PS3 vs Other Blu Ray Players

[admin_exported]

Hi What Hifi Forum - I currently have a PS3 running as my high end source for Blu Ray discs. I subscribe to What Hifi magazine and know for quiet a while now they have been going on about how the PS3 now should be regarded as a low entry model for viewing blu rays (it was again mentioned in the Q&A section of this month). My TV is the Pioneer 5090.

I wanted to know really about picture noise. Watching the Dark Knight there were a few scenes where there noticeable picture noise, and Pirate of the Caribbean there was more picture noise is some scenes. Is this down the the Blu Ray player or the camera the picture was recorded on & would an upgraded Blu Ray player eradicate this?

Thx

 

[aliEnRIK]

Ive found my PS3 worked a LOT better after feeding it through a mains conditioner and fitting a decent mains cable

However, for the price you may as well buy a new standalone bluray player (Unless your willing to buy a decent conditioner that will feed everything in your system)

 

[Anonymous]

I have mains conditioning connected at the moment. Isotek Sigmas - with a Isotek Elite mains cable connecting to the PS3. My only issue for the price of the PS3 is just the noise on some scenes - everything else for the money is superb! It can be quiet noticable, and was wondering if this image noise is less noticable with the higher end blu ray players.

 

[professorhat]

It's going to depend really on whether the noise is present on the transfer or not.

Can you give an example of the scenes which you are seeing it on - I've got Pirates of the Carribean and The Dark Knight on Blu-Ray, plus I've got a PS3 and a Sony BDP-S550 so I can compare them and see if it's any worse on the PS3 than it is on the Sony (a bit later on, I'm pretending to be working at the moment

).

 

[Anonymous]

Hi professorhat - thx.

Just a few scenes after a quick 10min run through on Batman The Dark Knight (which is meant to be one of the best transfers currently out)

These are all at the start of the chapters to make it easier to asses unless stated

Chapter 3 - After the robbery - there is a little noise as he walks into the bank and more noise when he is inside the vault. Noise is mainly occuring on the tiles in the background etc. Noise rating of 3/10

Chapter 5 - With the board meeting scene - again noise in the background and on some faces. Again noise rating of 3/10

Chapter 6 - Meeting with Joker - A lot more noise in the meeting room, just freeze frame at some of the tiles and lighting in the background. Noise rating 5/10

Chapter 7 - at point 27Mins30Seconds - Noise on the pillars and wall textures as they walk into the R&D Department. Freeze Frame at 27mins54Secs - a lot of noise in the silver wall texture in the background. Noise rating of 8/10

There are countless scenes of different noise levels throughout the film, and this is in sharp contrast to other aspects of the transfer:

Chapter 20. This scene looks LIVE its that good - as do many other scenes in the film.No noise at all at points in the film.

Anyone from the WhtHifi Team have an opinion about Image Noise? Thx

 

[professorhat]

Okay, have run through this a couple of times now - first things first, I'm running the PS3 and the Sony BDP-S550 into my Onkyo 905 amp and this then feeds into my 42" HD Ready Panasonic TV. Both Blu-Rays are running at 1080p, leaving the TV to downscale to its native resolution of 1024x768 (I prefer this setup after trying out native 720p feed from Blu-Rays a while back). I should also point out I was wearing my glasses and had my eyes checked out about 9 months ago, so eyesight shouldn't be an issue

So, sitting up close to the screen, I can see what you mean, but this immediately looks like standard film grain to me - the silver wall texture you mention for freeze frame in chapter 7 is significantly out of focus (as are most of the backgrounds with noise on them) and I think this is why it looks like it's really bad noise if you're over examining it. Either way, I could barely discern much difference between the two players - if I had to choose one over the other, probably the S550 had a slightly better picture, but it's very, very close.

