OFFICIAL "HELP ME CHOOSE A PLAYER" THREAD: Can't decide? Start HERE. - Page 285

Without any doubt the Oppo BDP-83 is the best player under £600.

Go for the Oppo, you won't regret it. While the Denon 3800 is cheap, you have to remember its a generation behind the Oppo. It's much slower and far more annoying to use.

I would definitely recommend the Oppo.

Since I just bought a Sony KDL-40EX500 LCD flat panel, I am right now strongly leaning towards getting a Sony BDP-S370 Blu-ray player.

I've heard it loads quite fast, and is eventually capable to doing streaming video from sources like NetFlix, Amazon, Blockbuster, etc.

(I know, I really like the Oppo 83, but the $499 price is quite a turn off, in my opinion.)

Are there any models from other manufacturers that are good alternatives to the BDP-S370?

Some discussion of the Oppo 83 vs the Denon 3800 in the Oppo vs Other Blu-Ray Players thread.
The Thread.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...highlight=oppo

EWL5's video shootout.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...3#post16516623

Hope that helps you.

hello. i am new to blue ray.. i have currently:

Pan 42PZ80U
Denon AVR 1610
Panasonic DV 420-V dvd player

i am not planning going to 7.1 any time soon.

what is a good player to get?

tnx

Hi all!

I want a Blu-Ray player because the HD On-Demand streaming from my cable co is just not acceptable, and it's the same price as a Blu-Ray rental or I could get 720p streaming with some players.

Apart from renting BDs, I have PAL region 2 DVDs and SACDs to play.

I waited for the 2010 players from Panny and Sony. It helped narrow the field for me... but I have a teeny bit to go to making a decision.

I know the 83 is top dog so far (cost/performance) but I'm all for saving upto $300, especially if I'll have to keep my existing PAL/R2 capable player.

My short list:
Sony S370 $, Streaming, SACD, DLNA in July (maybe?!)
Oppo 80 $$, SACD (PAL, locked region = no use to me)
Panny 65 $ Streaming
Oppo 83 $$$, Streaming, SACD, DLNA, PAL (only any use to me with region broken)
MOMITSU/Sherwood $$, region "variable", reliability?

What I don't know yet is relative picture quality for BD and DVD upscaling for these players.

As for the Oppo 80, what does "not suitable for large screens" mean? I've only got a 42" Panny plasma.

I'd deeply appreacite anyone who knows these players to let me (and us all) know how they rank against each other!

That'd make my day! Cheers!

Dave

I've owned the oppo 83, LG 570, and Sony 370. Pushed on my Samsung 46" (Series 6).

Far as dvd quality, I could not tell the difference between any of the players... not even a difference from my htpc.... all of them looked darn good. Although, for the extra price, I was highly disappointed in the oppo... I thought it would blow me away. Oppo needs a good firmware release... and might have already had it since I returned it. Hard drive support but only fat32... on a $500 device, that is unacceptable.

Oppo's streaming sucks... you are kinda left to your own devices... better not having anything. No netflix...

LG is terrible... not ready... but will be fixed with firmware. LG did stream 1000% better than the oppo... much better experience with streaming. NTFS hd support.

Sony for $161 at Amazon is an amazing purchase... a steal. But who knows what their streaming will look like... but if you like netflix and a ton of other little channels, the sony has them. Only fat32 on hd as well... but at this price, oh, well. lol

If you want the title of having the "best" get the oppo. If you want a solid player with many features, get the sony.

You might also look at the ps3 in your price range... many people have nice things to say about that player... I've never used one myself.... oh, and the panny seems so "yesterday." I looked hard at that one... but the sony called me....

See Why does OPPO not recommend this player for home theaters with large screens?

-Bill

Thanks Bill, not just for answering, but also for the FAQs themselves... they're always the "go to" place for answers.

Nice setup!

Yeah, I've always found LG firmware buggy, and Samsung hardware buggy.

