Should I get a Blu-ray player?

I use my PS3 as a media center, only rarely playing games. The PS3 is an incredable Blu-ray and DVD player - pretty much second to none in my book. The PS3 is also great for digital photos. You can show them from a memory stick, copy them onto the PS3 hard drive, or access them over your network from a media server. I have all of our digital photos on a Linux box running mediatomb. Any time we want to see a photo or watch a slide show, we can bring it up directly from our big DLP television via the PS3.

You can also rip CDs to the PS3 hard drive. This can be handy if you want extended background music for a party. It's just like using an iPod without the iPod.

If you are a real techno geek like me, you can also dual boot your PS3 to Linux. It's fairly easy to set up Ubuntu on the PS3 - Sony has the ability to add a second OS built right into their gaming OS.

As for the resolution question, the resolution of Blu-ray is 1920x1080. The "p" or "i" indicates whether the siginal is progressive or interlaced. A progressive signal paints the entire screen on each frame. An interlaced signal paints every other line on each frame. Each offers the same resolution, but interlace works at half the speed. For a stationary image it would make no difference, but becomes more of an issue with motion.

The PS3 is my top pick for a Blu-ray player. I have had one for the better part of the year. I also second the suggestion of buying the dedicated movie remote control - it's not expensive and makes operation familiar.

The PS3 loads faster and performs better than almost any other Blu-ray player. Its Internet connectivity allows for easy firmware updates and support of all Blu-ray Internet features.

One the negative side, there are no front panel control buttons other than power and eject. All control operations are displayed on the TV screen, so finding a particular track on a CD involves turning on the TV, or blindly going from track to track with the remote control. Obviously this isn't an issue with DVD or Blu-ray, but it is for listening to music CDs. It's a minor point, and not a serious problem.

Tom

 

Nope no windows. Blu-ray discs will play within the PS3 interface which is very pleasing to the eye. It will also match the resolution of your projector if it is 1280x720.

 

480.

I wonder what he meant with "easier controls" for other players besides the PS3. I use a regular IR programmable remote control with my PS3.

 

There's lots of good info at the AVS forums. There's forums just on projectors. Costco just had a great BR player on sale for $227 after rebate. It was a Panasonic BD35, a highly review unit. You do know all these player still play regular DVD's also? I have a feeling sound is not a big issue with your setup since you didn't mention your speakers. One of the things to consider is HDMI. If you do have a receiver without HDMI you won't get the higher sound quality out of the cheaper BR players.

 

I am sure he means that there are buttons on the front of the player. I don't see it as a big issue.

PS3 uses its own OS - not Windows or "normal" Linux. There is no need to dual boot to Linux unless you want to use the PS3 as a "normal" computer. Otherwise you do everything right from the PS3 OS. You can even surf the Internet from the PS3 OS, but it's not as nice as with a real browser. I use a wireless Bluetooth Qwerty keyboard with my PS3 for any sort of text input, the Blue-ray remote for watching movies, and the six axis controllers for playing games. All of the controls operate through Bluetooth.

Tom

 

If the image is 5 feet wide or more AND if you sit close (within 8 feet) buying a new projector ($3000+) and BD player ($250) would improve the picture quality significantly.

BUT if you sit 10 or more feet away, then your 720p projector and an upscaling DVD player (<$100) will get you close to the picture quality you seek. IMHO.

Also, do you have a receiver/projector that can handle the HDMI connections commonly used for bluray today?

OOPS: partially answered in previous post by Daniel, but does the receiver have HDMI inputs? If not you might need a new one to do this upgrade.

 

Regarding the audio. Blu-ray players and the PS3 have a digital audio output in addition to the HDMI connection. I connect all my devices using HDMI for the video and digital audio out to a receiver for the audio.

 

That's what I do too, but only because I'm too cheap to replace a perfectly good A/V amp with a new one, just to get HDMI inputs.

I did have a problem where I couldn't get surround sound for some Blu-ray disks with my setup. I had convinced myself that the disks had an audio format unsupported by my amp, and I was going to have to spend big bucks on an upgrade. I had frogged around with bitstream formats and all sorts of audio settings with the PS3, but nothing quite worked the way I wanted. I revisited the problem a few weeks ago, and the audio setup menus on my PS3 have been upgraded (I keep it up to date over the Internet). Now there are two simple screens: The first says "HDMI or Digital Optical", the second has check boxes for supported formats. My DTS box was unchecked. Doh! Now it works fine.

Speaking of surround sound, I have two 15" high excursion subwoofers driven by a 1000 W subwoofer amp. The low frequency effects on some of the Blu-ray disks are outstanding.

Tom

 

HD Audio is good but not worth a lot of money i.e. don't upgrade your receiver for it.

In some cases there is a work around: some higher end blu-ray players decode the two HD audio formats (so your receiver won't have to) and some can even output them to analog 5.1 or 7.1 receiver inputs (which is good if your receiver has them).

I decided to not get a BD player that decodes the HD audio as my speakers weren't good enough to make use of it anyway. I'm happy with SD DVD quality audio.

 

The trouble with blu-ray 1080p on a 1080p TV is it makes regular HD TV reception of 1080i or lower seem very conventional. And 1080p TV programming is not yet available.

 

There are a LOT of movies on Blu-ray. You could do what I did, which was wait until my DVD player went to the big recycler in the sky. At that point I pretty much had to defecate or exit the bathroom, so I bought my PS3.

Given your setup, Blu-ray will be better, but not astonishingly so. I have a 1080p DLP television that sits right in front of my face - think of the sort of view you get at a good theater. With my setup, Blu-ray is noticably better. Regular DVDs are better than they were with my old DVD player because the PS3 does a better job upscaling. Some 1080i HD cable channels are almost as good as the 1080p Blu-ray, but many do too much compression.

Now that I am used to Blu-ray, the progression is like this:

1) Blu-ray - awesome.
2) 1080i cable - awesome on some channels, very good on others.
3) DVD - still really good, but noticeably grainy compared to Blu-ray.
4) Digital television, not HD - fair but watchable if necessary.
5) Analog TV - only on a bet.

Tom

 

Daniel you sound like me, you want a better picture but without breaking the bank or getting too complicated. Let me put it to you simple. Go to Costco, buy their up-converting Sony DVD player for 50 dollars (it plays all your normal DVDs it just up-converts them to 720p). It appears from the spec sheet that your Projector has an HDMI input on it, the Sony DVD player comes with an HDMI cord in the box. However if you need a longer HDMI cable buy it on ebay for $10 vs. $100+ at best buy, the signal is digital so a 10 dollar cable delivers the exact same data (1's and 0's) as a 100 dollar cable. You will notice a world of difference with your upconverted DVDs, and to be honest with a 720p projector you would hardly notice a difference between the Blu-Ray player and the upconverting DVD player. In fact we have a 720P TV and I can hardly tell the difference between a normal DVD being played on our upconverting DVD player and my friends Sony Blu-Ray player on our TV. So there you have it, 90% better picture for about 2% of the cost, problem solved.

I agree with John that in a few years physical mediums like CD, DVD, Blu-Ray will be on their deathbed. People laughed at Steve Jobs when he said the same thing about CDs a few years back. They are now laughing at him with the Apple TV and the notion that DVDs/Blu-Rays are soon to be irrelevant. But he is right, physical media will continue to die as our home bandwidth continues to rise. He already proved everyone wrong with the iPod, and eventually it will happen again with an Apple TV kindof device. Just my 2 cents.

 

Good idea.