Eric_Connelly
Second Unit
- Joined
- Nov 25, 1999
- Messages
- 460
Having faith in the impending price drop on the PS3 and the fact CC was giving away a free controller with it(starting today) we took back our HD-DVD player to Costco and picked up a PS3.
My reasons for doing so were partly the $499 PS3 and the BB BD deal. Netflix has been fine but we were getting off schedule because we'd forget to mail them and even their turn around time became slower as time went on.
We bought Crank, it is the one and only BD movie we will buy until prices become more reasonable. We bought it because it was recommended for PQ and SQ.
On HD-DVD we watched Batman Begins, Last Samuri, V for Vendetta, Grand Prix, Serenity, Letters from Iowo Jima and a few others not worth mentioning.
My biggest concern for BD was the audio quality comments. SQ is almost more important to us than PQ. I can say that Batman, V for Vendetta, and Serenity all had superior sound to the one BD we've seen, but it was commented on having superior SQ and being a strict PCM disc, no compression at all.
I can't pinpoint it but something is lacking in the sound, and yes I do have it all setup correctly.
SACD playback is decent and doesn't seem to be effected by the -10db bug which ends up causing me to turn down my subs from where they are set currently, just hair.
I still prefer SACD/CD playback on my Yamaha with an external analog crossover/bass manager.
I'm going to try to get a few of the same movies on BD that I got on HD-DVD to see what the differences are.
Crank on the other hand for PQ beat all of them, by miles IMO. I have some more BD's coming from Netflix until BB puts up their displays.
My other hope for BD is a BD audio format since Sony is a SACD supporter and has such a large music collection.
The sound problems don't bother me too much because the good thing is nearly anything on a PS3 can be fixed. The processor is doing all the work so its just software/firmware changes. Hopefully we'll get some more control over the audio shortly. I hear V2 of the firmware will have some EQ functionality.
That all being said, even at $499 I would not buy a stand alone BD player. Its just not cheap enough yet. The PS3 had extra features which made it attractive.
Which brings me to a point about Sony marketing. The PS3 has to be the best thing on the market, marketing in the worst possible way.
Trying to sell a game system at $599 is insane IMO, you get the hardcore people but thats it. A BD player is a good added bonus but what really interested me in the media player abilities and the other OS options.
We have over 30 gigs of photo's and the PQ is outstanding playing them on the TV via a Vista media server off of my PC. We had looked at some of the Roku products so if I factor that in, I was down about $349(499 - the Roku HD picture thingie), factor in the $249 I spent on HD DVD and I'm at a $100 premium. Doesn't sound like a big feature but when your trying to show friends and family pictures, especially ones you just took at a function its great to see them in such high quality on a 61" 1080p display.
That made it logical.
The sound portion of the media server is great but with a lack of being able to play lossless audio I'm not too thrilled with it. Pumping MP3's through the system just doesn't cut it.
If they had in some EQ'ing and lossless playback ability then I'll be very happy with the product.
I can do that through Linux, I already loaded Ubuntu onto another partition but it would be nice to be native to the PS3 OS.
Sony launched the product unfinished I have no doubt and with 1.82 it really improved a lot of things. It is a far better scaler than my Yamaha C950, or my RXV2600. It is also a better DTS/DD decoder than either. We watch the TFE on Superbit and its easily superior to both of those after a few minutes of watching.
Its a fantastic product and from what I've read the processing power hasn't been tapped...but none of these features get mentioned...its worth $499 for its complete package, it may even be worth $599. I was leaning on the fence pretty hard last Sunday but the price drop pushed me all the way.
Once they get their act together and start doing the whole interface for the home thing it'll be a bigger hit. I'd love to see things like when you watch a trailer have the option to buy tickets on line and other cell phone type features that the phone companies have done a great job with.
As they add features and the price will slowly drop it just becomes more and more of a better value.
The game part isn't too bad either
My reasons for doing so were partly the $499 PS3 and the BB BD deal. Netflix has been fine but we were getting off schedule because we'd forget to mail them and even their turn around time became slower as time went on.
We bought Crank, it is the one and only BD movie we will buy until prices become more reasonable. We bought it because it was recommended for PQ and SQ.
On HD-DVD we watched Batman Begins, Last Samuri, V for Vendetta, Grand Prix, Serenity, Letters from Iowo Jima and a few others not worth mentioning.
My biggest concern for BD was the audio quality comments. SQ is almost more important to us than PQ. I can say that Batman, V for Vendetta, and Serenity all had superior sound to the one BD we've seen, but it was commented on having superior SQ and being a strict PCM disc, no compression at all.
I can't pinpoint it but something is lacking in the sound, and yes I do have it all setup correctly.
SACD playback is decent and doesn't seem to be effected by the -10db bug which ends up causing me to turn down my subs from where they are set currently, just hair.
I still prefer SACD/CD playback on my Yamaha with an external analog crossover/bass manager.
I'm going to try to get a few of the same movies on BD that I got on HD-DVD to see what the differences are.
Crank on the other hand for PQ beat all of them, by miles IMO. I have some more BD's coming from Netflix until BB puts up their displays.
My other hope for BD is a BD audio format since Sony is a SACD supporter and has such a large music collection.
The sound problems don't bother me too much because the good thing is nearly anything on a PS3 can be fixed. The processor is doing all the work so its just software/firmware changes. Hopefully we'll get some more control over the audio shortly. I hear V2 of the firmware will have some EQ functionality.
That all being said, even at $499 I would not buy a stand alone BD player. Its just not cheap enough yet. The PS3 had extra features which made it attractive.
Which brings me to a point about Sony marketing. The PS3 has to be the best thing on the market, marketing in the worst possible way.
Trying to sell a game system at $599 is insane IMO, you get the hardcore people but thats it. A BD player is a good added bonus but what really interested me in the media player abilities and the other OS options.
We have over 30 gigs of photo's and the PQ is outstanding playing them on the TV via a Vista media server off of my PC. We had looked at some of the Roku products so if I factor that in, I was down about $349(499 - the Roku HD picture thingie), factor in the $249 I spent on HD DVD and I'm at a $100 premium. Doesn't sound like a big feature but when your trying to show friends and family pictures, especially ones you just took at a function its great to see them in such high quality on a 61" 1080p display.
That made it logical.
The sound portion of the media server is great but with a lack of being able to play lossless audio I'm not too thrilled with it. Pumping MP3's through the system just doesn't cut it.
If they had in some EQ'ing and lossless playback ability then I'll be very happy with the product.
I can do that through Linux, I already loaded Ubuntu onto another partition but it would be nice to be native to the PS3 OS.
Sony launched the product unfinished I have no doubt and with 1.82 it really improved a lot of things. It is a far better scaler than my Yamaha C950, or my RXV2600. It is also a better DTS/DD decoder than either. We watch the TFE on Superbit and its easily superior to both of those after a few minutes of watching.
Its a fantastic product and from what I've read the processing power hasn't been tapped...but none of these features get mentioned...its worth $499 for its complete package, it may even be worth $599. I was leaning on the fence pretty hard last Sunday but the price drop pushed me all the way.
Once they get their act together and start doing the whole interface for the home thing it'll be a bigger hit. I'd love to see things like when you watch a trailer have the option to buy tickets on line and other cell phone type features that the phone companies have done a great job with.
As they add features and the price will slowly drop it just becomes more and more of a better value.
The game part isn't too bad either