I then re-ran the comparison at my normal viewing distance of 9.5 - 10 feet and I have to say, only the fact that I'd just sat very close to the screen meant I could tell what you were talking about. The backgrounds where the noise are really just look like slightly out of focus backgrounds do in a film - I don't think this is a case of severe noise at all. The silver screen as mentioned, to me anyway, just looks like it's really out of focus (which it should really since Christian Bale's smirking mug is taking up most of the picture!!). Again, virtually nothing in it in terms of which has a better picture (incidentally though, I really noticed how much better the sound is out of the S550 which is not a comparision I'd run so far!).

Chapter 20 - why does this look so good? Very simply, this is one of the scenes filmed in the IMAX format - IMAX film has a much higher resolution than standard film (about 10 times apparently) so I'm not too surprised it shows up well! Have a look at this comparison I've found which shows this quite well.

So, not sure if this helps other than the fact that, compared with a standalone player of about the same money, the PS3 holds up pretty well. Of course, there are better Blu-Ray players out there, and it might also be more apparent on a Full HD TV as well, but certainly nothing too wrong from my point of view.

Hope this helps

 

[Anonymous]

professorhat - thank you for your excellent help!

I would agree I do look into things a bit too much lol, but my biggest question was the variety of the quality of scenes throughout the film. There are many scenes too where the backgrounds looked very good with very little noise.

Must be the lighting and focusing as you said, as there were different lighting conditions in the scenes I am refering too.

I assume the reason film companies cannot record with IMAX cameras throughout would be something to do with the data space on the blu ray disc available.

Which I assume brings up another question in my mind - we are all limited to a maximum resolution on 1080p due to our TVs currently available. Why does an image of 7000P(IMAX camera) look vastly different, even though it is downscaled to 1080P anyway?

Thx for your help - my local Superfi dealer has my screen and the flagship Pioneer BD. I shall let you know my results when I get a chance to visit them.

 

[professorhat]

Vinny7:I assume the reason film companies cannot record with IMAX cameras throughout would be something to do with the data space on the blu ray disc available.

Cost more than anything - have a watch of the features on the Dark Knight - it talks about how much those IMAX cameras cost and the lengths they had to go through in order to move the beasts around to film those fantastic shots. As I remember, it involved one cameraman getting quite a bad injury!

Vinny7:Which I assume brings up another question in my mind - we are all limited to a maximum resolution on 1080p due to our TVs currently available. Why does an image of 7000P(IMAX camera) look vastly different, even though it is downscaled to 1080P anyway?

Good question, in theory I guess it shouldn't. Perhaps because the impact those scenes filmed in IMAX were meant to have, more time was spent making them look absolutely immaculate? Also, something I've noticed with digital cameras is, an image taken at a higher resolution and scaled down often looks better than an image just taken in the natural resolution. Perhaps someone else can offer a technical explanation for this.

Vinny7:Thx for your help - my local Superfi dealer has my screen and the flagship Pioneer BD. I shall let you know my results when I get a chance to visit them.

Definitely - would be interested to know how much my current Blu-Ray player is holding my system back (though I'm gunning for a projector next!).

 

[Anonymous]

I cant the part about the IMAX cameras in the Special Features disc - any clue about which category it is under? That'd be interesting viewing.

Yea ive always felt the same - that a downscaled image is somehow better than the native image. I can understand why so to speak but not in a technical fashion. Wonder if anyone else can help.....?

Hopefully going next week to test some players so shall keep people posted

 

[Tonya]

I saw DK in an IMAX theatre and those sequences were mindblowing, I almost felt dizzy at times. Theroretically, a good old 70mm film print, if scanned correctly, will deliver a first class HD image. Take a look at the first Bond film, Dr.No for example. After the geniuses (or should that be genii) at Lowry Digital finished scanning (and restoring it), it's clean, pin sharp and as vibrant as something that was shot yesterday. Good quality original film stock can yield outstanding results if transferred with care. Just because a film is rleased on the BluRay format unfortunately does not guarantee it's quality, too many smaller companies just use the DVD master instead of going the Lowry route, but to be fair, it's perhaps not always economically viable or physically possible to obtain a pristine transfer.

I consider the BluRay transfer of DK to be a both a visual and aural treat, one of the best!

