Not really a game player although some old arcade games like Point Blanc (target shooting) by Namco did interest me. Also the classics like Pac Man, Galaxians, Asteroids, Missile Control, Space Invaders etc although these are all available using MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator - see http://www.emulator-zone.com/doc.php/arcade/mame.html) so again, don't really need to invest in any hardware to achieve this. However, what I am interested in is people's thoughts on buying the Playstation 3 to use as a BluRay player for DVD films. I want to know if anyone is using this at the moment and prefferably, if anyone is using it with a BeoVision 7-40 Mark II or III? Is the investment into BluRay really worth it? I bought from HMV today Planet Earth and The Blue Planet on standard DVD but I noticed they were also available on BluRay. This of course caught my attention because I am NOW wondering how much better they will be? But I am not prepared to buy into it without seeing it first, and my opinion on broadcast HD (using a Sky HD box to play the BBC HD preview channel) is not impressive to me. Well, it is slightly, but nowhere near enough for me to get excited and start jumping up and down!! B&O products usually give me that sense of excitement! So come on chaps, I'd like some really useful feedback please so I can consider all the facts. Of course the other option is to just wait for B&O to update the DVD player in the 7-40 which another current post is talking about. I am following it with much interest.

I just can't get my head around all this changing technology! Its not that I don't understand it, there's just too much of it without anything looking particularly impressive to me and without any kind of standardisation. Its doing my head in and I am having (another!!) mid life crisis before my time!! Help! :)

Simon.

Its o.k bro, your not alone. My first video game was a Sears pong game, Then soon followed commodor vic-20  with asteriods.
All I do to keep up with current technology, keep buying the new stuff. I will get a PS3 for Christmas, Play WW2 war games on my high tech 52" hd T.V listening to an L.P on my vintage Bang Beogram and Beomaster.

Remember video games keep the brain sharp and exercise keeps the body sharp.That why flipping an L.P every 22 minute is great exercise !

cheers

dave 

Is it worth it ?

The short and probably unhelpful answer is I'm not sure. We have the BV7-32 (rather than the 7-40). There is some benefit in picture quality over a standard DVD player. The PS3 even does a reasonable job of upscaling normal DVD's though no doubt not nearly as good as a BV7-40(V3). Clearly the screen size (32 inch) probably immediately limits any benefit we will see.

It is however important to remember it is essentially a games machine which can play Blu-Rays.

I compared the Ps3 back to back with the new Loewe blu-ray player yesterday. This retails at £700 in the UK. The loewe was far sharper and had less grain in the picture than the PS3. The Loewe (as with most new standalone players) decodes more of the HD audio formats than the PS3.

The PS3 is therefore a useful first step into HD but is by necessity a jack of all trades rather than a master of one.

KENMAC:

Is it worth it ?

The short and probably unhelpful answer is I'm not sure. We have the BV7-32 (rather than the 7-40). There is some benefit in picture quality over a standard DVD player. The PS3 even does a reasonable job of upscaling normal DVD's though no doubt not nearly as good as a BV7-40(V3). Clearly the screen size (32 inch) probably immediately limits any benefit we will see.

It is however important to remember it is essentially a games machine which can play Blu-Rays.

I compared the Ps3 back to back with the new Loewe blu-ray player yesterday. This retails at £700 in the UK. The loewe was far sharper and had less grain in the picture than the PS3. The Loewe (as with most new standalone players) decodes more of the HD audio formats than the PS3.

The PS3 is therefore a useful first step into HD but is by necessity a jack of all trades rather than a master of one.

The whole HD industry is in a mess, we have two competing formats and HDD sales are moving ahead. I think its more likely that by the time the mess is sorted out that flash drives will be the order of the day.

Onto the question- the PS3 is unique in that it is a very good stand alone blue ray player and, interstingly, the only BR player that is supported very well in terms of firmware upgrades and in terms of picture quality- with the same source material you will notice little difference between this and a much more expensive player its all down to intial set up.

There is the issue of profile 1.1 compliance- the new standard that players should meet- ibut dont!  ts likely the PS3 by a firmware update will accomodate this. Players like the loewe presently do not. IMO you would be mad to spend this sort of money on a player that is already out of date and we dont know if the new 1.1 profile discs will play on older players!

