Which Blu Ray player???

[admin_exported]

Just about to but my first Blu Ray player.......I just can't make my mind up between the PS3 and the Panasonic BD30. Can anyone let me know of any postives / negatives you may have come across.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

 

[Anonymous]

I own the PS3 and i only got it to use as Blu-Ray player to tell the truth , it does anything a top range Blu-ray player will do, Top picture Quality and also does all the Sound formats , also you can play some imba games like Grand theft Auto IV and Metal Gear solid.

Im sure everyone else will tell you the same , The PS3 is atop item to own.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Halle,

I had all this a few weeks back.

PS3 offers incredible quality playback.
other Blu-ray players do the same.

Add these and the arguments won!

Internet browsing (if a little fiddly without a keyboard...)
Amazing games (Even if you dont play games theyre still great if you have guests over - Imagine 'Singstar' which is a Karaoke style game with microphones - Great after a few glasses of wine!
Firmware upgrades meaning PS3 is continually improving and future proof
The ability to plug in memory cards so you can show your pals photos when theyre round!
(although I think only some PS3s have a memory card reader to better check!)
CD playing etc etc

The PS3 is even said to be better than Sonys main stand alone blu-ray player!

Points to remember
1) I bought a QED HDMI lead made specially for the PS3 and the quality is SO much improved!
2) Buy yourself the DVD remote as faffing around with the PS3 controller during films is annoying!
3) As the controls for PS3 work on blue tooth (rather than infra red!) you can hide the PS3 in a cupboard (make sure its well ventilated as PS3 gets hot!) and still control it.

I personally feel if you opted for anything other than PS3 you would end up regretting it!

Hopefully this helps...

 

[professorhat]

I have a PS3 and I love it, but, if I was buying a machine just to play Blu-Rays, I get the Panasonic. (I'd actually get the BD50, but at the £300 budget, I'd go for the BD30).
However, if you think any of the other features of the PS3 the guys above have listed would be useful to you, definitely go for the PS3.

 

[Clare Newsome]

I'd second everything ProfHat says above!

 

[Anonymous]

Can I just ask why you'd go for the Panasonic over the PS3 if only watching blu-ray discs? Simply to do with ergonomics and ease of use? Nothing to do with quality?

Alcina

 

[fr0g]

I have to add, even as a PS3 fan( I think its one of the best value pieces of kit for years)...
Excellent Blu Ray, good DVD, Ok CD, Good media centre for music, photos, videos and can stream wirelessly from a PC or Mac.
Also it is constantly being upgraded, so will not get left behind like some of the older players.
Its also a SACD player (if you had the 60GB like me), AND it plays great games...

However. It MUST be kept cool or it overheats, and makes a din.
It isn't completely silent any time. Although it isn't really an issue.
It has no display of its own.

If I ONLY wanted a Blu-Ray player now, I would not buy a PS3.

 

[professorhat]

I also thought the picture quality for Blu-Ray was better on the BD30 than the PS3 (though it really is pretty marginal, if you never saw the BD30, you wouldn't be disappointed you bought a PS3, put it that way!). Can't say on upscaled DVDs I'm afraid as I didn't get to see any on the BD30, but performance with the PS3 is excellent so I'm reckoning it's similiar if not better on the BD30.
On the ease of use, in my opinion, there is very little, if any, difference as long as you've bought the Sony PS3 remote control.

 

[Anonymous]

Sweet! The deed is done! Dunno about you Halle, but I've just ordered a PS3 (40 Gig which is allegedly quieter than the 60 Gig) with remote control!

My reasoning is that yes I do want it basically just to play blu-ray discs, but being a bit of a geek, the idea of streaming media to it is also appealing. I currently have a PC behind the TV which plays AVIs into the TV pulling them off a networked RAID so the PS3 may actually mean one fewer boxes eventually. Or it may not. But the important thing is that I don't appear to have compromised quality noticeably and the ease of use is pretty much the same thanks to the tip about the remote control, and now I have the choice to stream or not to stream. And my street cred goes up with my nephews...always good...they will pick my retirement home eventually!

Many thanks for all your advice chaps and chapesses.

Alcina

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for all of the input folks, plenty to mull over.

To be honest from what everyone is saying I think I might be tempted by the PS3 also. I would really like to know, however, about the DVD upscaling, as I also have a rather large DVD collection which I would still like to enjoy to the best of capabilities.

 

[Gazuk]

I have the panny BD30 and i think its an excellent blu-ray player and does a great job at upscaling sd dvd imo,well its looks fine on my 42" plasma, but cant comment on the ps3.

 

[Anonymous]

Is the PS3 any quicker at loading media e.g. blu-ray discs? Seems to me that all the standalone players at the moment take too long to get a film going. For example I got a demo of the new samsung 1500 at the weekend and was most disappointed with the load times

 

[professorhat]

WHF did a comparison of the two in a Hi-Def special a few months ago. Using the same disc (Pirates of the Carribean - At World's End), the PS3 loaded it in 1 min 21 seconds and the BD30 loaded it in 2 mins 10 seconds. NB - this was substantially quicker than most of the others, one of which took 4 minutes 15 seconds!

 

[Anonymous]

i have the bd 30 as a replacement to sony 300 and it rocks thought it was region free though ?

 

[Anonymous]

The word elsewhere on the net is that the Samsung BDP1500 is the one to get. It's Profile 1.1 out of the box, and Profile 2.0 ready, ie only needs a firmware update. It bitstreams all HD codecs and internally decodes all, to LCPM over HDMI, except DTS MA. however there is a rumour that DTS MA decoding will be added in the future.

The best bit, is that it can be had for around £200!!!

 

[ginganinga]

PS3 for sure!

Granted I'm a gamer but there's also the hard disk to think about, it's a simple upgrade to a larger one and you can have all your music, photos and video collections on it too. Or, as pointed out above, you can stream to it. I, however, don't leave my PC or NAS on 24/7 so it's great just to be able to pick an album, create a play list etc. Genius machine.

The other day I stole loads of cars and got chased by the police, but that wasn't real life.