[PS3] Blu ray playback tested

[Berserk]

I don't know this has been posted yet but here are two very positive reviews of the ps3 blu ray player.
The BD drive is even better than a stand alone player from Samsung which costs approx. 1100 euros!!!

This makes the PS3 and incredible bargain: for at least 500 dollar/ euros you have a very good blu ray player + a powerful gaming machine!




http://www.avrev.com/equip/playstation_3/index2.html

excerpt

As a Blu-ray player, the PS3 is so much faster from power up to the time the picture comes on the screen compared to the Samsung Blu-ray player, it is scary. No Windows 3.0-looking hourglass icon. You boot the PS3 up and within about six seconds the Sony logo/system menu comes up with a little classical music fanfare. You scroll over to the Blu-ray drive icon and launch the disc. The picture glitches a time or two as the HDCP copy protection and HDMI cable do their thing and within less than 10 seconds, the “X-Menâ€￾ Blu-ray menu was up on the screen. For a generation who doesn’t like to wait for anything and lives for instant gratification – this is a welcomed improvement over the first generation Blu-ray players. It also thankfully never gave me the dreaded HDMI error message that is so common on first generation HD DVD players when switching between inputs while a movie is playing. While watching any Blu-ray movie, I could switch to my satellite receiver, check the USC football game score and then go back to my Blu-ray movie without the disc starting over from the beginning. Try that on a first generation Toshiba HD DVD player.

Selecting the scene towards the end when Ian McKellen’s character Magneto, who has the power to move metal, lifts the entire Golden Gate Bridge and drags it to Alcatraz, my jaw about hit the floor. Having just watched the exact same scene from the DVD a few minutes prior on my Integra DPS-10.5 DVD player, the best way to compare the video improvement from DVD to Blu-ray is to say that it was no less subtle than if your doctor corrected your prescription in your glasses. The level of detail in the opening panoramic shot of the Golden Gate Bridge from the San Francisco peninsula is nothing short of visually spectacular on Blu-ray when played on the PS3. If you want to nitpick, looking for dot crawl, you have to stick your head unnaturally close to the screen (five feet or closer). From a normal seating distance the picture was not just impressive to the videophile, it is so noticeably better than DVD grandma will start dropping hints that she wants a Blu-ray player for Christmas. There is no question Blu-ray from a PS3 via HDMI at 1080p into a 1080p HDTV is absolutely better than even the best scaling DVD players.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,127892/article.html

excerpt

From the outset, Sony has considered the PlayStation 3 an all-around entertainment console, with tendrils that extend well beyond the realm of game play. Perhaps chief among these is its support for the Blu-ray Disc format, which lets you play high-definition movies. But can the PS3 perform competitively with stand-alone Blu-ray players from consumer electronics makers?

The short answer is yes. In my initial hands-on tests, the PS3's Blu-ray Disc playback was very good--even better than I'd anticipated. (If you're impatient to read my first impressions of the PS3's image quality for Blu-ray Discs, skip ahead to "Sublime Video," past the interface discussion.) However, this is not an unqualified endorsement; in fact, I found several drawbacks that may give audio-visual enthusiasts pause

Sublime Video

While usability is critical to any consumer electronics device, the quality of the output remains paramount. Having the PS3 finally allowed me to compare the first-to-market Samsung BD-P1000 (with the original, factory-installed firmware) side by side with another Blu-ray Disc player, and the results highlighted a video-quality shortcoming in the original release of the Samsung player that shipped in the summer.

I tested both players with a 50-inch high-definition plasma screen, the Pioneer Elite PRO-FHD1, running the output over HDMI at 1080p. I could see that the images from the PlayStation 3 appeared noticeably sharper and crisper, with more depth and detail than the Samsung unit produced. That's probably because the BD-P1000 was released with noise reduction enabled by default and offered no way to disable it. Samsung's misstep on this setting goes far to account for the flat-looking image, and for the generally lower picture quality that I and other reviewers noted on the BD-P1000 during the summer. (The company says this problem has been fixed via a firmware update released at the end of October; all players shipped since then have the new firmware.)

