Tips on buying Blu-Ray

"UCLAN" wrote in message
...
wrote:

I am about to buy a Blu-Ray. I want to be sure to get the best price,
yet I want not to get short-changed on any capability that I should
get.

Anyone?

Have you read up on what features are available on some models and not
others? This may range from audio output capabilities to video streaming
or downloading capabilities to even up converting VHS recordings to 1080.

Do your homework!

Homework is what most of us visiting such NG's as this ARE doing. Tech
sheets are not as informative as real experiences of others IMO. Most
people like to help.

On Sat, 10 Jan 2009 19:39:11 -0500, "tooly"
wrote:


"UCLAN" wrote in message
...
wrote:

I am about to buy a Blu-Ray. I want to be sure to get the best price,
yet I want not to get short-changed on any capability that I should
get.

Anyone?

Have you read up on what features are available on some models and not
others? This may range from audio output capabilities to video streaming
or downloading capabilities to even up converting VHS recordings to 1080.

Do your homework!

Homework is what most of us visiting such NG's as this ARE doing. Tech
sheets are not as informative as real experiences of others IMO. Most
people like to help.




The advice I am following to is wait at least 6 months when the
price/performance ratio of available players goes down. My
impression is that when Blu-ray was pronounced the winner in the HD
war, about one year ago, most manufacturers were caught unprepared. It
takes a while to engineer this technology because of complexity and
proprietary features. The current crop of players seems to have
problems with handling slightly imperfect discs, slow loading,
freezing, and being too darn expensive. I 'll have plenty to watch
until then on over the air HD and my legacy DVDs, which I enjoy very
much on a $40 mult-region Philips player feeding a 2008 Samsung DLP.

Lloyd Parsons wrote:
In article ,
"DockScience" wrote:

"Lloyd Parsons" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"DockScience" wrote:

"Lloyd Parsons" wrote in message
...
In article ,
UCLAN wrote:

KHudson wrote:

I am about to buy a Blu-Ray. I want to be sure to get the best
price,
yet I want not to get short-changed on any capability that I should
get.

Anyone?
I would just recommend that you buy the PS3...forget the other
Blu-Ray
players...
A year ago? Maybe. Today? No way.
For $400 the PS3 is still the best choice overall.
A $199 on sale Panasonic BD35 is almost as good at 1/2 the price

I have both and can compare.
Keyword being 'almost'
another key phrase is '1/2 price'

as far as image quality goes, the BD35 is every bit as good as the PS3
It's just slower to load a disc and change menus

and does fewer of the advanced sound codecs. The big advantage of the
PS3 is that it really is overkill for what it is used for that upgrading
it to new things is a simple download away. So next week/month/year,
when Disney or other studio brings out some great new BluRay menuing
system that nothing likes, the PS3 will most likely be the first to be
able to use it.

The PS3 may well be the first, but others will follow soon enough. I've
upgraded the firmware in both my Sony BD players for the new stuff.
Works great.


If I couldn't use the advanced sound codecs, BluRay wouldn't be in my
house at all. 1/2 the movie experience is in the soundtrack.

Agreed.

--
jer
email reply - I am not a 'ten'

Lloyd Parsons wrote:

For $400 the PS3 is still the best choice overall.

If you want to play video games as well, maybe. But for audio and
video quality, I'll take my under $200 DMP-BD35 - and so will those
that own both. The only feature that goes to the PS3 is load time,
and even *that* advantage is shrinking.

Lloyd Parsons wrote:

as far as image quality goes, the BD35 is every bit as good as the PS3
It's just slower to load a disc and change menus

and does fewer of the advanced sound codecs.

Such as?

The big advantage of the
PS3 is that it really is overkill for what it is used for that upgrading
it to new things is a simple download away.

Hmmm...the BD35 has either an 1)automatic update via Ethernet, 2) a manual
update via Ethernet, 3) an update via downloaded CD-R, or 4) an update
via a CD from Panasonic. Choose your poison.

tooly wrote:

I am about to buy a Blu-Ray. I want to be sure to get the best price,
yet I want not to get short-changed on any capability that I should
get.

Anyone?

