Will new PS3-120gb play SACD? (1 Viewer)

Pretty straight forward. I need one more PS3 for one of my HT systems. I know that the new limited bundle comes out on the 30th of November with a 160gb storage. I have read already that it won't play PS2 games. No big deal for me. Although on the older models that also didn't play PS2 games, it also didn't play SACD. Can anyone confirm this for me? I have done a few searches and can't find anything on this topic.

Thanks.

According to Wikipedia it does not.

PlayStation 3 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Assuming you mean the 160GB, not 120GB as you say in the title, Cameron is right.

There's a dedicated site and FAQ about this at PS3SACD.com.

By the way, PS2 compatibility and SACD compatibility are completely independent of each other but incidentally correlated in PS3.

Are there any other blu-ray players that play SACDs? What about a blu-ray player that plays SACD and DVD-Audio CDs or am I pushing it now?

The new Oppo Blu-ray player will play SACD. But it wont be out til Jan. if i recall.

I have got the distinct impression that Sony "won't allow" Blu-ray and DVD-A capability to coexist. (Just my own little conspiracy theory.) The new Oppo BD player won't do DVD-A, their players did before. Personally, a big disappointment. The type of bands/music I prefer tended to go DVD-A. I could much more easily ditch my SACDs. To continue my little theory, maybe Oppo gets a BD licensing discount for including SACD.

It's not certain yet whether the Oppo will play DVD-Audio or not. Reportedly they're still working on it.

And your conspiracy theory is entirely unfounded. Sony may not like DVD-Audio but they can and will not do anything about it. Sony does not have any more to say about other companies' BD players than about other companies' SACD players (probably less even). The BD (or SACD) license cannot forbid playback of other formats. That would be anticompetitive. Note that while SACD was a Sony/Philips standard, the BD Alliance includes staunch DVD-Audio camp members, notably Panasonic. There has even been a DVD-Audio-compatible BD player already: Panasonic's first generation. Too bad it didn't support SACD.

I agree and no Panasonic player ever supported SACD as far as I know. All of the Sony conspiracy claims regarding Blu-ray are just silly, Sony doesn't control the BDA.

If Oppo can't add DVD-A playback to the upcoming BDP-83, that will limit the market in my opinion. I own about 200 SACD discs and about 150 DVD-A discs and having one without the other adds nothing of value for me. I have the earlier 80GB PS3 with SACD playback and have never used it for SACD. As well as it handles everything I have used, I believe it would do a great job but I can't even remember to try it since it is incomplete as far as my needs for an audio player. I think there may be a small market with SACD collections and no DVD-A, but very small and most of the market already has a good SACD player.

Chris

There is no announced date as far as I know, but it appears January is the earliest possibility at this time. The Christmas season would have been nice. The player should be very good and if it includes DVD-A, the first of its type.

Chris

I specifically chose the SACD capable PS3 but I have other DVD-A solutions available to me. I have not yet used the PS3 for SACD playback as my current receiver is not HDMI equipped. When I upgrade the receiver, the PS3 will become my SACD player, my Cambridge Audio 540D v.1 will become my DVD-A player (as I will only need one set of MCH analogue inputs at that point for the 540D) and my current "universal" player (a Marantz DV-6400) will move, with my current receiver, to a secondary system. But I can certainly see the disappointment in the new Oppo if DVD-A is not included. If I were looking to replace my Marantz, the Oppo would have been a great option but without DVD-A playback, an eventual replacement for my Marantz (should it stop working) will have to come from elsewhere. Ain't technology grand?

I am not sure if you are aware that you can still listen to SACDs on your current setup. The PS3 can play SACDs thru the optical out too, the only difference being, it outputs the signal as a DTS signal thru the optical out. The 'DTS Connect' encoding is what makes this possible. Ofcourse the quality will not be the same as DTS it is still lossy compared to what you would get via HDMI.

You can, but only with firmware v2.00 -- not with any earlier or later version. See the FAQ referenced above.

See here:
PS3SACD.com - the Super Audio CD resource for PlayStation3 users
and here:
PS3SACD.com PlayStation3 Super Audio CD FAQ

To be honest, I have a seperate SACD player, thus I don't normally use the PS3 to play SACDs. But I remember playing an SACD once on the PS3 and accidentally discovering that the receiver displayed DTS over the optical connection, I don't have HDMI support in my receiver (Denon AVR-5800). I wonder why Sony would take out a perfectly working solution for those that don't have another SACD player and HDMI support in their receivers.

Most probably because they didn't have a license for it. This feature was never documented so consider it a 'hack'.

By the time I got mine, this "feature" was gone. My current universal player is fine (I have no other system in the house for it). When my son is a bit older (and in far less danger of damaging my gear), I will take my current receiver and universal player and create a 2.1 channel system in the living room (also have to raise funds for a new HDMI receiver for the HT, as well as a pair of speakers and a sub for the living room) and at that time, the SACD playback via HDMI will serve me well (and I will put my Cambridge Audio 540D into service for DVD-A playback via MCH analogue, so all bases will be covered until the next new audio format comes along ).

How about HDCDs? Can the PS3 or any other Blu-ray player that do onboard decoding of those.

I live in a fantasy world where SACDs, DVD-Audio and HDCDs all play from one convenient little box.

Personally, I'd rather just get a separate standalone uni player for that and just let the PS3 do what it does best instead, eg. BD and upscaled DVD, maybe casual video/MP3 streaming, photo viewing, even gaming (for some ), etc, not serious hifi audio-only stuff. I get the feeling throwing all the workload from *everything* on it will just wear it out faster (w/out necessarily getting the best results). For instance, I can tell you how simple, normally reliable, standalones will get worn out quickly too when you have a couple little preschoolers putting a heavy daily workload on them.

FWIW, there are already some user reports of a potentially common reliability problem w/ the BD drive in the 1st gen PS3/60GBs. Maybe Sony just didn't expect the drives to take on that much workload when they first designed the PS3 -- gaming doesn't normally require constant use of the drive like BD/DVD/CD playback would afterall.

For myself, I still use my old Denon SD2910 for audio-only playback -- and might also go back to using it for DVD at some point (perhaps after I upgrade the TV and be able to use HDMI for video). I don't currently own any DVD-A nor HDCD discs though. I wonder if the new upcoming Oppo BD player will handle those formats (or at least pass them out via HDMI or coax/optical in the case of HDCD)?

_Man_

No, it plays them but will not decode them. See the PS3 SACD FAQ on HDCD.

Thanks.

Is the main reason Blu-Ray players don't play DVD-Audio just because of a licencing fee? TrueHD and MLP are almost the samething so the hardware to decode it is already there right?