Has the PS3 put the nail in the coffin for seperate Blu Ray Players?

[Alsone]

Hi,

I beginning to think that maybe the PS3 and Sony have spelt the death nell for seperate Blu Ray Players especially now with 3D. I bought the Panasonic BD-35 a year ago on the basis that it offered a supposedly better picture whereas my friend bought the PS3.

- My Blu Ray player is painfully (throw out of the window slow - literally takes ages to load a disc - maybe more than a minute). Even a switch on or off takes tens of seconds. His PS3 is instant and loads Blu Rays faster than a DVD.

- My Blu Ray produces a nice picture and sound. his PS3 despite being non-dedicated produces an equally good picture (in so far as I can tell without having them literally side by side - certainly no complaints watching it) and the sound although PCM is equally excellent, seemingly cancelling out any advantage of the dedicated player, at least at sensible money.

- My Blu Ray now needs replacing what with 3D - every time there's any advance in spec, its a new player.

- His PS3, just downloads a firmware update - several already have kept it bang up to date and now Sony have announced 3D Blu Ray support via another firmware download.

So my point is what is the point of having a discrete player anymore at least at non silly money? It seems Sony have cornered the market now with a product thats both fast and can be updated to take account of any development, even total changes in technology such as the move to 3D.

I nearly bought a Playstation instead of a dedicated Blu Ray and now wish I had despite having no interest in gaming.

How can dedicated player manufacturers expect us all to continue to spend hundreds on new products every year when Sony have an equally good buy once then upgrade to any spec for free solution. It seems to me seperate players are dead.

Mine is certanly going up for sale now. I never use it anyway because of the slow load times - its had about 3 discs through from new and a PS3 is now top of my list even though it will never see a game title in its entire life. After all why pay for 3D updates when you can get them from Sony for free.

 

[Anonymous]

Good post Alsone - I wouldn't say that it's the nail in the coffin for dedicated players, but you have highlighted what an absolute bargain the PS3 is. If it was a certain other manufacturer of gaming consoles, then you can bet your bottom dollar that they would have charged for a 3D update.......Sony are giving it away as a freebie.

It'll be a logical choice for alot of new adopters I think.

 

[landzw]

Not only that Sony have signed some big deals like with warner brothers for downloading films on the PS3 . Which means you will be able to hire 3D films over the net and only buy the stuff you and your kids like . Which is a big bonus , the film content they have on the PS3 makes my 360 look second grade considering the 360 started it all of in the first place .

I also have been looking into Apple Tv as i like the fact my son will not ruin all the discs like he has been not to mention the quality is a little better than Divx but not as good as DVD , but when you look at the costs between the PS3 and Apple Tv a PS3 has a 250gig HDD , Games Machine and a Blue Ray Player were as the Apple Tv has a 160gig HDD and thats about it

So i'm too deciding if in the future if its worth changing my ways

 

[d4v3pum4]

The PS3 really is a fantastic machine. I paid full whack at launch (bonus from work!) and have never really been tempted by any of the standalone players to replace it. As already mentioned, it loads discs quickly and the pic and audio quality are perfectly acceptable. Thanks to regular updates it is always one step ahead of the competition and the only machine that can do it. I remember thinking prior to launch that it was a mistake to incorporate a new and expensive technology in a gaming machine such as bluray and that it should be exclusively a games machine and that the add-ons could be done better and cheaper externally. How wrong I was. I'm not a fan of one-box solutions but the PS3 has convinced me that it can work.

 

[lobby]

Yes the PS3 has worked well for me, i bought it in a great deal about 6 months after release, with a few games and blu-rays.The best thing is it's upgradeable and plays all the discs i own, with fast loadtimes.Wanted to buy a budget player to save wear and tear on my PS3, but was told i would need to get the Sony 760 for any vast improvements, and now with 3D hitting the market, i could see myself wanting to upgrade again.Although im not going to get the first generation players may well be tempted next year, when my tv will need upgrading, but for now PS3 does the job well.Don't rule out getting a £200-£300 player if you have a 46" screen or bigger and certainly if you have a PJ and a £2000 plus system will definetly show up improvements

 

[Anonymous]

Good point Alsone but hang fire. Do we know how much the standalone 3D BD players are going to be or how fast they'll load discs? Will they not also have features to enable firmware updates? If you're only ever going to use a PS3 to watch Blu-rays and DVD's, why pay £250 for a PS3 when you can get a standalone player for £100? It wouldn't surprise me if Sony replace the S360 with a 3D version at about the same price.

Now, I already have a fatboy PS3, so if Sony have an update for 3D some time soon, I along with every other PS3 owner will be feeling rather smug. But I don't think the standalone players will disappear simply because of the cost difference mentioned above.

 

[Frank Harvey]

Alsone:I beginning to think that maybe the PS3 and Sony have spelt the death nell for seperate Blu Ray Players especially now with 3D.

Definitely not. It does have some advantages regarding software upgradability, but a PS3 doesn't match up to a good quality stand alone Bluray player as far as video performance is concerned.

 

[Anonymous]

I have never really got into the gaming scene, although we have had some amazing drinking party's at home involving our Wii, but must admit I agree with Dave. I have seen much better video performance from stand alone players.

I also have the BD35, I personally think that the picture is better on my system than films watched on friends PS3's, but suppose that could be some what down to cables better TV etc.

As regards loading time, I go and get the popcorn while it is, so that does not bother me!

 

[nws56]

The most relevant factor is the size of your screen , I think .

Recently going from PS3 to Sony 760 has given small but worthwhile improvements in PQ - but not huge . And that's sitting close to a 52 " screen . The enormous leap in sound quality was the main benefit really , but again the nature of your sound system will dictate the value of that improvement .

And blow me if I didn't find that the game controller was a MUCH better device to direct things than the remote on the dedicated player . Oh well .

 

[Alsone]

Some interesting replies there.

I have a 42" Kuro with a Onkyo Amp, and QED HDMI cables and KEF "Egg" speakers (the model forgoes me but they were about £1,000) so a fairly decent system.

My main worry with buying any new BluRay equipment is the way that it just seems to be outdated whereas the Sony just gets upgraded. I can't say I'm unhappy with the picture or sound on Panasonic BD35, but the slow load times and lack of upgradability certainly upset me especially when another company ie Sony has a box thats like lightening and just upgrades everyone for free to any new specification.

 

[Anonymous]

Doesn't the PS3 also allow you to stream music, download films, surf the net, get mail and all those sorts of things too? To me it sounds the way to go, but I'd be the first to admit I'm not familiar with what other blu ray players can do.

 

[kinda]

Having similar thoughts recently but the inability of the PS3 to play ISOs from the network, (without a server), has put me off really. Plus it's inability to go region free for DVDs.

Been looking at XBMC on an ION PC which could come in quite cheap, and now looks as if it may do all relevant HD audio decoding to LPCM over HDMI.

The only thing I'm never sure about is whether the quality is there on the computerised players. Even on this thread there seem various opinions on picture and sound quality. I know going from my old XBox that broke to my XDE 500 the picture and sound quality does somehow seem better.

The thing is I'd like to eb able to archive my DVDs or BDs, clear the shelf space, and play them from the network or USB. I'm not sure we'll see a dedicated BD player soon that will do this, or be able to access a non-FAT 32 file system so that the file sizes can be over 4 GB.