BluRay player and CRT

I answered at Curt's. Here it is:

The biggest technical problem is that in Sony's infinite wisdom (or lack thereof) the thing only has a bluetooth remote. So, if you've got a nice theater with just 1 universal remote, you are sort of screwed unless you do a hack:
http://www.remotecentral.com/articles/ps3-ir-remote.htm

The second is, the picture from all of these devices seems to be about the same. Since you can't find a 20 gig ($499) PS3, a used or refurbed Samsung will be cheaper.

The downside is the Samsung won't do lossless audio like every HD DVD player made. About the audio the only way to get the good audio out of the PS3 is with an HDMI receiver.

On a side note, HD-DVD satisfaction seems to be higher and most that own both seem to prefer HD-DVD. So for now, I'm just taping from HD movie channels the HD content Sony wants to hold hostage.

Dave

The main benefit of the PS3 is the upgradability. It has a very powerful processor and the rumors say a software update is forthcoming to allow DTS-MA. I believe it can already do the other major audio formats via HDMI. The remote issue doesn't bother me since the optional Bluetooth remote works quite well.

The point was not that the remote does not work well. The point was a theater should have exactly one remote to work everything.

Dave

I thought the status of your home theater was measured by how many remotes it took to turn everything on? I'm up to four but am looking to get seperate remotes for two of the devices to get up to five. LOL

FWIW, Sony has a second generation blu-ray player due out in a couple of months or so at at MSRP of 1/2 the cost of the original 1st gen BDP-S1 (ie: $499 instead of $999), but with all the same features. Street prices will obviously be lower. (The BDP-S1's around $700-800 street.)

I don't know about everyone else, buy an Xbox360+HD player or PS3 doesn't look quite as good on the HT rack as a 'normal' HD disc player.

(Of course, if you look at the delays at getting the BDP-S1 out the door, assume that the second gen player will also be 4-5 months late).

Kal

Poser! I guess when they make a digital PJ that looks good to you you'll be switching.

Seriously, I think whether a game machine looks good to you or not depends on whether you're a gamer or not.

Nah, I just mean it's hard to fit one in my rack and make it look like it's part of the HT. I suppose I could just leave either out in the open somewhere...

Not a gamer anymore, but PC's were always more interesting to me when I was than those silly controllers. Gimme a mouse and a keyboard anyday.. You can't circle strafe with one of those controllers!

Kal

If you pick up a cheap 360 on ebay with a busted dvd drive for $100 you can put the external HDDVD drive mechanism inside the 360.
You end up with a tidy and cheap HD-DVD player and WMV playback device. You can't play games on it other than downloaded ones, but if you only use the 360 as a media centre and HD-DVD player it is a tidy solution for around $300.

I just watched Casino Royale as the first Blu Ray movie I've seen on my G90 with a PS3 and the Moome IFB HDMI card. Awesome, best Bond ever.

My HD-DVD player is an Xbox360 which I run at 1080p via RGBHV. I would say that the gamma in the moome card does definitely help and is an advantage until there is an HDMI Xbox.

As a game system, the PS3 makes me sad. But as a Blu Ray player I find no fault with it. However it is the only one I have used.

The controller as remote seems satisfactory but it does tend to fast forward or rewind if you put it down carelessly and either trigger gets pressed. I dont have the optional bluetooth remote, and dont really feel like I need to spend money to have it.

Lossless audio is a wash for me at this point because I dont have an HDMI receiver that could deal with it anyway.

My point was lossless audio does not have to be a wash. If you have a receiver with analog inputs, than you can get lossless audio from every HD DVD player but the XBox and A2 and some BD players (not the samsung or PS3).

Dave

Dave you can get lossles audio out of every blu-ray and HD dvd player on the market , Some thru hdmi some with analogue only, some with both.

Besides your guilt and fear campaign against Sony there are some benefits to owning both if you can afford it .

I personally think both formats will be here for quite awhile, and will be both competing in three years with down loadable media .

I don't Care really who wins, or if there is a winner, or if a company based in Japan makes money, either disk will still work years after either or both disappear (if they ever do ) .

The truth of the matter is if you want a complete HD disk library you might have to buy both players or a dual player .



Bruce

your dts problem might be with your receiver

Have you read the manual at all lewis ?

You will either need to use HDMI or the 5.1 analogue outputs .

