Which Bluray Player - Decision Time

[admin_exported]

I am about to upgrade my old Sony DAV S 550 5.1 Ch Home Cinema System (I had bought it in 2003 - top of the range that time!!)

Which BD Player will be suitable for me ? Please give your expert advice...

Sony BDP-S550 (Is it worth purchasing the older model of this player - 350 - I think, how does it compare to latest one)

Panasonic DMP-BD55 (or maybe BD50 or 35 - if not too much of a difference)

Wanna make it all "future proof" for some years maybe...

kind regards,
seemtab

 

[Big Chris]

The 350 & 550 are current models. The 300 & 500 were the older versions of these new players respectively.

The 550 has multi-channel outputs. Essential if your A/V receiver (I'm assuming you're buying one!) does not have HD coding onboard.

There are undoubtedly some upgraded components between the 350 & 550 (And the 35 & 55), so I guess it depends on your budget.

I recently (yesterday!) bought the 350 for £199 inc. delivery. It's apparently available for £180 now.

Gerrardasnails has got a 550 which cost him £300 and can be had for a little less.

The Panasonic 55 won best player in the awards, but that's a further step up in price I believe.

 

[Anonymous]

You can get the S550 for £257 delivered now, annoyingly so as it cost me just under £275 a week ago.

I recently read a thread over on another forum where someone tested the DMP-BD50 and the S550 with the HQV DVD, going on the basis that the BD55 uses the same chip as the BD50 (I don't know how accurate that is). They described the Panasonic's film mode deinterlacing as poor and video mode as appalling. The Sony faired slightly better with film, but has issues with 2-3 material and no 2-2 mode at all. Video mode was much better. Make of that what you will. If you aren't planning to use either for DVD playback, it's irrelevant.

 

[Alec]

ahmed_knp - I've got the same dilema. on the one hand i want to have the choice to watch blurays when i want to (despite not being a huge film buff - 2 channel hifi is my first priority), on the other hand im not even sure i want one, as people keep talking about improvements in a year or 2. However, im not really sure what these improvements are, let alone whether they'll involve anything that matters to me.

I've a feeling i may be better off getting sky hd and waiting a bit for bluray. i wont get very many sky hd channels (especially if you only get the hd channels that correspond to the channels in your existing channel package, plus 2/3 more), but if there's something in this upscaling thing, it might be worth it. the price of the box has come down lots, so i dont begrudge the extra subs so much (tho i do a little).

on the other hand i wonder if id be bothered if i got, say, the bd35 and replaced it in a year or 2...

Apologies for the digression!