That said, the range of discs is limited on BR and much more worryingly the transfers on many of these discs are woefull, no better than standard dvd. All in all I would buy the PS3- its cheap- its updateable- it has the fastest load up time of ANY blue ray player( you can wait up to 4 mins with some) and when the whole format collapses you have a good games machine!

Probably better wait for the BDP5000 dual player from samsung - about £490 due in January and at least you have a better choice of films.

The loewe player might decode more sound formats via HDMI if it is 1.3 compliant but the B&O is not!! so you cant get these advanced audio codecs anyway, such as MA- and at present virtually no discs support the new audio formats anyway. Its all a lottery- can you tell the difference between 5.1 dd and DTS?? on some discs yes on many I cant! It begs the question as to how good these new audio standards are and when if ever the manufacturers will get their act  together . As for HD itself- only anygood on a screen 40" and above IMO and even then ive not been as impressed as one should be- I made fewposts on here about who was using blue ray and HDD  I had 3 replies!! so that shows that so few have adopted it.

The PS3 is with out a doubt worth its buck in my opinion. Baring in mind that Sony make a loss of around £100 on each one they sell, this would suggest that more is on offer than what you're actually paying for ... well an optimist would say so.

If you're simply interested in using it to play BluRay movies, then do so. My B&O dealer has a PS3 doing just that, attached to the BeoVision 9 in store. Just don't forget that the BluRay movies currently retail for about £25 each!

Of course the focus is on gaming and for me, the PS3 looks and generally feels better than the 360. The games on the PlayStation also appeal to me more than those on the XBOX.

I would agree wholeheartedly with the above. I had assumed the new Loewe (launched this week !) was profile 1.1 compliant. If not then it is already out of date. I know that Pioneer have a compliant model but far more expensive.

Re HD audio the magazines claim a significant difference (I suppose they would ?). Since I haven't done back to back comparisons I can't comment but know that many Blu-rays issued still only have Dolby 5.1 and no HD audio.

I had assumed since the player does the decoding and given the limitations of B&O re HDMI connections that it was possible to do the decoding in the player and then feed through to the speakers via 5.1 audio connections in the back of the TV. I would welcome any thoughts people have on this.

If not the audio quality becomes a moot point for all HD players at present.

By having two competing disc formats ultimately the industry is shooting itself in the foot. Takeup is painfully slow (just look at the number of HD disks in your local shops). Picture quality and sound quality on many of the transfers is marginal. Some studios e.g. Disney and Sony have consistently had good quality on their recent releases.

On a recent comparison of Blu-ray versus an upscaled DVD (on an Arcam player) I struggled to tell the difference. This was on a 60 inch 1080 screen.

Given that the choice available on DVD is far wider and the eventual successful technology uncertain a big screen and good upscaling DVD is probably a sensible option.

Chances are that within the next couple of years downloading technology will be such that we will no longer require disc players but simply buy our movies over the web.

You do realise that the PS3 upscales standard-def DVD's to 720dpi?

Thanks for all comments so far. I will refrain from buying the PS3 and wait for the updated DVD player for my BV7-40. If I were a game player then I might be very slightly tempted but to read people's comments that HD content on many disks is not any better than SD content, well, that says it all I think! It is becomming clearer to me all the time now that the electronics and TV/Radio industries are simply out of ideas for new, cost effective innovations, so they need to come up with something else to keep the money rolling in from consumers and the HD 'hype', plasma and LCD technologies are all part and parcel of this gift wrapped nonsense. Personally, I don't like being taken for a fool, so as the dragons (Dragons Den program on British TV) would say, "I am out!"

Simon.

PS What hapenned to the real advances in television such as SED and Laser? These are the real breakthroughs.