That the DVD difference is indistinguishable on 83 and 370 is a lightbulb watershed info!
Sony +1 (or +2 factoring in the relative prices)

And how about the SACD pop/clicks Oppo and Sony have. BTW - I'm reading about this in many SACD players (across a wide cost range) and has been going on for a while, and Oppo say it's a hardware issue! Yikes.
Sony -1 & Oppo -1

I just came across a Winton round-up table with the 470 and 65...
http://winstonsreviews.com/?p=157
Sony +1 Panny -1

Tallying up:
Sony +1
Oppos -1
Panny -1

Now it seems a no-brainer to try a Sony, if the SACD playback is buggy I'll have to decide what to do then. Thanks for the great help!

The Sony 370 will stream NetFlix and Amazon right now (I stream Netflix over it every night). DLNA support, which would let it connect to a PlayOn server running on a PC, is coming in July.

hi bill and thanks for response. your right i wasnt very clear. please excuse that to my ignorance. here's the situation i need to cure.

i just converted about 20 years of 8mm to dvd and then took those conversions (vob files) over to an external drive. i'm was planning on getting the wife a wdtv for mothers day so she could set in the recliner and flip through vids till her heart was content. but, we also need a blu-ray, so i was hoping that instead of a wdtv or similar we could just latch on to a blu-ray that can do both. so i guess what i'm looking for is a player that can play the vob files without further conversions that also has a decent interface.

thanks

I know both of the OPPO models will play VOB files, but they are $289 and $499.

I'm sure other players do as well, but I don't recall seeing a master list of supported media types by model. You might check the JVC models; they use the same decoder chip as OPPO and probably support the same file types.

-Bill

I have the Pioneer Elite BD-05. I love the picture and sound, but it takes forever... to load. I mean I can make a sandwich before the thing is ready to play the movie, no joke.

My son recently purchased the Oppo BD-83. He said the load time is respectable and the sound quality is far superior to the Panasonic DMP BD 55 he replaced.

Here is the question. I have been a fan of Cambridge Audio products, and they have a new player. But once again it appears to be based on the Oppo. To their credit it appears they HAVE made improvements and tweaks and not just rebadged an Oppo. Can anyone tell me from their experience if the Cambridge Audio player would be an upgrade over the Pioneer I have now? and should I consider the Cambridge player over the Oppo?

Oppo, LG, and Sony will play your vob files from a hard drive.

The LG and Sony have decent interfaces.

If you have one big vob file, it will work better due to the pauses as the next file is read (only on the hard drive).

Oppo might upstream your vids better... although, I did not see a difference in an oppo, lg or sony... but oppo is "the best."

The Sony 370 is $161... LG 570 is ~$240... the Oppo is $500. Streaming from another computer is easy on the lg... the sony will have this later this summer... oppo you must fend for yourself... but you can stumble through the 50000 page thread on here and figure it out.

Looking to pick up a blu ray player and these two seem to be the best within my price range. Is the LG worth the extra $? Thanks.

I'm thinking of picking up my first Blu Ray player, but no know which one to get. I'm thinking of getting the Samsung BD-C5500, or Samsung BD-P1600. I know that the C5500 is the newer model, but what is exactly the difference between the two.

Getting mighty tired of freezing issues with my Samsung 1600, so I'll looking at this year's players. I don't need streaming. I don't need analog out. I have a htpc, so I don't need digital media support. I just want a rock solid and fast player. The 2 choices seem to be the panny 65 and the sony s470 (might as well spend a few $$ and have 3d support over the 370?). Leaning towards the sony more because of speed than anything else. Which of the 2 companies are better at releasing timely firmware updates?

thanks!

Thanks for the response. Since you seem to be familar with some of these players i have another question for you. Regarding file size of the VOB files. currently i have about 200 1Gig files. when you said larger VOB files are better are you talkin about larger than 1 Gig? Also, i really wasnt wanting to have multiple folders but rather have all 200 files in one folder where we could just page down and decide which video we want to watch. I have the files name sequentially as 1988-6 through 2009-12 meaning June 1988 through December 2009. Will these players list the files accordingly in the user interface or am i asking for too much?

thanks alot!

I need some advice on a BD player purchase.