Have you read up on what features are available on some models and not
others? This may range from audio output capabilities to video streaming
or downloading capabilities to even up converting VHS recordings to 1080.

Do your homework!

Homework is what most of us visiting such NG's as this ARE doing. Tech
sheets are not as informative as real experiences of others IMO. Most
people like to help.

But if he fails to tell us what features he wants, if it will be used with
an AVR or not, if that AVR supports HDMI 1.3 or if he needs analog DD 5.1
outputs, etc., how are we gonna steer him toward or away from any particular
model? Oh, he's not familiar with these features? *That's* why he has to do
some homework. Homework is *not* just reading spec sheets.

In article , UCLAN
wrote:

Lloyd Parsons wrote:

as far as image quality goes, the BD35 is every bit as good as the PS3
It's just slower to load a disc and change menus

and does fewer of the advanced sound codecs.

Such as?

I was going off the specs at Panasonic's site which listed DTS-HD, but
not DTS-HDMA. But from AVS discussions, it appears that it does support
all the current codecs.

My bad.

The big advantage of the
PS3 is that it really is overkill for what it is used for that upgrading
it to new things is a simple download away.

Hmmm...the BD35 has either an 1)automatic update via Ethernet, 2) a manual
update via Ethernet, 3) an update via downloaded CD-R, or 4) an update
via a CD from Panasonic. Choose your poison.

And that is a good thing. The difference in the PS3 vs the other BD
players is that the PS3 is really a very powerful computer that isn't
even being taxed hard to do BD playback. So yes, the Panasonic can be
updated easily, but how far can the update take you? With the PS3
literally the sky is the limit. With the standalones, it is far from
clear how much more they could do if needed.

That has been an issue with BD players since the introduction of them.

It seems that the content providers are ever increasing the load of
BD-Java crap to the point of ridiculous, and that too has been an issue
from the outset.

I will say that if I were to choose a standalone, Panasonic would be at
the top of my list. They have seemed to be at the forefront of support
for their BD players.

In article ,
UCLAN wrote:

Lloyd Parsons wrote:

For $400 the PS3 is still the best choice overall.

If you want to play video games as well, maybe. But for audio and
video quality, I'll take my under $200 DMP-BD35 - and so will those
that own both. The only feature that goes to the PS3 is load time,
and even *that* advantage is shrinking.

Yes it sure is, the load time issue is not nearly as much a PITA as it
used to be.

But I'll stay with my PS3, it has been flawless in operation, quieter
than the blower in my JVC 61" TV and updated to support everything out
there as it came along. That can't be said for the standalones.

wrote in message
...
I am about to buy a Blu-Ray. I want to be sure to get the best
price,
yet I want not to get short-changed on any capability that I
should
get.

Anyone?

If your PC is sufficiently powered and quiet, you can add a
Blu-Ray player for under $100.

From the posts I've read regarding Blu-Ray stand-alone player
performance and aggravation, I'd say that PowerDVD and the LG
player in a 2 GHz (preferably more) dual core PC with a decent
graphics card way outperforms them. Updates to PowerDVD for
contemporary disc features install automatically in seconds
except when, as recently, the entire program is replaced - which
can take a few minutes. If you allow PowerDVD's monitoring
program to run at system startup, which I do not, then the
update can occur without you having to wait for it when ready to
play a disc.

"CLicker" wrote:
wrote in message
...
I am about to buy a Blu-Ray. I want to be sure to get the best
price,
yet I want not to get short-changed on any capability that I
should
get.

Anyone?

If your PC is sufficiently powered and quiet, you can add a
Blu-Ray player for under $100.

From the posts I've read regarding Blu-Ray stand-alone player
performance and aggravation, I'd say that PowerDVD and the LG
player in a 2 GHz (preferably more) dual core PC with a decent
graphics card way outperforms them. Updates to PowerDVD for
contemporary disc features install automatically in seconds
except when, as recently, the entire program is replaced - which
can take a few minutes. If you allow PowerDVD's monitoring
program to run at system startup, which I do not, then the
update can occur without you having to wait for it when ready to
play a disc.

So you are going to watch Blu Ray on your pc?
The whole point of hd is to watch on a big screen.

Chip

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