Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Which BluRay player to get ?

John,

A great BR player should: 1) extract raw 1080P/24 data on the disk and force a 1080P/24 output 2) up-convert SD reasonably well 3) decode ALL audio formats and convert them to Multi-channel PCM via HDMI 4) utilize good DAC’s and output 7.1 channel analogue 5) be network upgradeable 6) have fast start up times and disk load times 7) not buggy

Currently, none do all well. There are several that do MOST well, but there is always a sacrifice.

If you can put 1 – 7 in order of importance to you, I’ll rank the players currently available for you. On the horizon, the Panasonic BD 50 looks as if it will be the player to buy. Denon also has two BR players coming to market very soon. Unfortunately, they are very, very proud of them. One will even come with the Silicon Image Realta chip set, which is arguably the very best chip available for SD scaling and deinterlacing.

I think they may have actually sold more PS3's if they weren't also blu-ray players. Adding Blu drove up the cost and delayed the release of the PS3, which is a big part of why it dropped to #3 in the game console arena.

They could have done an add on drive later, ala M$, but then they wouldn't have had the Blu ray penetration they were looking for.

>>But yes, if you are a console gamer, and don't have the #1 or #2 console (which if you don't would make me question if you are a console gamer or not), then go for the PS3.

Yeah right. I work for ATI (now AMD). We did the graphics cores for Wii and XBOX 360 -- NVidia did the graphics core for PS3. You think I'm gonna buy a PS3 ?



>>1) extract raw 1080P/24 data on the disk and force a 1080P/24 output

That's an interesting point -- I haven't seen much mention of 720P/24fps -- wonder if there is such a thing ? Seems to me that downconverting BR to 720p would be something I need, since the Z4 seems to do a slightly ratty job of up/down-converting HDMI inputs.

>>I'm kind of surprised how Blu-ray's movie prices seem to have gone up recently.

I was also wondering why the BR prices seemed to be so high. HD-DVD prices had come down to the point where it didn't seem to make sense to keep buying SD DVDs, but at twice the price I'll keep buying DVDs for a while longer.

Get back to work! We need our 3900s and 4000s, STAT!

That's true... Also I still think that the lack of focus on the game selection is hurting them. I bought the ps3 primarily for its blu-ray capability and occasional gaming, but if it were for just gaming I wouldn't have bought it.

The reason a forced output of 1080P/24 is desirable, is it ensures the MPEG decoder on the player extracts the full data that is stored on the disk. If a display does not accept this (by means of handshake issue or other), the player will pull the interlaced 1080i data of the disk, then scale it to the display’s resolution. You loose a lot of pixel information when this happens. A forced output ensures that the decoder pulls off all the data and lets the display scale as needed.

I’m pretty sure that your projector will accept 1080P/24, which you want. Then let the projector scale that data to 720P.

Just so you know, there is currently NO BR players that internally decode and convert ALL formats to multi channel analogue (if that is what you are looking for). The Panasonic BD 50 and the upper end Denon both have pre-release information saying that they will have this function. The upper line Denon has an MSRP of $1999. I think the BD 50 will run about $600.

I seem top remember hearing the Denon also being SACD/DVD-A and using all the top line DACs, REON etc, to try to justify the cost.

The new Denon will use the Realta HQV video processor which is supposed to be a step up from Reon, Denon is also coming out with a $999.00 version that won't decode the sound formats internally but will send through bitstream, it also will not have the Realta.

That was it the Realta, I thought I was off on that, Thanks for the correction.

I am looking forward to the little brother, as the 3808 can do all the audio and will save me some bucks...sort of.

It seems to me many that post here would be interested in the new audio formats as well as getting a high def picture. I decided my jump to HD movies was going to have to to allow me to get these new audio formats with my current receiver-a Denon 3805. I love this receiver, but it doesn't have HDMI. After reading a blue million posts, I learned that the only way to do this was to get a player that would send the signals through analog to my Denon. That placed me firmly in the HD DVD camp with the A35. Over Christmas I had the Toshiba 35 in my Amazon checkout box three times but thankfully never pulled the trigger.

Now that it has become obvious that the likely winner of the format war will be Blu, I've shifted my attention to that side. I'm sure someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but there doesn't seem to be any players out there that will do this (yet).

So I have now turned my attention to the new Panasonic BD 50 which is due out this spring. It will apparently send the new audio formats through analog. I know there is a Denon player that will do what I need, but it's too expensive for me. The price of the new Panasonic has not been announced, but many believe it will be in the $500 range- still too much for me, so I will likely wait until the fall or black Friday to make the jump to High Def DVD.

Seems to me the BD 50 is the logical choice for someone who does not have an HDMI receiver, but still wants the best possible audio and video.