One-and-Only PS3 as Blu-Ray Player Thread - Page 1062

^^ MY fat PS3 just died this weekend. About 3 days left in my 90 day warranty repair from paying to get it repaired when it stopped playing discs/games. Now it just 'died' (flashing red light - red light - green light -yellow light - flashing red light again). So I'll be sending it to them again for repair. We'll see what happens this time.

I have a 3D BD player I use for my movies now and regulated the PS3 to just a game player.

I've recently replaced my PS3 Slim with a Sony BDP-S185.

Quieter, just as fast, same quality, and better for access to online channels like ABC iView, SBS Online, YouTube etc.
It's been excellent.

Thanks. You don't see _any_ difference in PQ compared to PS3?

All players tend to look the same with Blu-ray, because they don't have to do anything to the image to look good. There's more of a difference between players with DVDs, but that difference is getting smaller with time as the low-end players include better de-interlacing and scaling algorithms.

For a Blu-ray player I would buy based on the other features you want it to have, and not worry about Blu-ray picture quality.

I know it should be like that for some reason I see slight difference comparing PS3 and Panasonic BDT110. That's why I'm hesitating if I should just get another PS3 or is there a player that it really 100% equal to PS3.

I own an Oppo 93 and the PQ is identical to the PS3. I use the Oppo because I have a Fat PS3 and it won't bitstream HD audio. Honestly, I could move to a slim PS3 and reduce the clutter in my cabinet.

+1! I have heard some claim that they can see a difference in BD quality between the PS3 and other players but I have never seen it and, frankly, don't believe that there is any difference. After all, digital bits are digital bits. A BD player either transmits 1080p images to a display and lossless audio to an AV receiver or it doesn't.

My experience led me to the same conclusion you reached. I have a PS3 Fat, which I have owned and loved for several years. Several months ago I bought a low end all region BD player, an LG 550, in order to play European Region B BDs. Despite its modest price, the quality of its BD images and lossless video seem indistinguishable from those of the PS3.

The PS3 only outputs 4:4:4 Y'CbCr or RGB. Depending on your setup (like if you have a video processor), 4:2:2 Y'CbCr will be preferable and will result in less color artifacting. The Oppo players and some others are capable of 4:2:2 output.

Many people won't notice the difference, though. I can see it on my setup since I have a DVDO VP50Pro, but it's not too bothersome.

This is good to know and not always the case a few years ago. I love my PS3 features; video and audio quality. But I was considering getting an OPPO 95, not just for any video improvements I may experience (as stated by many owners and review sites) but also because of all the robust media options, DAC quality and speed of the unit. I've not been a fan of BD Live since it tends to load slowly. I'd be interested to see if just overall load times improve. Not that my PS3 60GB fatty is *that* slow. Just wondered what the load times on the OPPOs are like comparatively.

What are the load times of Blu-ray media? Any difference? I just remember that the PS3 was criticized in the past for having a slower drive than others (respectively to DVD drives).

The Oppo is slightly faster in loading, but the Fatty is by no means slow. When it first came out it was actually one of the fastest loading BR drives.

I'm looking for replacement for my almost dead PS3 40GB fatty. I was considering either Sony BDP-S590 or S790 at first but then I begin to wonder how well new titles are supported in those players? With PS3 there has never been a single title that did not work. Sometimes I needed to do firmware update to play certain new title but even then the newer firmware came with the movie. I know PS3 was used as a reference player in many studios before, is it still today?

Now I'm thinking wether I should get another PS3 after all. New PS3 models are slim version and from what I have read they are slower reading blu-ray's but all comparisons I see are between original and slim. My fat version is already so called third generation and I was wondering if mine is as fast as original model was (I mean could it be there is not much difference between my current PS3 and slim)?
Also is slim version blu-ray mechanism any good compared to old one? I see it is cheaper build in many way (like no touch buttons anymore).

Also my PS3 is still running firmware 3.66. I see lastest firmware versions have added several new things but is 2D blu-ray image decoding quality still the same or have they reduced it any way in order to get new functions implemented?

Price wise I could get PS3 even cheaper than S590 and S790 is nearly double the price of PS3.

\

I OWN an S790 - it is Way Batter than the PS3.

The Days of Incompatibility are OVER - my S790 has updated 4 times so far.

How exactly it is better?

As far as I know picture wise PS3 has been as good as it can be, unless they have changed it somehow to worse in last feature added firmwares (anyone know about this?).


Are you sure they keep doing it next year when S800 or what ever the successor of the S790 is out?
What I have always liked about PS3 is that even after several years they keep in updated and there are absolutely not title that won't play on it.

I have the original 60GB FAT which died about 3 month's ago with a PS failure. I asked a local guy to check it out and he ended up having to replace the PS and the MB!

