly capable machine for $400.

Also - I made the mistake of buying a 360 add-on HD DVD player. It's a complete hunk of **** if you care at all about new sound formats. I was uninformed when I made the purchase and regret it. Not only that, but the 360 running sounds like a plane taking off and is HIGHLY annoying while watching a film.

 

[RobertR]

That is good news. I'm glad Panasonic is doing that instead of taking a "we'll make you use HDMI, and we've don't care if you don't like it" attitude that some on here have suggested is ok with them.

 

[RobertR]

And I gave them to you. Sorry if I came across as grouchy, Tony, but I seemed to detect a "how could anyone possibly object to the weaknesses of a game console" attitude in your posts (it seems clear that you and everyone else was aware of those weaknesses before my post). That's why I made the "why should set top makers even bother" remark. Now you know why the thing is unacceptable to me. Period.

 

[Carlo_M]

I'm with you Robert, the Panny DMP50 looks good, as long as it's reasonably priced. If the $599 is true, it should probably street for $100 or so less (via online options). If it really was BD 2.0 and internally decoded TrueHD/DTS-MA and output them through the 7.1 outputs (along with lossless 5.1), this would save me tremendously in not having to update my receiver. That alone would justify a higher price tag. Then my PS3 would become my bedroom BD player

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Does the PS3 have component outputs? From what I can see there's some kind of cobbled together thing that you have to buy extra--is anyone using that effectively?

And am I reading this correctly that it won't output DD+ over optical?

 

[KurtEP]

I'm using it with no problems. It looks great. I think I had to buy it separately, but it was a few months ago and I'm no longer sure.

 

[RobertR]

Good point, Carlo. $599 is more than my $499 benchmark, but if it lets me keep my Anthem AVM 30, it's worth it.