Earlier, with no other Blu-ray player to compare against the Samsung, I had found its output of HD films on Blu-ray definitely better-looking than the same movies on standard-definition DVD. However, when I watched the same Blu-ray movies on the PlayStation 3, I could better appreciate Blu-ray's potential for image clarity. I also found the overall image quality more comparable to that of HD DVD films I've seen displayed on Toshiba's HD DVD players, in terms of sharpness, detail, and color.

 

[jamesnmandy]

thanks

looking for a Xbox 360 HD-DVD vs. PS3 BluRay direct unbiased comparison, seen any?

 

[Mythos]

thanks

looking for a Xbox 360 HD-DVD vs. PS3 BluRay direct unbiased comparison, seen any?

hddigest.com

 

[London Geezer]

thanks

looking for a Xbox 360 HD-DVD vs. PS3 BluRay direct unbiased comparison, seen any?

The problem with that kind of review (as opposed to PS3 vs other Bluray players comparisons) is that it will be heavily influenced by the fact that most HDDVD titles today look better than the Bluray versions because of the encoding.

Unless they review the players using movies using the same format, say VC1, on both HDDVD and Bluray, then the comparison wouldn't be accurate as you're testing two players using two different software versions.

Then again, i think it would be acceptable to review the Bluray players on the merit of the format itself. At the end of the day if the bluray version of a certain movie looks worse than the HDDVD version, isn't that also to be notified? whether it looks worse because of the player or the format, in the end the rsult is the same. Hopefully with time, more and more titles on bluray will be encoded properly, like MI3.

 

[Mythos]

The problem with that kind of review (as opposed to PS3 vs other Bluray players comparisons) is that it will be heavily influenced by the fact that most HDDVD titles today look better than the Bluray versions because of the encoding.

Unless they review the players using movies using the same format, say VC1, on both HDDVD and Bluray, then the comparison wouldn't be accurate as you're testing two players using two different software versions.

Then again, i think it would be acceptable to review the Bluray players on the merit of the format itself. At the end of the day if the bluray version of a certain movie looks worse than the HDDVD version, isn't that also to be notified? whether it looks worse because of the player or the format, in the end the rsult is the same. Hopefully with time, more and more titles on bluray will be encoded properly, like MI3.

LB check this link out its a pretty fair assement of both formats and its mainly gears towards the hardware perspective...

http://www.highdefdigest.com/feature_ps3vsxbox360addon.html

 

[Skrying]

Then that would make the HD-DVD addon for Xbox 360 the better movie player? Its perfectly legitimate to compare the players using the same movies. You're comparing them as products that perform the same function, and the quality of the movies themselves reflect on that.

 

[Titanio]

The problem with that kind of review (as opposed to PS3 vs other Bluray players comparisons) is that it will be heavily influenced by the fact that most HDDVD titles today look better than the Bluray versions because of the encoding.

Unless they review the players using movies using the same format, say VC1, on both HDDVD and Bluray, then the comparison wouldn't be accurate as you're testing two players using two different software versions.

Then again, i think it would be acceptable to review the Bluray players on the merit of the format itself. At the end of the day if the bluray version of a certain movie looks worse than the HDDVD version, isn't that also to be notified? whether it looks worse because of the player or the format, in the end the rsult is the same. Hopefully with time, more and more titles on bluray will be encoded properly, like MI3.

Maybe I'm not paying as much attention as I could be, but I've been under the impression for some time now that where titles are released on both formats they tend to use the exact same codec and look virtually identical. I don't think there's a "Blu-ray" issue with encoding anymore, there's really just a "Sony Pictures issue", and even there some of Sony's titles have come out with excellent picture quality. Not to mention that these are titles that won't be coming out on HD-DVD anyway..meanwhile, elsewhere, Fox is also churning out some spectacular looking releases.

If you're comparing a movie released across both formats now, chances are they look the same. Where there is a shortcoming (some Sony titles), it's with movies you won't get on HD-DVD anyway.

 

[London Geezer]

Then that would make the HD-DVD addon for Xbox 360 the better movie player? Its perfectly legitimate to compare the players using the same movies. You're comparing them as products that perform the same function, and the quality of the movies themselves reflect on that.

