bobukcat
08-11-09, 11:49 AM
A reason to consider buying a BD player with at least 7.1 Analog outputs in addition to HDMI:
I've used my PS3 as a BD player for years and have been pretty happy with it. Recently I completed (well, are they ever really complete??) my HT in the remodeled basement and temporarily moved the PS3 down there. It's fed to my 60" Kuro through an ES series Sony AVR. When doing the calibration using HD DVE I noticed that the Sony AVR is clipping the video signal below black and above white, when I connect the PS3 directly to the Kuro I don't have the same problem. Thankfully I ran 2 HDMI cables through the wall to the Kuro but the PS3 only has HDMI as a means to output PCM HD (Dolby True or DTS-MA) audio. This brought me to looking at standalone BD players with 7.1 Audio Outputs (I would prefer two HDMI outputs but I don't think I want to spend that kind of cash on a BD player!) or replacing my essentially brand-new ES series receiver - unfortunately I've had it too long to be able to return it for a refund.
What I've found in reading BD player reviews and owner's experiences on AVS is that almost all standalone BD players have some kind of problem or glitch. I bought a Panasonic DMP-BD80 last week but it's frozen for several seconds during several movies already so I'm thinking of returning it and trying the Oppo BDP-83. The only concern there is several reports of BDs that won't play on it - that seems like a pretty big problem for a $500 BD player. Of course I'm not too pleased to learn that the $2500 ES series AVR (thankfully I didn't pay anywhere close to that for it) clips the video signal either!
The moral to my story: test the video performance of any AVR you buy quickly and seriously consider a BD player with multiple outputs in case you find that video performance is better going directly to your display! The other thing I've discovered is some standalone players have better video and audio perfomance but the PS3 still appears to be the most robust when it comes to lack of bugs / ability to play every BD!
I've used my PS3 as a BD player for years and have been pretty happy with it. Recently I completed (well, are they ever really complete??) my HT in the remodeled basement and temporarily moved the PS3 down there. It's fed to my 60" Kuro through an ES series Sony AVR. When doing the calibration using HD DVE I noticed that the Sony AVR is clipping the video signal below black and above white, when I connect the PS3 directly to the Kuro I don't have the same problem. Thankfully I ran 2 HDMI cables through the wall to the Kuro but the PS3 only has HDMI as a means to output PCM HD (Dolby True or DTS-MA) audio. This brought me to looking at standalone BD players with 7.1 Audio Outputs (I would prefer two HDMI outputs but I don't think I want to spend that kind of cash on a BD player!) or replacing my essentially brand-new ES series receiver - unfortunately I've had it too long to be able to return it for a refund.
What I've found in reading BD player reviews and owner's experiences on AVS is that almost all standalone BD players have some kind of problem or glitch. I bought a Panasonic DMP-BD80 last week but it's frozen for several seconds during several movies already so I'm thinking of returning it and trying the Oppo BDP-83. The only concern there is several reports of BDs that won't play on it - that seems like a pretty big problem for a $500 BD player. Of course I'm not too pleased to learn that the $2500 ES series AVR (thankfully I didn't pay anywhere close to that for it) clips the video signal either!
The moral to my story: test the video performance of any AVR you buy quickly and seriously consider a BD player with multiple outputs in case you find that video performance is better going directly to your display! The other thing I've discovered is some standalone players have better video and audio perfomance but the PS3 still appears to be the most robust when it comes to lack of bugs / ability to play every BD!