blu ray player - recommendation?

OK, the inevitable is lumbering towards me.

DVD is slowly dieing, and already there are
some films where special versions
are blu-ray only.

So I need (loosely speaking, for some value of "need")
a blu ray player.

Requirments:

* Decent picture
* Good sound (I feed my Stereo, which is good verging on esoteric)
* DVD capability, with upscaling
* HDMI output for my Toshiba

I'm guessing those are easy requirements to meet,
so - recommend away!

BugBear

bugbear wrote:
OK, the inevitable is lumbering towards me.

DVD is slowly dieing, and already there are
some films where special versions
are blu-ray only.

So I need (loosely speaking, for some value of "need")
a blu ray player.

Requirments:

* Decent picture
* Good sound (I feed my Stereo, which is good verging on esoteric)
* DVD capability, with upscaling

One more thing...

My present DVD player is multi-region (aren't they all?)

How do I stand with region coding on DVD discs
and blu-ray discs with a new player?

I have a small number of USA DVDs.

BugBear

In message , bugbear
wrote
OK, the inevitable is lumbering towards me.

DVD is slowly dieing, and already there are
some films where special versions
are blu-ray only.

So I need (loosely speaking, for some value of "need")
a blu ray player.

Requirments:

* Decent picture
* Good sound (I feed my Stereo, which is good verging on esoteric)
* DVD capability, with upscaling
* HDMI output for my Toshiba

I'm guessing those are easy requirements to meet,
so - recommend away!


Avoid Sony. Pioneers in the technology but their players are so slow.
It's like watching paint dry waiting for a Blu-ray disk to initialise in
the player.

Watch out for the audio connections for feeding a simple stereo. Some of
the latest players may only have HDMI and/or an optical connection for
feeding Dolby digital surround sound to a suitable AV amplifier/decoder.


--
Alan
news2009 {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

"Alan" wrote in message
...

Avoid Sony. Pioneers in the technology but their players are so slow. It's
like watching paint dry waiting for a Blu-ray disk to initialise in the
player.

Ah, I'm glad you said that! I replaced my DVD player with a Sony Blu-ray,
and it takes flippin' ages to read a disk. Endless buzzing and clicking -
very tedious.

SteveT

"Steve Thackery" wrote in message
...

"Alan" wrote in message
...

Avoid Sony. Pioneers in the technology but their players are so slow.
It's like watching paint dry waiting for a Blu-ray disk to initialise in
the player.

Ah, I'm glad you said that! I replaced my DVD player with a Sony Blu-ray,
and it takes flippin' ages to read a disk. Endless buzzing and clicking -
very tedious.


Visit the AV forums you will see the one I bought is highly thought of and
possibly the cheapest good one in the shops.
Sony BDP-S360 or S363 in Sony Shop.
Slow to load do not understand that statement mine loads ok.
I paid £129 and that included 3 Blue ray movies. Think Blockbuster put an
extra one in at £149.
MR was £149 at Richer Sounds.
I followed instructions to make mine MR as in the AV Forum.
Sony Shop would do it for £20.

Makes my normal DVDs look better too.
Only draw back, and that goes for all, is the shop prices of the Ble-ray
movies at 50% plus more than normal DVD, on this player I think I will stick
to buying normal DVDs they give excellent pictures via my projector.

www.avforums.com/forums/blu-ray-players/

Regards
David

On 22/03/2010 12:15, Steve Thackery wrote:

"Alan" wrote in message
...

Avoid Sony. Pioneers in the technology but their players are so slow.
It's like watching paint dry waiting for a Blu-ray disk to initialise
in the player.

Ah, I'm glad you said that! I replaced my DVD player with a Sony
Blu-ray, and it takes flippin' ages to read a disk. Endless buzzing and
clicking - very tedious.

SteveT
Yep, the Sony BDP-S350 is seriously slow to load BD disks.

Newer one my bro' got as a package with his Freesat enabled 40" Bravia
(BDP-363)? is a lot quicker.

"bugbear" wrote in message
o.uk...
OK, the inevitable is lumbering towards me.

DVD is slowly dieing, and already there are
some films where special versions
are blu-ray only.

So I need (loosely speaking, for some value of "need")
a blu ray player.

Requirments:

* Decent picture
* Good sound (I feed my Stereo, which is good verging on esoteric)
* DVD capability, with upscaling
* HDMI output for my Toshiba

I'm guessing those are easy requirements to meet,
so - recommend away!

BugBear

Whilst "Bugbear" is out buying, can anyone recommend some setup/test
Blu-Rays to take with him? For example my "Toy Story" DVD has such things
and clearly shows that my DVD player doesn't handle the full range of
black/white shades.

The DVD actually has a screen explaining "your cheapie DVD might fail this
test, and for £20 from Asda, I wasn't surprised mine did but I'd be somewhat
"disappointed" to find a £120+ Blu-Ray suffered from similar "cheapies". So
is there a good Blu-Ray which we could ake with us to "reveal all"?

Paul DS.

"Martin" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:11:24 -0000, "David" wrote:


I followed instructions to make mine MR as in the AV Forum.
Sony Shop would do it for £20.

I couldn't find that. Can you provide a specific link to the post, please?
--

This is the one I used used,
http://www.avforums.com/forums/blu-r...-part-7-a.html
You should be able to find alternative ways with other remotes in the forum.
Regards
David

In message , Paul D.Smith
wrote

Whilst "Bugbear" is out buying, can anyone recommend some setup/test
Blu-Rays to take with him? For example my "Toy Story" DVD has such
things and clearly shows that my DVD player doesn't handle the full
range of black/white shades.

Is it the DVD or a flat screen TV that doesn't handle the grey scale.

The DVD actually has a screen explaining "your cheapie DVD might fail
this test, and for £20 from Asda, I wasn't surprised mine did but I'd
be somewhat "disappointed" to find a £120+ Blu-Ray suffered from
similar "cheapies". So is there a good Blu-Ray which we could ake with
us to "reveal all"?

Anything you play on the Blu-ray box will probably show the limitations
of your system rather than of the player alone.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Vide...u-ray/dp/B000V
6LST0/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

The most boring Blu-ray ever produced but it does have calibration test
patterns and instructions on how to use them but explained in the most
laboriously way known to mankind.

Read the first 4 reviews at
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Vide...u-ray/dp/B000V
6LST0/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top


--
Alan
news2009 {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

"David" wrote in message
...

Visit the AV forums you will see the one I bought is highly thought of and
possibly the cheapest good one in the shops.
Sony BDP-S360 or S363 in Sony Shop.

Well, mine is definitely the S360 and I think it's dreadful. Here are some
timings:

1/ From switched off to opening the tray: 20s

2/ To load and start playing a DVD: 16s

3/ Delay when pressing the 'jump forward' key: 2.5s

All of these seem ridiculously long.

Here is the dire story of loading 'Inglourious Basterds' on
Blu-Ray..........

Starting with an open tray, and pressing the play button:

1/ The appearance of 00:00:00 on the display: 23s

2/ The appearance of 'Loading' on the screen: 50s

3/ The films intro screen starts playing: 1m 08s

Over a minute to start playing the film! That's terrible. Personally I
really regret buying it.

SteveT