blu ray player - recommendation?

....snip...


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

My old CRT widescreen.

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-Video-Essentials-Basics-Blu-ray/dp/B000V6LST0/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

Loved the bit about "instructions read by the bloke you avoid at parties".

Thanks,
Paul DS.

Steve Thackery wrote:

"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

We have a Pansonic BD-35, similarly slow and I have grown to hate it and
all Blue-rays.

The picture is good and it does make DVDs better, but then I am using
HDMI and comparing to scart. Certainly it seems to have a good upscaler
in it. Having said that I am a video professional and do not find HD
makes the films any more enjoyable or immersible. Audio to me is more
important and the loss of DD as a standard is an immense pain to me, as
my £3,000 decoder does not do DTS which half the blue rays use (as well
as having audio for dogs standards, but at least they downconvert easily
to human hearing).

Recently I got 'Distric 9' (don't expect too much), but it has this
'watch with IQlive' or something, I entered the menu to see what it was
about, and decided it was rubbish within 3s (FAQs from the internet,
when you see this button!) and tried to get back to the main menu, in
the end I pressed stop and it went back to the very start and I had to
go through the trailers and legal crap again (5-10mins). Then I just
got really annoyed when the 'this feature is disabled' messages come up.

WhenTF is someone going to make a player that bypasses all these rules
from the content providers that does what *I* tell it to do?

And why does Blu-ray take so long to boot up, its worse than my PC?..
well maybe not, but boot is about 30s, then another 30s to load the
disk, then more to load the menus...CHRIST!

DVD was bad enough for that sort of crap, but Blu-ray has just continued
in the same direction, customers are the last consideration. I reckon
it will die pretty quick when we get legal on-line content.

--
Tony

In article , 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

The option I took was to build a media centre PC and include an LG
"Super Multi Blue" drive in it. The whole ensemble is of course a bit
more expensive than just buying a player, but it can do a lot of other
things as well.

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.

Region coding for Blu-Ray is different. There are fewer regions. Also,
beware that some Blu-Ray players advertised as "multi-region" are
actually only multi-region for DVDs but not for Blu-Ray disks.

I haven't yet bought any Blu-Ray disks with foreign codes, but my media
centre has two drive bays, so it would be feasible to add another drive
just for those, and possibly even cheaper than paying the extra for a
true region-free player. (The scheme for computer disk drives appears
to be "five changes and it's fixed", the same as DVD drives).

Rod.
--
Virtual Access V6.3 free usenet/email software from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtual-access/

"Martin" wrote in message
...

Have you tried upgrading the software/firmware?

Yes, although I haven't had it connected to the network for a few weeks now.
I will try again.

I've only used it for DVDs so
far.

Yes, for DVDs it is pretty acceptable, I suppose. As I reported, it's 16s
from pressing 'Play' with the tray open, to 00:00:00 appearing on the
display, then two more seconds before the DVD starts actually playing and
the display timer incrementing.

So that's 18s, which I suppose isn't bad. I would have thought it could be
better, but I don't have any other DVD players to compare it with.

STeveT

"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!

I bought a Sony BDP-S360 for £80 a while back.
Very good in most respects though it's pretty slow to boot up and start
playback.

--
Alex

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!

BugBear


PS/3. It's expensive, but good, kept up to date, and when you realise
the discs cost an arm and a leg you can play games instead.

Andy

On 22/03/2010 21:31, Andy Champ wrote:


PS/3. It's expensive, but good, kept up to date, and when you realise
the discs cost an arm and a leg you can play games instead.

Andy
I second the PS3. Great BD player, and it plays movies off hard drive
and shows photos too.

It will also stream movies and music from a PC over your network.

Downside is there's no MutiRegion hack for it.

G

Alan wrote:

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.

Yes - I have the DVD version of that.

While it was indeed made in full HD quality, it appears
to have been made long enough ago that much of its
display tuning advice is rather-too-specifically
aimed at CRTs.

The test images are useful though.

BugBear

"Bigguy" wrote in message
...
On 22/03/2010 21:31, Andy Champ wrote:


PS/3. It's expensive, but good, kept up to date, and when you realise
the discs cost an arm and a leg you can play games instead.

Andy
I second the PS3. Great BD player, and it plays movies off hard drive and
shows photos too.

It will also stream movies and music from a PC over your network.

Downside is there's no MutiRegion hack for it.


I gave info. on MR hack for the Sony etc. earlier I think I should make it
clear it makes the normal DVD playing MR not the Blu-Ray.
From what I read if a Blue ray player can be made MR for Blue-ray parts are
needed inside the player and it not a DIY job as the normal DVDs.
Regards
David

On Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:01:16 +0000, Tony wrote:


And why does Blu-ray take so long to boot up, its worse than my PC?..
well maybe not, but boot is about 30s, then another 30s to load the
disk, then more to load the menus...CHRIST!

That's what I'd like to know, is it phoning home to tell someone what
you're watching and check that you have permission? Or is there an
actual physical reason?