Reading the "Gizmo" page in the online Sun recently, I see that a disc will soon be available with the storage capacity of 10,000 films in DVD quality and ultimately up to 200,000. Indeed if this comes to fruition, the thought of zero compression ultra high definition is interesting indeed.

 

[Anonymous]

Yea I think its exciting times ahead.... Although I do hope its many years away yet - dont wanna change any of my equipment

 

[professorhat]

Vinny7:I cant the part about the IMAX cameras in the Special Features disc - any clue about which category it is under? That'd be interesting viewing.

It's actually on the main movie disc. Go to the Menu, hit Special Features and then choose The Prologue under Focus Points.

 

[Anonymous]

Watched the Features last night - ended up watching them all - was quiet interesting, but at points I wanted more detail . Thx for that Professorhat.

Interesting scene was the comment that there are only 4 hand held IMAX cameras in the world - And the Dark Knight set broke one. Now 3 remain

The IMAX scenes are amazing, shall be googling more about the technology soon.

 

[Anonymous]

Going on the title of this thread i'd like to say that we have definitely noticed that Blu-ray films played through the PS3 aren't as good as we'd hoped.

We've set up the TV with the THX optimiser and glasses etc. but have never really had the wow factor when watching Blu-rays, albeit they are rented movies (we havn't bought any yet).

Compare this to when we bought the Humax Freesat PVR later, and wow, what mazing pictures (i.e. BBC HD) even though they are 1080i, and yet both PS3 and Humax PVR are going through the Denon 1909 Amp.

Didn't really want to buy a dedicated Blu-ray player, but its looking that way unfortunately.

 

[professorhat]

What films have you seen so far? It could be the ones you've rented aren't shining examples of the new format (there are a few around believe me). I'm surprised as we compared the PS3 with Sky HD at my friend's house a while back and Blu-Ray definitely gave a better quality picture than the likes of the HD channels available.

Worth checking you have everything correct before splashing out on a new player as, as my experiments above have shown, the picture improvement between the Sony BDP-S550 (a well thought of budget standalone player) is only very slight compared to the PS3 so it would be silly spending extra money for a new player for similar results.

 

[Anonymous]

professorhat:
What films have you seen so far? It could be the ones you've rented aren't shining examples of the new format (there are a few around believe me). I'm surprised as we compared the PS3 with Sky HD at my friend's house a while back and Blu-Ray definitely gave a better quality picture than the likes of the HD channels available.

Worth checking you have everything correct before splashing out on a new player as, as my experiments above have shown, the picture improvement between the Sony BDP-S550 (a well thought of budget standalone player) is only very slight compared to the PS3 so it would be silly spending extra money for a new player for similar results.

To be honest we havn't seen that many (maybe 5 max) but the latest where Ghost Rider and Night at the Museum, can't remember the others. Those 2 where the best of those we rented and where quite good, but i expected more! lol

We're not going to spend any money at the money on getting a new stand alone player as we don't rent often enough. I we where to consider getting a new one then it would have to show a fantastic picture...PS3 will suffice for now...

Can anyone (or is there a site) suggest the best Blu-ray's out?

 

[professorhat]

I use this one personally - not necessarily for the reviews of the film itself, but the picture and sound reviews are pretty handy. You can also sort by the review of the picture quality.

 

[D.J.KRIME]

professorhat:

I use this one personally - not necessarily for the reviews of the film itself, but the picture and sound reviews are pretty handy. You can also sort by the review of the picture quality.

The only word of caution I would add when using the site the prof recomended is that all of their reviews are of US discs and not all UK discs are equal to their US counterpart, EG the US disc of "The Reader" as reviewed on that site states the movie is presented in 1080p/24 as where the shoddy UK disk distrubited by EIV is 1080i/50. So if possible try to find a UK sourced review before buying!

 

[professorhat]

Yup, very true. However, I've yet to buy a disc which didn't fit in with their review (over a 100 so far!) so it's a fairly safe site.