While it got it working again, the MB replacement and new drive meant my existing drive was unreadable (apparently they are encrypted between MB and drive) so all my kids saved games were lost :-(

Anyway while I also have an Oppo BDP80 in my main room with PJ, I still use the PS3 for playing BD in my family room. It also is used for Netflix. Amazon Instant Video and Vudu as well as SACD titles so there is no easy one player replacement for it I can see. And my son still plays games on it.

I am going to keep on using it until it dies completely. The newer slim ones don't have SACD playback which is an issue for me.

Yes, what you said is true.

I bought the PS3 60 GB fatty November 2006. Three months ago it died. So it lasted 5 1/2 years. Within a week I was at GameStop getting a new 250GB PS3 Slim and used it while my 60GB fatty was being repaired/replaced. I looked around on the web for repair that offered to fix it for less than $50 bucks. But then I checked the Sony site and they offer a replacement plan or repair for $125.

I don't understand the reason people complain about this service. What you do is go to the Sony support site, enter your serial and model number of the PS3 you currently own and want fixed. It runs a check on that model/serial to see if you qualify for a full warranty coverage. I knew I was past my warranty and was going to pay the $125 no matter what. Right before I was going to click the submit button a notice popped up asking me if I was sure if I wanted a replacement for my 60 GB fatty and instead take one of the PS3 250 slims? I declined that offer.

Once you submit it, they will send you an email with a confirmation number and then send you a empty box, with packing material, pre-paid shipping label and instructions. You're supposed to print out the info and keep it safe so later you can include it in the box when you send it back. Once you take it to FedEx expect 2 1/2 week for them to return it.

When I got my PS3 back it was completely new PSS 60Gb fatty (with the 320GB blank drive that I included in my return). I didn't have any thing on the hard drive when I sent it in so I didn't care of they erased the contents. But it wont matter since you can't restore movies or games to a new PS3 from an old PS3. The back up disk recognizes that it's a different PS3. So, that stuff was lost. Although I can re-download any games from the PSN. Also, if you use the cloud services (or flash drive) you can put your game saves on those and when you get your new PS3 you can just re-download them. This does not work for movies unless you manually copy each individual movie to an external drive. Not the same as full restore. That wont work. Your friends list are also saved on the PSN along with your trophy list.

All I really care about was getting a new PSS 60GB fatty equivalent. Yes, it's higher quality than the PS3 slim. The Slim Blu-ray drive makes more noise. Might be a bit slower. But don't quote me on that. The buttons are different (I prefer the touch kind). There is no power switch in the back on the slim, it doesn't support SACD, has only two USB ports vs four, and lacks the flash card slots.
Edited by Digital_View - 9/5/12 at 8:43pm

Check out my post to Big L.

Just saw that and agree completely.

Where I live I could also get it replaced with refurbished one by Sony but I heard some got not so good machines back. I'd rather get my own unit repaired but they only do swaps. Also there are some companies that repair mainboards. I got good offer for new PS3 slim and I don't know if it is wise to pay almost the same price to Sony for swapping it to refurbished one. Also shops that repair mainboards would charge about 2/3 of what new PS3 one cost.

I wouldn't count on a repair lasting that long. The most common fix is to heat the board to reflow the solder, and that might tyypically last for months, not years.

I think you'd be happy with a Blu-ray player in the price range of the S590, but why not try one from a place that will let you return it if not satisfied?

I never play games on my PS3. I, of course, use it for Blu-ray playback, but it also gets heavy use streaming movies and pics wirelessly from my my desktop (using PS3 Media Server). Even my new Android OS Samsung Galaxy S III phone effortlessly communicates with it, and I can stream from the phone to the PS3. Additionally, every night, without fail, I use it play episodes of Seinfeld, Simpsons, Family Guy, etc. from 1 of 3 connected 1 TB external drives (on which I also have some ripped Blu-rays).

I've not been in the market for a Blu-ray player since my fat PS3 has met my needs and then some since I purchased it over 4 years ago. There are no signs of problems as of yet, but this current discussion has gotten me to thinking about what I'll do when my PS3 bites the dust. While I understand basic Blu-ray playback is probably a relatively level playing field at this point, do any of the current players do what the PS3 does with regard to streaming and the ability to connect external drives, etc.? I was never one to toot Sony's horn, but they seem to have gotten it right with the PS3.

