Paddy

PS3 is awesome blu ray! Must admit, the planet earth thing looks awesome as do any cartoons, like Cars etc.! [all through a 40" 1080p]

I've been using a panasonic DVD player with surround as well but think it's time to move on... the dvd's look better through the PS3...

Which leads on to a question, does the PS3 upscale?? Or is it just the fact my old dvd player is through scart and the PS3 is through HDMI?

May sound retarded but I like a recent update on the PS3 that lets you switch the machine off and it'll turn back on at the point the dvd/bluray was at! Awesome if, like me, you're into watching TV series on DVD and just hit "play all" and want to continue where you left off!

That's what I like about PS3 though is the fact it'll keep updating, I even sold my recordable freeview on ebay in anticipation of being able to do it on Play Tv [and get rid of clutter], is it out yet???

May start a new thread but what's a good amp/speaker package for surround? No more than £1k all in?

frog

The PS3 upscales, and so does your 40" television, if the PS3 outputs upscaled video, the TV won't and vice-versa.

Old DVD through SCART will probably be the reason you are seeing much difference, as well as the fact that the electronics in the PS3 are probably much more up to date than those in your old DVD player

Paddy

Damn right mate! My DVD player is so old it's a betamax/DVD combo

So come on Greg, what surround set up should I be looking at?

frog

Not too sure tbh, I'd get a separate receiver and speakers, not an all in one job. At least that will give you some room to upgrade in the future.

www.homecinemachoice.com is a good place to look for uk biased reviews, they have past reviews online in PDF, so suggest you look at receivers from sony, denon, yamah, pioneer and speakers to match.

You probably should be looking to spend £350-£450 on the amp, and the remainder on decent speakers. Pointless buying a good amp and crap speakers.
Speakers you'll keep for a long time, the amp, you could upgrade in a year or two.

Second hand amps on eBay are probably worth a look too, I'd buy speakers new though.

Finally, go to a shop, and get to listen to stuff, different amp and same speakers and vice versa to get an idea. Amps all sound different, same for speakers
Take some DVDs, CDs and betamax movies with you that you know and ask for them to be played.

HTH

TIFF

I am at the minute streaming my blue ray/hd films from my hard drive through the Xbox360.......

BUT

Thinking of upgrading to "popcorn Hour".................Those in the know....will know

nuttynil

iTrader: (3)

Dont want to go into to much detail but im using ps3 pioneer 43 plasma ,the right cables and played spiderman 3 on it which was excellent picture ...just get a ps3 and have fun with games aswell .........

tonyk

I have the Matrix movies and transformers on HD-DVD and they look fantastic. On some movies you will not see any real visual difference due to the way the movie is made. Movies like the Bourne Ultimatium and the shaky camera style make it hard to see a difference. HD TV shows like Battlestas Galactica use a lot of Film Grain as an artisitic affect or have processing applied to them. What I notice more about HD than dvd is the colours, they are better on HD sources.

To the guy that started this post,

If you have no interest in games at all and only want to watch DVD's and the odd Blu Ray that takes your fancy then save £100 and get a standalone player as the PS3 will offer you nothing else bar a bigger bill.

Nathr has got it spot on with his posts on this topic. Casino Royale received a 4 out of 5 for picture quality and by clicking the link below it will give you reviews of all blu-ray and HD-DVD movies.

* http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/653/casinoroyale.html

Bullett

iTrader: (2)

i could be going ps3 then.and it'll be even cheaper if we can get it free with a phone.

but im hopiing my surround sound is ok.we will see i spose

Paddy

Not a massive thing as most people probably won't bother, but with the wifi built into PS3 [I'm guessing most standalone blu ray players don't have it??] on top of updates which may or may not be relevant to movie playback, some of them [in the Extras on the discs] also offer links directly to websites with updates/news etc. so you can browse info on your films/shows direct from your TV.

Personally, I think the PS3 is worth the extra £100 whether you can quantify or not....and I am not much of a gamer [I try, but I haven't got the time and I'm shit at them anyway ].

And as for Tiff still banging on about the Xbox Did I imagine that no-one is making HD DVDs anymore or has something changed?

TIFF

Who said anything about watching HD-DVD,s on my xbox?............

I AM STREAMING HD AND BLUERAY MOVIES FROM MY HARD DRIVE ON THE PC....THROUGH THE XBOX......ONTO MY TV!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bullett

iTrader: (2)

trouble is im a nightmare. i have the nintendo nes,snes,n64,ps1,ps2,xbox,xbox360,and a sega megadrive.trace will do her nut if i get another gamer machine but its the most sensible way i think now.if the surround works ok and its just the dvd unit thats fooked

Paddy

Neil sounds like you're just fishing for an excuse to get another game machine

Tiff sorry mate, what did you say?

Bullett

iTrader: (2)

paddy,nah mate.just dont want to waste money.wa sunsure of blu-rays future tbh.look at hd-dvd.died already.glad i didnt get into that.

TIFF

pmsl......you cunt!!!

Paddy

I thought the same mate but when you think how many pies Sony have their fingers in with regards to the film industry... if it came down to a 2 horse race like it did with VHS and Beta.... it was only ever going to go one way!

Thrush

iTrader: (1)

HD-DVD isn't entirely dead yet..... Tosh pulled the plug, but then a month or so later they reinstated their HD-DVD programme and are working on the new format which will, allegedly, surpass BDP's in capacity and read times...

Either way I ain't buying into either market till it's a clear victor. Add to that I ain't got a HD TV (love my CRT too much!) it ain't worth it for me....

However, I can see the attraction to the PS3 even for those, like me, who aren't into gaming. Wifi, internal HDD, play hi def movies, connect to servers and PC's, Freeview PVR coming to make it a TV tuner - sounds good to me!

What it needs, and I have no idea if it can do these already as I really haven't looked into it, is to be able to play movies from online rental places, like the Apple TV can with iTunes, and have a media centre interface, like MS's xBox...

If you had the ability to use the PS3 as a media centre - connect to your network storage or PC on network, peruse all your downloaded films and music with a kick ass interface (like Microsoft Media Centre or MediaPortal etc) to watch divx films, dvd's, hd movies, play music from a music library (same MC style interface) surf the web, visit sites like iTunes and other online movie download/rental sites and be able to download/rent HD movies etc to playback from the internal HDD on the PS3 it would be a fooking tool indeed.....

vroomtshh

Other than the renting movies part, it can do all of the above. The interface might not be up there with Media centre (yet) but the ability is there, and can surely only be developed further?

tonyk

Most players have an ethernet port as does the one in the link I posted at the start of this thread, any device that has an ethernet port can be made wireless via a dongle to, however as you said this is probably only of any use for firmware updates and the odd bit of film extra's.

The main problem with Blu Ray and HD-DVD is that they do not offer that big of an advantage of DVD. DVD offered a massive advantage over VHS, no more rewinding tapes, instant skipping chapters-frames, start the movie where you want and of course the picture and audio aspects. It also meant everbody could access these features as long as they had a scart cable.

Now you need to make sure your TV can do 720p-1080p, has HDMI 1.3, your BD player has the correct profile and the average customer does not want to bother will all that hence the poor sales of both formats.