Sony BDP-S550 or Playstation 3?

[admin_exported]

I'm buying a 40" LCD HD TV and I want to buy a Blu Ray player with it. Now I kn ow you have Profile 1, 1.1 and 2 players and I know both can be a Profile 2 player I believe so use Blu Ray Live. And I know obviously I can play games as well for the Playsation 3 but can somebody point me to a comparison of the two or offer their advice on what to go for as they are a similar price. I mainly want it as a Blue Ray player but if the differences are minimal and unimportant I will pay the tiny bit extra to get the Playstation 3.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi, I have had a PS3 for around 18mths now and it plays Blue ray superbly. The picture quality is as close to perfect as makes no difference IMHO.
One of its strongest points for me is its ability to down load wirelessly updates to keep improving its software.
We also like to use its hard drive to store digital pictures off the camera to view on the TV. The PS3 does so much and think for £300 it is a bargin.

 

[d4v3pum4]

Agree, the PS3 is a cracking machine. I've seen the latest standalones in action and nothing jumped out at me as being vastly superior (if there was any difference at all) over the PS3. If you fancy gaming, media playing/streaming and occasional surfing the PS3 has a lot to offer. Some people have said the machines are noisy but I've yet to see one that is, 5 or so of my mates have one and they're all pretty quiet. The only downside for me, is the optional remote and the fact that the remote isn't backlit and it doesn't work with IR so if you have a universal remote you need additional hardware e.g. IR2BT to get it all working but when you do, it does. I have stuck with my PS3 since it came out and won't be changing it for a standalone any time soon.

 

[lobby]

I have to agree the ps3 serves many purposes and unless you want to spend £900 on the lastest denon, which really is suited to high end av, like 50" screens or bigger, i dont think you will find the newer crop of budget blu-ray players a huge improvement.Yes they may give a slightly better pq and sound, but many owners complain about loading times and disc failure. My Ps3 was bought for gaming and to me has'nt quite lived up to expectations, as i prefer my 360 for online gaming. The Ps3 benefits from having usb slots so therefore Data like music and photos can easily be transferred and used as a multimedia centre. If your never going to play games or use it for storage, then for £160 go for the Sony BDP-350 deals may still include 5 free films.

 

[ElectroMan]

I have just started using my PS3 for Blu-rays, and it's fine, although I haven't had the chance to compare it with some of the better Blu-ray players. Like lobby, I mainly use my Xbox 360 for games, and Blu-ray has given me a reason to dust-off the PS3!

So far as remote controls are concerned, the official Sony remote for the PS3 has been in extremely short supply, but there are 3rd party alternatives, most of which are pretty poor but they do use IR and connect via USB so could be worth getting for that, if you want to use a universal remote with it.

I bought one of the better non-Sony remotes from HMV, the BD-01, which has a slide-out back-lit keypad. It works okay, but with a minimum of keys you have to access an on-screen menu for some of the less-used functions.