Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Oppo BDP-93 or Sony PS3

Following on previous posts...I'm purchasing my first Blu-Ray player and am considering waiting for the Oppo BDP-93 or purchasing the Sony PS3. I currently own an older upconverting Oppo DVD player that has been great. I have not owned a gaming console as I'm not a huge gamer.

I'm considering purchasing the Sony PS3 primarily as a Blu-Ray player but might start gaming a bit with the kids when they get older. How would the Sony PS3 compare with the Oppo BDP-93 (which should function the same as the BDP-83)? I'm sure they are equivalent as Blu-Ray players but what about load times, speed, etc.? What about up-converting DVD to 1080p 24/60?

I don't care about the universal disc functionality of the Oppo as I don't currently have any DVD-Audio or SACD. I simply want a good Blu-Ray player that plays fast and can up-convert DVDs as good as possible. Would the PS3 be sufficient or should I wait for the Oppo BDP-93? Or get the PS3 now and the Oppo next year ?

Also, would a new receiver incorporating the ABT 2015 chip be more than sufficient to up-convert/process DVD into 1080p thereby negating the functionality of the Oppo? I could simply pass the DVD output direct from the PS3 and let the the ABT 2015 chip in the receiver do the processing? I'm just not sure how much of the ABT 2015's features are implemented in AVRs using them.

Anways, any thoughts?

Thanks!

Bryan

It's hard to give you advice yet, seeing as we don't know exactly what performance improvements have been made to the OPPO. I'm curious myself. Better load times are always welcome. All I can say is I'm happy with the PS3 as a Blu-ray player, even though I do use my BDP-83 on most occasions. You can't really go wrong with it unless the aesthetics bother you or the Bluetooth control is going to be an issue.

Unless you want a gaming machine for later as you say in which case depending on how long from now that is there may be a new one out then you might just want to consider just a standard Blu-ray player as it’s sounds like you don’t need anything special.

IMO the performance gap between things like the PS3 and Oppo and other brands is diminishing. If you already have the up-converting capability covered and don’t need SACD etc… then the Oppo would be pointless. If you don’t want any gaming right now then why pay extra for a gaming machine unless the PS3 brings you some other functionality that a budget BD player doesn’t.

The PS3 is a very good Blu-ray player. On the other hand you are comparing it to a product that has not even been brought to the market so it is impossible to compare the two. With Oppo's reputation I would expect nothing but the best but being an early adopter, be prepared for the possibility of some minor kinks that show up with users that might need to be worked out with firmware updates.

Like Axiom, aside from the product quality, price and performance, if you wish to buy from a company with significantly superior before and after market service and support, based on my experience that alone for me is enough to make the Oppo my choice.

Thanks for the replies. I agree - the Oppo would probably be my first choice as a Blu-Ray player given everything else it does well. But it's not available and I want to buy something now Besides - who says I have to wait for my kids to age a little before I can enjoy playing games. Perhaps I'm a gamer after all!

grunt - I was considering getting a cheaper Blu-Ray player but I think the gaming aspect is winning me over - plus all of the other features it can provide as a media console.

I think I'm going to spring for the PS3 now. Enjoy Blu-Ray and gaming. I'll compare it vs. my current Oppo (971) for upscaling DVDs (along with new receiver) and determine which is the best solution. To be fair I may not need a disc player since I'm planning on building a home server and ripping all my content to be played through a media extender anyways.

Thanks for the comments!

BTW - anyone have any thoughts on the PS3 Move hardware bundle? Figure I might as well go whole hog and get the motion sensor. Are there any good games or should I just get the PS3 and wait before adding on the Move hardware?

The Move bundle does come with the currently largest hard drive available for the PS3. I don't even use a media server most of the time, I copy the stuff I plan to watch/listen to right onto the PS3. Locally stored video automatically remembers your position when you hit stop, which is really nice.

I think the Move will be especially appealing to younger kids. Get Eyepet.

Do you copy it directly from disc or copy it from a networked media server - I guess, kinda like caching it locally. I'm assuming then that it is a temporary cache as you couldn't really store to many full-length Blu-Ray movies on the PS3.

How does the Move hardware compare to the Wii. I've played the Wii at my step-father/friends and it was kinda cool. Is the Move similar or an improvement?

What's Eypet?

The PS3 won't copy protected movies from disc (or anything in the multi-file format of DVD, BD, or AVCHD). So yeah, the data will have to be ripped on a computer first. Most people re-compress the video (and use lossy audio) when building a media library of BD titles. In recently years it's gotten to the point that preserving the MPEG2/AC3 data of DVDs isn't a big deal. But yeah, with 20 GB per title BDs are still quite large (nothing streams them raw anyway).

My usual modus operandi is to "acquire" TV episodes from the Internet with H.264 video and AC3 sound stored in an MKV container. The PS3 doesn't play MKV files, so I use a program to repack the original file into an M2TS file. I keep the downloaded file archived on my computer, while having the repacking program write the new file out to a USB drive. A 42 minute, 1 GB episode takes only a minute to write out. After I've got my shows from the previous day all copied, I copy them again from the USB drive to the PS3's internal drive. Then I'm able to watch at my leisure.

I've also rented DVDs of TV shows. Since it takes a while to watch a full season, I'll just rip those to my computer (one episode at a time), then assemble the multiple VOBs per episode into a single MTS that can be copied to the PS3.

With ripped movies, I'll do the same. Assemble the multiple VOBs into a single MTS (or M2TS if it's H.264 video), but since the PS3 can only read FAT32 USB drives, and they can't hold files greater than 4 GB (and many movies exceed that) I'll have to use a DLNA media server to copy the file over my local network to the PS3. What ever file system the PS3 uses internally has no trouble with >4 GB files.

All reports are saying the Move controller is much more accurate than the Wii's setup (even when they have the Motion Plus add-on pack).

EyePet is an interactive, virtual pet "game" for the PS3. Since Move uses the Playstation Eye camera for tracking, games are able to use the video of the room, to augment reality. Meaning you see your room on the TV screen, but with things that aren't really there added. Like in this case a furry pet. The kids can "touch" the pet by waving their hands where it should be. There are lots of little interactive games to play with it also, which make use of the Move controller.

One other consideration if you use a universal remote is that the PS3 requires an adapter, at additional cost, to be compatible with an IR remote.