1. I have a few classical SACDs that I would like to play and a number of classical CDs. I like the idea of stereo out on the BDP-83 for my Headphone amp.
2. I have some DVDs and now a few BD's (that I can't play yet).
3. I have a 46" RPTV that is a HD monitor which can do 1080i over DVI (I have a HDMI to DVI cable for the video, and analogue 5.1 audio to let the player do the higher-def audio format decoding since my receiver only has HDMI passthrough.

Does it make sense for me to spend the coin on this player? I don't plan on upgrading the TV for a while (although I'd like a 55-60" someday). I'm aware of the SACD pop issue at track changes which may bother me if I get into a lot of SACD listening, but more of my discs have movement breaks between tracks than not.

Please help me spend my money! Should I consider some other players too?

Thanks!

You might also consider the Oppo 80 as well.

maybe the bdp 80 too

The problem with reading from a hard drive that is fat32 is the file size has to be smaller than 4 gb. Some dvd movies go over 4 gb (unless you compress them, which I will not do). The other issue is that a fat32 partition, only goes to 200 gb. Or at least that is what oppo support told me their drive would read (to be fair, he stated "200 gb was the max they tested"). I don't know... I've never had a need to look into it... so that might not be true, maybe it can be longer.

But of course, you can stream from a computer and get around that 4 gb limitation.


I don't know... don't have that naming convention. Sorry. My educated guess would be they would put them in the proper order on a hd... but it would be best for someone to check for you. I removed the drive from my sony so I can't even check there... I don't even have a fat32 hd formated... too limited.

Actually, I don't like none of these br players and how they pull videos off a hd or the way they stream. Too many limitations... sucks. But I understand, and can roll with it, for now.

Not sure about support... I'd guess they might be the same... both are okay companies... something goes wrong, they will fix... hard to tell the future though. I purchased the 370 with the promise they will deliver computer streaming in June/july... can't wait to see what they offer.

? on 3d... I'm staying away from first generation 3d. But that is me... the 370 is a nice player... I can't find much fault to it.

Unless lg has released a firmware update recently, I'd stay away from that disaster. Look down to the LG thread for more info...

The one feature that indicates the BDP-83 instead of the 80 is the dedicated stereo outs with upgraded DACs for use with your headphone amp, since you want to also use the multichannel analog outputs for movies and SACD. The 80 uses the same outputs for L/R Main as it does for L/R stereo (although maybe you could split those between your headphone amp and your AVR if you only listen to 2-channel source material via headphones.). You'll have to decide if that feature alone is worth $200 to you, since I seriously doubt you will be able to see the difference in DVD upscaling on that TV.

OTOH, if a TV upgrade is coming sooner, then it might be worth investing in the 83 now instead of having to upgrade again. (Not that the 80 is a bad upscaler by any means.)

Is there a blu-ray player which will allow me to play recorded Media Center HD files stored on my HTPC's hard drive and also allow for streaming Pandora music?

I currently have a 56" Samsung DLP rear projection (HDMI in), a Onkyo Receiver (no HDMI, 7.1 analog in), Oppo 981HD DVD player and Harmony one remote.

I would like to purchase a blu-ray player that will also replace my 981HD DVD.

Streaming and wifi are nice, but not required or as important as audio/video quality and overrall performance.

DVD upscaling should be at least as good as the 981HD.

With that in mind, which player to buy for less than $300?

I have been looking at the Oppo 80, Panasonic DMP-BD85, LG 550 or 570, Sony BDP-S560 or Sony BDP-N460.

Which one is best for my needs?

Have a look at Winston's tables starting here: http://winstonsreviews.com/?page_id=63, as well as the reviews on his main page.

-Bill

Hello all,

My one and only blue-ray player has been the ps3. On doing some reading in a review article from PC world they say the video for playback on ps3 is only middle of the road at best. There were some others listed in the article of interest but some seem hard to find or have already been replaced. So I've decided maybe its time to upgrade and need some help.

things im mainly looking for:

upgraded video from ps3
netflix streaming
networking (streaming video shares)
good upscaling

Trying to stay under $300 if possible.

thanks!