I know. I have myself reflowed GPU with heatgun for three times already. It usually works several weeks until YLOD again. I know some repair shops do so called reballing where they remove CPU and GPU, and then remove old soldering tin and puts new tin balls containing lead and that fix will last long but knowing my PS3 is already 4 - 5 years old there will be something else like blu-ray drive failing eventually. So it is hard to justify a repair cost that is already close to price of a brand new PS3 slim.
I already purchased Panasonic BDT110 a while ago but I'm not completly happy with it. I think PS3 has better image sometimes. Also I was wondering how good title support for standalone players are after new models come out? With PS3 there has not been a single title that did not play. Sometimes you had to do firmware update but it always came with the movie. I don't think it will be that simple with standalone players and I expect there will be delays.

Same here.

There was no sign of any problem with mine either until one day it just in the middle of the movie freezed and gave YLOD error.

Why would DAC quality matter? Better than your receiver?

Normally, when talking about run-of-the-mill CD/DVD/Blu-ray players, I'd say that the internal receivers DAC is good enough (within reason). But the OPPO is different category. Be aware that by using HDMI or TOSLINK you are bypassing the players DAC and using the receivers, thus losing any benefit of investing in a high-quaility player.

As far as the PS3 and it's internal DAC...well, using HDMI offers much more connivence and quality that I wasn't going to go out of my way using the internal DAC of the PS3 even if was slightly better than my Denon or Integra's Burr-Brown 192 kHz/24-bit DACs.

The OPPO 93/95 was specifically designed for the audio/videophile. So, if I owned one, I would use both the HDMI (general purpose Blu-ray use; DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD) and the analog outs directly (for CD, SACD, DVD-A) and bypass any processing done by my receiver.

Note that these are special setups that only audio/videophiles will take the trouble to go through. My hearing is very sensitive. Headphones, for example, are a very touchy subject for my ears. I can't listen to bad DACs or headphone outputs found on receivers that have weak amps. So, when listening to music using headphones, I have to have a good headphone amp/dac or my ears suffer.

Fiio has a little E7 amp/dac made just for iPods or computers that make your music sound 2x better, bypassing your computer/iPod's amp/DAC. I had a friend listen who really isn't into any of this audio/video stuff, and he was able to hear a big difference. Also the source material has to be pristine as well; i.e. uncompressed lossless FLAC, WAV, AIFF. Not mp3 or aac.

Most think that once you get above 320kpbs (Bit Rate) it's indistinguishable from lossless audio and would say it's a good compromise for file size and quality. But as far as 128 bitrate mp3s? Bah! No thanks. I have plenty of space so most of my audio is AIFF, although if I do use lossy codec I use aac/mp3 320 bitrate.

If you were to go buy a pair of Sennheiser HD 800 (arguably one of the best sounding headphones) and hook it up to your receiver you would think it sounded average to bad, certainly not as good as its nearly 1.5k price. Without a good DAC/AMP, all this digital goodness gets lost.
Edited by Digital_View - 9/5/12 at 10:18pm

I love that app! Works like a charm.

hello guys, i need some advice from all of you, this is my first time to own a HDTV 3D and i want to use my ps3 for blu-ray and gaming. can i ask what is the best settings that i need to adjust or input on my tv and for my ps3 to watch blu-ray and games? thank you so much.

My advice would be to keep the ps3 as a gaming console, given the stuff changes within the realm of anti piracy on a per title basis on bd and dvd ..


Splitting up dvd/bd/gaming you'll wear the lazer out before its time.

as for bd playback and so forth it will similar to entry level gear in bd play market...

in the case of going for a mid level player vs an entry level player, my opinion the mid level and high level players will only benefit the 50+gb disc's memory on entry level players have big problems playing high content bd disc's


if you are going to stick with entry level gear for BD players for bd playback of high content bd', i would consider investing in a ssd usb drive and use it as expend memory, as it will give you a buffer to work with this, is what i've seen with my 370 bd player..


looking at the oppo 95 for a moment while it is a good machine I would say what options i currently see on the latest medium high end avr's analog options are slowly but surely loosing the inputs so it is making analog audio slowly but surely the thing of the past..

when i look at the likes of the denon 2113 and thee next model up in the 2313 is .1 vs .2 and 2 hdmi out other than that they all but the same avr..

my opinion the only way to improve the disc drive in all sony products is go for the dearest laser setup you can afford, to keep costs down sony has the habit of using the cheapest piece of **** on the market for laser pickups thus tend to wear out alot faster than most other internal moving parts..
Edited by mystic_sniper28 - 9/19/12 at 5:03pm

I have had the Fat PS3 for several years now and I have NEVER had a problem playing ANY BD disk. I have 250 movies and I've NEVER had a problem. I do not consider the PS3 as an entry level player at all and have found its upgrade-ability to be fantastic. My PS3 feeds a DVDO Duo which in turn feeds a JVC RS1 projector which projects onto a 100" Stewart Firehawk G3 screen. The video quality is excellent and sometimes looks almost 3D in resolution and depth. I don't think there are many BD players out there that can reliably outperform the PS3.