Pana bd50 or ps3

[admin_exported]

Was wondering if anyone has the new bd50 or has had both, was wondering whether the increased bluray performance is worth the price tag?

 

[Anonymous]

ps3 with the new firmware update will allow it to give the same blu-ray features as the pana i.e blu-ray 1.1

 

[Anonymous]

how about picture performance?

 

[HDNumpty]

Both the BD50 and PS3 are final profile, Profile 2.0. The BD50 may have better picture quality, although according to one review the DVD upscaling performance of the PS3 is better. What the PS3 is missing is any analogue outs and therefore any way to get HD audio to a non-HDMI AV amp. The BD50 has this, plus support for all HD audio codecs.

The other obvious difference is the PS3 is a games console, the BD50 is a blu-ray player only although it will of course play DVDs, CDs, MP3 from disc or SD card, video from SD card.

 

[Anonymous]

thanx, very helpful, i think ill stick with my ps3 for now.

 

[professorhat]

I would try and take a look at the BD50 - I intend to. Having seen the BD30 in action, I realised it wasn't so much better to warrant spending another £300 - £350 on it given I own the PS3. Haven't seen the BD50 yet to make that decision...

 

[Anonymous]

Putting Sound totally to one side and just concentrating on picture quality alone and value for money, having looked Panasonic's 3.1 SCTB100 Blu Ray System, the BDP30 and also the BDP50 and the PS3 in action on Blu Ray alone ( Didn't have time to see the PS3 or others in action on upscaling DVD's) I went for the PS3 in the end.

When a £300 player, that also doubles up as a Games Console, can produce such good images for this kind of price with, in my opinion, only marginal better picture quality coming form the BDP50 then you might as well opt for a PS3 and if you want spend all or part of the balance of £200 on kick starting your Blu Ray/PS3 Games library

 

[Anonymous]

Funny thing... I have the same dilemma! I'm building up my 1st 'Home Cinema', and because of good What Hifi reviews, I'm tottering between purchasing either the Pana BD-30 or the PS3. My budget for the blu-ray was initially £350 tops. Ultimately I'm interested in picture & sound performance for my system...but I do like the idea of the flexibility of the PS3 for it's gaming and media storage etc if needed. Now the BD-50 has arrived, is it worth the Xtra £100? Which to choose? Any more advice on this?

Cheers.

 

[Anonymous]

Seen the BD50 on Dabs for £382, looks like a decent price. One advantage of the ps3 is streaming files over a wireless network, my mate has been doing this with bluray rips (naughty naughty!) and still getting dolby 5.1 audio.

 

[John Hereford]

Is it true that the Pana BD50 can feed all HD audio codecs through the 5.1 analogue outputs? I ask this because its operating manual on the Panasonic website seems to suggest that these are only obtainable through the HDMI output. I have a Sony STR-DG700 receiver and use the 5.1 connections from my current SD DVD player (Pioneer DV-600), with the HDMI output going straight to my TV (so that the wife can put a DVD on without using the a/v receiver!).

 

[Andy Madden]

Hi John,

we've been asked this a couple of times and yes, the BD50 can converty the HD audio codecs internally into PCM and output them over the analogue outputs.

cheers

 

[John Hereford]

Hi Andy,

Many thanks for the info.

John H.

 

[Anonymous]

Just got the bd50 thru amazon.co.uk for less than 400pounds, i have already a ps3, for dvd and blueray discs i will be only watching the bd50 but i will still keep the ps3 for games.So i guess the bottom line is if you only want to watch movies get the bd50 it really is good but the ps3 is a jack of all trades but the bd50 is a master of one.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Andy Madden:the BD50 can converty the HD audio codecs internally into PCM and output them over the analogue outputs.

Just to clarify, it converts them to analogue audio for output through the 5.1-channel analogue outs, not to PCM.

 

[John Hereford]

Andrew,

Many thanks for your advice. Sorry for sounding a bit thick, but would HD quality audio still be achieved, when playing suitable audio encoded BD DVD's, when utilising the 5.1 channel analogue connections between the Pana BD50 and my Sony STR-DG700 a/v receiver?

John H