Blu Ray / PS3

[admin_exported]

Hi all

I am considering buying a blu ray spinner but am not sure what to go with. I have Pioneer 436SXE, Sky HD, Onkyo SR605 and Qacoustics 1010's. How good a player would the PS3 be as I like the idea of HD gaming as well. The PS3 seems to be ideal for sound via HDMI and as my tv is not full HD it seems like a good first step.

Any advice greatly received

Matt

 

[professorhat]

If you like the idea of gaming, the PS3 is a no-brainer. It may not be as good as some of the new dedicated Blu-Ray players about to come out on the market, but it's still an excellent AV machine, a great digital hub and an increasingly better games machine now we're seeing quite a few decent titles on it.

 

[Anonymous]

Just a little note,

I bought an Onkyo amp to go with HDE1 and PS3. The PS3 is a great machine, but the games aren't quite there yet, but there are some great games on the way (Killzone 2, Little Big Adventure Battlefield Bad Company etc.) On the audio front, the PS3 does not send hi def audio via bitstream to your amp(It does with DTS & DD). It decodes the sound itself and sends it to the amp. So in essence your onkyo will not be doing any of the work, and a cheaper amp would work just as well, as long as it could receive audio via PCM. That said, the PS3 does a great job of decoding Dolby TruHD etc and the sound is amazing, although it can't decode DTS MA yet, but I've heard this might be fixed in a future update.

Dee

 

[Anonymous]

Get the PS3 you won't be sorry.Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, is out on the 28th and has over a million pre-orders already.This will really show how good HD gaming can be.

 

[professorhat]

[quote user="Dee_67"]So in essence your onkyo will not be doing any of the work, and a cheaper amp would work just as well, as long as it could receive audio via PCM. [/quote]
I'm not sure that's strictly true. There's more to the Onkyo amp's than just their surround processing chips. Like the whole amplification part.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Dee, so would I just connect the PS3 via an HDMI cable to my amp?

How much better than normal Dolby Digital will it sound?

 

[Anonymous]

No problem Brownspot,

I'm just learning all this stuff myself so glad to help. Yes, hook up the PS3 via HDMI to the Onkyo, and then another HDMI to the TV. The PS3 doesn't automatically switch between Bitstream audio and LPCM (I think), so when watching normal DVD's set to bitstream, so the amp decodes audio (DD & DTS). And when watching Blu Rays switch to Linear PCM (can't remember where settings are, on an oil rig at the moment) so that the PS3 decodes Dolby TruHD and DD+ and sends it to the amp. I found that when watching Hi Def audio that the amp volume had to be increased a fair bit to match the DD and DTS soundtracks.

As for sound quality, I found that TruHD seemed so much clearer and, the sound seemed bigger if that makes sense!! Also, the effects were steered around the speakers in a much more precise way. And dialogue was a lot easier to hear rather than being buried amongst all the other sound effects.

Have fun,

Dee