You also need to have 2.0 firmware if you are going to use 5.1 analogue

Bruce

If using the S/PDIF out, DD+ and better will be downmixed to DTS because it has a higher bit rate. Everything seems to be working correctly.

Dave

I have the PS3 as well as the HD-A1, which I use on my Barco G808/ DVI Moome device. I recently got the PS3 because of the content I wanted, and lack of new HD-DVDs. The PS3 is actually a much more stable player than the A1 is, navigation and read time is quick. At the moment I'm limited to the optical out for audio, but I'm about to upgrade to an HDMI receiver(something I wanted to do anyway). The PQ is fantastic... but keep in mind BD movies on average do not look as good as HD-DVDs. HD-DVD is more consistent, say 5 out of 10 HD-DVDs will be reference, where about 3 out of 10 BDs will be reference.

So far all the important ones look good, X-Men 3, The Presitge, Casino Royale, Rocky Balboa etc. The Blue Tooth remote is unfortuante, but I just ordered the PS2 to USB adaptor and the Official Sony PS2 DVD remote, so that'll fix that. As to how it looks on the shelf, I keep my equipment in an HT closet, so it's all good for me, but the PS3 is a snazzy looking player anyway.

One thing though, the PS3's brightness is set too high for some reason, and there are no controls for it. Normally I have the brightness at 50 for the HD Tivo and HD-DVD player, but I have to turn it down to 42 for BD movies. Hopefully this will be fixed in a firmware update.

I'm format neutral and have found the HD-DVD transfers to have better PQ.

Do you/can you run 1080p out of your Blu-Ray player's HDMI output directly into the Moome HDMI card of your G90? HDCP doesn't enter into the equation here?

All the Moome cards are HDCP compliant, AFAIK.

Yes, I can run 1080p out of the PS3 directly into the Moome HDMI IFB input card and it works perfectly. HDCP 'should' work, but I dont believe any of the disks are currently enforcing the protection, right?!?

The original question for this thread was about whether there were advantages/disadvantages over the PS3 vs stand alone Blu-Ray players. The poster said he already had an HD-DVD solution. I'm not sure why things are spinning off into HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray...

But one thing I did discover about the PS3 (at least with the one I'm using which has the 1.32 system software) is that it will not play Blu-Ray movies at 720p via HDMI, it always drops down to 480p. At first I thought perhaps it was an issue with the Moome card and its resolution negotiation. But when I got the PS3 back to work and hooked it up to the 720p LCD display it behaves the same. The dashboard and games work fine at 720p via HDMI, but when the movie starts it drops to 480p. WTF?!?

I think you are confusing ICT and HDCP. All the current HDMI connections are HDCP. ICT is not being enforced now, but that only applies to analog connections.


There were a couple of other comments, but I'm guessing you are also referencing my smiley face comment.

The reason I put that info in was:
1) He had an HD-DVD solution. And since it is in everybody's best interest to end the format war, the best thing we can do is kill BD as fast as possible by not buying it. So I was suggesting an alternative.

2) He may feel he has no option with Sony dirty tactics of not letting the consumer decide (they are smart enough to know that if every movie was released on both formats, BD would be dead already, so holding content hostage is their only hope). Should he not want to support such anti-consumer tactics, I was suggesting an alternative mechanism by which to obtain the HD content.

Dave

Here's my understanding of this:

The PS3 can't scale movies to 720p, just like it can't scale games to 1080i. This has been a big controversy -- either the PS3 has no scaling chip (which would be weird, since the 360 and every HD cable box ever made have one) or it's not "activated." A fix may be released in the future, though I don't know if it's clear whether it even has the technical ability to do scaling (haven't been keeping up with the PS3 gossip lately).

Speaking of scaling.... version 1.8 of the PS3 firmware now allows one to upscale standard DVD's on the PS3.

How's it look? Anyone tried this? (I don't trust the guys in the display devices forum to give me answer I believe). How's the PS3 SD scaling look as compared to an HD-A1 or other Toshiba player that are known to have excellent scaling?

Kal

There's another $15-20 solution now that's been out for about a week (haven't used it myself).

See: http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/article1901.html

Kal

Just hooked up the Samsung BDP-1200 to my XG/ Moome projector today. NOT one glitch, everything went super smooth and I was watching Blu-Ray in about 10 minutes!
Takes the XG to a whole new level, and far better than HD satellite also!