I think it wouldn't be totally wrong to say that the HDDVD player is the better player at the moment, considering some of those embarrasingly bad Bluray movies. In the end if what you get on screen is better than the Bluray version because of the movie or because of the player, what is the difference?

Surely, a purely "hardware" review would be more "accurate", but if the format isn't up to the task, what's the point?

 

[patsu]

Good suggestions in the PC World review:

The issue--one of several that keep the PS3 from being a killer Blu-ray Disc player--is that, if already turned on, the machine does not automatically start the movie disc.

If implemented, hopefully they can turn on/off auto-Blu-ray playback like PSP 3.0.

Since it doesn't come with a separate remote control for video playback, I had to use the game controller to navigate through movies, and that required two hands.

There are other controller scheme issues highlighted in the article. Probably need a remote control for layman. Very cool overall. Am a little disappointed they didn't review Black Hawk Down for the Blu-Wizard navigation.

Also missing online support so far:

Unfortunately, even though the PS3 has built-in gigabit ethernet, it does not currently support BDLive content. BDLive is the moniker Blu-ray Disc proponents use to denote online interactive content that can be delivered to a Blu-ray player via the Internet. Such content is not yet available, and none of the stand-alone BD players support BDLive. The Blu-ray Disc Association doesn't anticipate the release of BDLive hardware requirements until June 2007, so I wouldn't expect to see the content much before then. Sony has not announced whether PS3 BD Live support will be an option via a firmware update in the future.

 

[jamesnmandy]

the fact that they (Sony) even allowed a BluRay movie to be produced that was anything less than correct baffles me honestly, i mean, that would be like showing off your new Corvette for 2008 and pumping watered down gas into it before the show.......somebody really missed the mark there...

thanks for the linkage

 

[Titanio]

I think it wouldn't be totally wrong to say that the HDDVD player is the better player at the moment, considering some of those embarrasingly bad Bluray movies.

The only ones you can directly compare are Warner and Paramount movies..and they basically look the same on both.

If Sony has released some movies of varying quality..is that worse than not having them at all (HD-DVD)?

I don't think it'd be fair to say that at all.

 

[Skrying]

The only ones you can directly compare are Warner and Paramount movies..and they basically look the same on both.

If Sony has released some movies of varying quality..is that worse than not having them at all (HD-DVD)?

I don't think it'd be fair to say that at all.

Are there movies that are released on HD-DVD that are not on Blu-Ray?

You sure seem to put a lot of stock in Sony pictures there.....

 

[Titanio]

Are there movies that are released on HD-DVD that are not on Blu-Ray?

Of course!

You sure seem to put a lot of stock in Sony pictures there.....

I don't, I'm just saying that pointing at "bad Blu-ray transfers" as a reason why HD-DVD might be better is a little unsound when those movies aren't on HD-DVD in the first place.

Yes, some of Sony's movies have been poor transfers. But that should not detract from what the other studios are doing. I had concerns initially because most Blu-ray movies were coming from Sony, and most weren't up to scratch. But the landscape is a lot different now, and L-B's posts seemed to hark back to a by-gone period.

 

[London Geezer]

The only ones you can directly compare are Warner and Paramount movies..and they basically look the same on both.

If Sony has released some movies of varying quality..is that worse than not having them at all (HD-DVD)?

I don't think it'd be fair to say that at all.

It's not worse than not having them at all, but is it better than buying them again if you have the DVD version? Fifth Element is one of those that only looks marginally better on Bluray... And that's one of my favourite movies in the whole universe, and i will never forgive Sony for messing it up. Really no excuse for releasing a Bluray movie like that which is encoded so poorly that it looks just slightly better than the DVD version, instead of looking jaw-droppingly gorgeous like it should.

Yes i'm bitter, so what... Sue me.

 

[Titanio]

Yes i'm bitter, so what... Sue me.

Well now you're post makes sense

Just compare what's out there. Warner and Paramount movies across the two formats look virtually identical. That leaves you with Universal bringing some great transfers on HD-DVD, and Fox & Disney bringing some great transfers on Blu-ray. And Sony with their mixed quality (which even still is better than where they were initially!). Things looked bad initially because the library was so heavily 'Sony' and thus exposed to their issues, but we're passed that now. Like I say, what was considered a 'blu-ray issue' before is really just a 'sony' issue now, and even they have overcome that on a couple of their own titles at least (they just need to become more consistent).

