Re: Shopping for Blu-Ray

Lloyd Parsons wrote:
In article <moudneztOJzd04rUnZ2dnUVZ_sDinZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Jer <gdunn@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Lloyd Parsons wrote:
In article <ihsdh4pujkrh5j0ma3jj2l4cgk1b3jo90c@xxxxxxx>,
Howard Brazee <howard@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

My wife's getting me a Blu-Ray for Christmas. She'd rather spend
$200 than $300 or more, but doesn't know whether the $300 are really
worth an extra $100 (but then she'd rather watch channel 7 which she
can find easily than memorize the Comcast version way away from her
normal browsing channels).

So she asked me - but I don't know either. So I thought I'd ask
here.

I hate having to use Comcast's box - but have heard that expensive
remote controls make this easier. That will be a consideration down
the line.
Howard,

If you have an HDMI connection to use for the BluRay player, then take a serious look at the PS3. In spite of its odd look compared to a classic player, it is the single best BluRay player out there.

It loads the disks faster than any of the others, is easily and often upgraded via the internet, which makes it more compatible with the ever increasingly slow loading newest, greatest, BluRay disks out there. It really is hard to beat.

It should be noted that the Sony 300/500 line of BD players have a firmware update available to make them 1.1 compliant. And while they may not be the fastest to load a disk, I've always wondered why this aspect is always mentioned. IMO, it's a non-issue.

I'll take it that you don't have a BluRay player?

You would be wrong... I have three BD players... all Sony.


The load speed is an issue to many of us. Especially as the studios keep adding more and more they want the disk to do with the menuing and such. 1.1 compliancy is nice, but it seems that nearly every time Disney (and some others) come out with their latest and greatest, lots of players either won't load them, or load them so slowly as to be irritating as hell. I have yet to see a single movie that the PS3 doesn't load just lickety split and run flawlessly. I wish I could say that about other BluRay gear!

While I'll say the S300 and S500 are slower to load than the S550, all three have never faulted to play anything in the drawer. And while I haven't played most DVD's in my library, I have played several hundred, and not a single one failed to perform as expected, and this includes the ~40 BD disks currently on hand. The S550 routinely loads and begins playing a BD disk between 10-15 seconds after the drawer closes, significantly faster than the other two players, which both take about a minute or so. I recall something about the newer S550 being faster, but that had nothing to do with my choice. Of course, I can't know if my own experience with load time is typical of others, but it is the reality here. Incidently, both the S300 and S500 have had their firmware updated to 1.1, while the S550 was born with it. The latest rumor is the S550 will get 2.0 update somewhere down the line, I've not heard any similar rumors about the other two players. Personally, I'm not going to loose sleep over it until I feel the need to.



So to those that don't care about load speed, nor care that the latest movie they rented/bought won't load at all, get whichever you want.

But if you want the BluRay player that has the least issues with performance or disk compatibility, get a PS3.

Frankly, while BluRay is great to watch and listen to, it is a PITA with the crap the industry keeps throwing at it. It is still, for the most part, overpriced, imo.

Each to his/her own.

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

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Shopping for Blu-Ray
    ... serious look at the PS3. ... it is the single best BluRay player out there. ... may not be the fastest to load a disk, ... more they want the disk to do with the menuing and such. ...
    (alt.tv.tech.hdtv)
  • Re: Firefox 3.5
    ... LONG time to load in the first place, ... run the disk optimizer. ... Get and run a registry cleaner. ... This fragmentation happens as a result of things that have occurred AT ANY ...
    (rec.outdoors.rv-travel)
  • Re: XP Pro OEM installs, Academic Upgrade doesnt
    ... He says I am NOT supposed to load ... the NVidia RAID driver if I have one disk. ... he also says that you can't use an "upgrade" version of Windows XP to ... > connectors but there is also the possibility that only certain connectors ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.setup_deployment)
  • Re: SATA 3ware RAID review...sort of.
    ... indicate the load you are putting on the card or the harddrives. ... of sustained disk transfer. ... how many hits the server serves every second. ... >setup though so I was concerned about moving over to SATA for something ...
    (freebsd-isp)
  • Re: Once and for all! Fastest way to load large jpeg
    ... - do you mean that a 4mb file is slow to load? ... but it could cut down on physical disk reads ... The above code is just creating a sort of emptyish Bitmap and shoving ... TMemoryStream then load the image from the TMemoryStream ...
    (alt.comp.lang.borland-delphi)