Are You Going BluRay?
A lot of buzz going around about going Blu-Ray since Disney decided to release their movies in the crystal clear format. But, what do you want to buy? I haven’t made a final decision myself yet. I’m on the fence about buying a Blu-Ray player or just buying a Playstation 3, which has a Blu-Ray player built into it.
My penny pinching side says two-for-one deal, but my movie watching side says get a stand alone Blu-Ray unit. Price wise they come out pretty even, depending on extras for the PS3 and what model/brand of Blu-Ray you would buy.
On the previous Playstation models I wasn’t very happy with the DVD player and never used it. I have a feeling I might feel the same way about the Blu-Ray models. So, here I sit on the fence about the decision. Give me your Blu-Ray advice, experience, and tell me what you’re doing when it comes to movie buying. I want to hear from you. In the meantime I’m going to dig up a bit of research about the benefits of Blu-Ray, different models/brands, etc… and of course I’ll be back to talk about that soon. Leave a comment and let me know what you’ve got to say when it comes to these shiny new Blu-Ray discs.
Posted on October 23rd, 2008 by loretta
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At the moment I would say the PS3 is the best deal in a BD player. It has the latest updates and is already BD-Live compatible. If that is something you are interested in.
It decodes all the HD lossless soundtracks, plays BD’s at 1080P/24P and is one of the fastest loading players around. It even let’s you know if new firmware updates are available. And if you play a casual game every now and then, you’re all set. (Rock Band anyone?)
Good luck with your research.
October 28th, 2008 at 1:26 pmSame as you with the PS2 dvd player, but with the PS3 is a diferent story, the PS3 is the best bluray player until now, I think the new panasonic a sony stand alone players would be bettter (not for much), but costing more dollars and without the chance to play video games too.
October 28th, 2008 at 1:30 pmWho can afford anything these days? If you have a penny pinching side I would consider the options available. If you go to any of the big retailers you can get a Blu-Ray player for as little as $230. You can rent DVDs from Netflix and Blockbuster for about $15 - depending on the plan you choose can save you money. After you spend the two hours of watching the movie you have an experience you can talk to your friends about…outside, away from your TV in the fresh air.
October 28th, 2008 at 1:36 pmI know that Blu-Ray disks are chock filled with hours of great material to view. You can get a game for Playstation and play the thing for hours and you can also rent them but I always found renting games had the added pressure to push on till you made any progress before you had to return it. And if you bought the game disk they usually cost more than a Blu-Ray movie DVD.
Get a Playstation 3 and you have to shell out $400. Sure you can rent video games and DVDs but who are you gonna tell that you just killed the Wizard on level 5 with your broadsword? Who’s gonna care? I’d rather take the $270 I saved and do something better with it. Like maybe go out…on a date…maybe see a movie and a dinner. Or stay in and order a pizza and watch a movie with friend(s) to discuss later on into the evening. But that’s me.
Check your math — if Blu-Ray players are $230 (as you said) and PS3s are $400, you’d only save $170, not $270. But I got my slightly used Sony Blu-Ray player off eBay for only $163 plus $19 shipping. So shop around — and make sure you use a calculator next time.
October 28th, 2008 at 5:11 pmSometimes it comes down to aesthetics… some people prefer the look of a stand-alone player in relation to their other components in their home theater setup, nothing messes up a look of a mature, sophisticated setup more than when you see a game console sticking out like a sore thumb, while on the other end, others could care less. Which one are you? If you’re the latter, then you get the PS3, it offers way more than a stand-alone player could ever offer. Price shouldn’t be much of an issue since they’re pretty close…
October 29th, 2008 at 2:16 amA very simple choice when you figure that the inexpensive Blu-Ray players do not have upgradability. The technology is constantly changing and the greatest benefit of the PS3 is the network connectivity, aloowing you to upgrade the firmware for the blu-ray. If you price stand alone Blu-Ray players that have that option, you will find they are costing at least the same as PS3 and in most cases more, a lot more.
October 29th, 2008 at 6:24 amI can understand when one has to make a hard decision. With the changes in BluRay coming along - my personal choice would be to go with a cheap version of a player rather than PS3. I already have PS2, Nintendo Wii and I do not want many more game players with me. My kids have enough to deal with and hence I made a hard decision and chose a Panasonic Bluray available for $249 (BD30). During my research, I would have added over $400 on a PS3 system and the kids keep spending more and more on the games. I have hooked my recently purchased bluray with a new Samsung LCD LN52A650 and it is amazing….
October 29th, 2008 at 10:39 amI have the PS3 and a sub-$200 Panasonic upconverting DVD player.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:53 amThe PS3 and BD player specs are about the same, but don’t forget that most of us have millions of DVD’s also. Most good BD players have upconversion for DVD, whereas the PS3 does not. You will need to buy the PS3 $25 remote to keep yourself sane. The PS3 has so many other features; I would say that if you enjoy the games, then get the PS3, but if you are firmly a movie buff only, then you will enjoy the added features of a dedicated BD.
Happy hunting.
so good !
November 6th, 2008 at 2:10 am…Having tested several stand-alone solutions for playing back SD and HD content (accross all resolutions, most media and formats, including streaming), and after used Sony’s stand-alone BD players, I can confidently say this:
The PlayStation 3 has *no substitute*.
It is the overall performance and wholeness of its feature set, flexibility, speed and overall output quality that pretty much *smokes* most conventional/dedicated solutions. You will have to spend 3x-4x more on such solutions to barely exceed its balance of speed and image quality.
The ability to play BD up to 1080p (24/60), to support BD Live, Profile 2.0, beautifully upscale media-streamed and conventional DVD content, to play back up to 7.1 Dolby/DoblyTrueHD/DTS/DTS HD MA/Uncompressed PCM, to play back *SuperAudioCDs*, CDs (with Internet access to titles/songs), to read and store directly from SD/CF cards, to playback streamed content from our DVR Workstation, and, on top of that, to be able to play GranTurismo 5 in full 1080p/60 HD glory, makes it *the* BD player, *the* media center of choice and a *brutal* mistake to pass on it.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
November 19th, 2008 at 9:59 am