 

[London Geezer]

Well now you're post makes sense

Just compare what's out there. Warner and Paramount movies across the two formats look virtually identical. That leaves you with Universal bringing some great transfers on HD-DVD, and Fox & Disney bringing some great transfers on Blu-ray. And Sony with their mixed quality (which even still is better than where they were initially!).

I would compare if i had something to test them on... oh wait, not gonna happen till way after March!!! *BITTERNESS!*

 

[Carl B]

I frankly think that high-def digest review, when filtered by the reader, makes a strong case for PS3 as a Blu-ray player. And not that it wasn't doing that anyway mind you, because it certainly was, it's just that nearly the entirety of the quibbles focus around:

* No 1080p24 playback, which the author either doesn't mention or is unawares may/can be corrected by a firmware update

* No upconversion of standard-def DVDs, which the author either doesn't mention or is unawares may/can be corrected by a firmware update

* The 1080i issue with certain games, which beyond it's eventual rectification via a firmware update... what's it have to do with the focus of his review (BD playback)?

I think the PS3 makes for great Blu-ray playback; I personally understand how to use the controller quite well, and with the Cell and "firmware on demand," the sky's the limit.

The audio point is a legitimate one, but hey it is what it is... at least the 20GB version has the HDMI now, so as not to be gimped in this regard.

 

[btdvox]

I know probably no one will trust me with this judgement lol- As im sure youll find it biased because i have a ps3- But Side by Side comparing some movies at the store i work in- The 360 hd dvd drive and the ps3 blu ray have a lot to say for them- unfortauntly one thign that i cant compare is that all the tv's we really sell taht are 1080 p are HDMI only so comparing the ps3 1080p was hard- i can right away tell you taht 1080p on 52 inch and larger screens made a huge difference from 8 feet away-
On 50 and smaller not so much- on a 42 or acutally i think it was a 40 inch samsung i couldnt tell a difference- That being said comparing the two in 720P we compared mi 3 to mi 3- and i have to admit i still honestly think the ps3 had a better- Crisper version- there were some "softer spots" but it defintly looked nicer- also the blacks were more black on the TV but that could be because of the TV settings i didnt check.

More over comparing Ice Age meltdown to corpse bride - i thought Ice age kicked butt. But im sure corpse bride would be a hard comparison since its much darker.

But on that being said on some older blu rays- the HD DVD to my eyes pretty much kick butt and some of the movies ive seen on hd dvd are more stable as in the quality never differs whereas the older blu rays the quality can go from amazing to what did they do to the transfer here? But it seems the last 6 blu ray titles (click, xmen3, mi 3, ice age, etc) Look amazing and i can see Blu ray doing amazing in teh future......

But thats what sony told us on an article---but knowing sony i didnt trust them- I think i was wrong.

 

[Tap In]

I frankly think that high-def digest review, when filtered by the reader, makes a strong case....

indeed ... sounds like you can't go wrong with either gaming HD movie player

Conclusions -- Which One to Buy?
Sorry, I can't tell you which is the best next-gen game console -- that's all about the games. But in terms of high-definition picture and sound quality, ease-of-use and price, both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 with add-on deliver a product that rivals any next-gen player on the market today, regardless of format. That doesn't mean both aren't without their drawbacks. The Xbox 360 add-on suffers from a lack of HDMI and analog outputs, though it still delivers excellent results despite those limitations. The PS3, meanwhile, also lacks analog outs, but it does have HDMI 1.3 support and can pass-through Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD to compatible receivers. The lack of 1080i upconversion on the PS3 is a huge issue, though, so unless you have a 1080p-capable HDTV, you may suffer buyer's remorse.

 

[crazygambit]

I think the PS3 makes for great Blu-ray playback; I personally understand how to use the controller quite well, and with the Cell and "firmware on demand," the sky's the limit.

Isn't there a Bluetooth remote coming out for 25 bucks? I really can't wrap my head around the controller compaints. Oh noes I have to use BOTH hands to watch a movie!!! ]If they hate using the sixaxis for movie playback that much, just get the damned remote. I know I wouldn't mind.