The Beonic Man:

Thanks for all comments so far. I will refrain from buying the PS3 and wait for the updated DVD player for my BV7-40. If I were a game player then I might be very slightly tempted but to read people's comments that HD content on many disks is not any better than SD content, well, that says it all I think! It is becomming clearer to me all the time now that the electronics and TV/Radio industries are simply out of ideas for new, cost effective innovations, so they need to come up with something else to keep the money rolling in from consumers and the HD 'hype', plasma and LCD technologies are all part and parcel of this gift wrapped nonsense. Personally, I don't like being taken for a fool, so as the dragons (Dragons Den program on British TV) would say, "I am out!"

Simon.

PS What hapenned to the real advances in television such as SED and Laser? These are the real breakthroughs.

SED was of course an enourmous breakthrough and given the same source offerd a picture far better than any technology we have today.

the problem is price!!  SED was forecast to cost about £4K at atime when pricing is collapsing for plasma and LCD. They came to the conclusion no one would ever buy the product. So instead the industry pushes out cheap 1080 screens that are dismal is performance linked to blue ray players than have their own issues. This package delivers simply the worst picture yet seen- but hey its got the specs! in the trade its called a 'mugs eyeful'

This is my first post intended to be of some assistance to others as opposed to requesting information. I am not really as technically minded as many of the members that contribute to this forum. I do however, have an interest in consumer electronics and have been an avid collector of video games and systems for some years now (I have most if not all games consoles that have been available in Europe/US). Thus, some of what I am about to say may not be empirical but I hope it is not percieved as merely an opinion piece either:

Although some people have said that the High-Def arena is in a bit of a mess at the moment, I would suggest that this assists the consumer to some extent. Yes there are two competing formats at present but this is a very good thing in my opinion. If we cast our minds back to the eighties there were two (three including laserdisc) competing formats available - Betamax and VHS. Although Betamax was arguably beter, the price point was too high and VHS prevailed (there is some argument that the porn industry saved VHS but that is probably an urban legend). Laserdisc was amazing for its time and I would argue polemically that the sound quality is still better than some DVDs.

Thus, whilst it is good that both Xbox and Playstation have High-Def  capabilities (Microsoft states that it will release a Bluray drive if this becomes the dominant format), they are primarily games machines and as pointed out above will not produce the quality of video output by dedicated high end players. I would asume that as we are all members of the B&O  community that we opt for the best quality possible, so why disappoint yourself with a cheap fix when you are obviously used to the best quality from the rest of your system?

Despite stating that I have most games machines on the market, both new and old, I do not own a Playstation 3 as I do not feel that their price point is justified and do not feel that there is much (graphically wise) to choose from between the Xbox and PS3. There have been several arguments in the blogosphere and games press recently that game developers need to strengthen other aspects of the gaming experience such as AI and player immersion rather than producing amazing visuals with second rate interaction.

Perhaps it is for this very reason that you are no longer a games player - whilst the games industry has moved light years away from the days of Space Invaders and Pong graphically, I for one am getting quite bored with the same scenario re-hashed over and over again - massive environments in which one can run, shoot and drive based upon a generic mission framework - kill him, drive there, collect this.

Thus in conclusion, if you do not play games, I would wait a year or so until the winner of the High-Def player battle emerges and then purchase a player.

Graham1982:

Perhaps it is for this very reason that you are no longer a games player - whilst the games industry has moved light years away from the days of Space Invaders and Pong graphically, I for one am getting quite bored with the same scenario re-hashed over and over again - massive environments in which one can run, shoot and drive based upon a generic mission framework - kill him, drive there, collect this.

Thus in conclusion, if you do not play games, I would wait a year or so until the winner of the High-Def player battle emerges and then purchase a player.

Good post Graham.

I will not be buying the PS3 any time soon because It is simply the lateest iterration in the more pixels and polygons paradigm  of gaming improvement. That is why (to me) the Nintendo Wii was such a masterstroke, because it took the whole paradigm someplace else and is deservedly outselling the PS3 by some margin.

Simon

I agree that technically the Wii is a masterstroke. I was tempted to buy one before Christmas but now demand is higher than supply again and I will not pay over the odds. However, this system seems to be beset by lazy developers too.

I am basing my opinion on having played a few games on my friends system when slightly intoxicated. However, it seems that Nintendo and others have rushed ports from games designed for the Gamecube onto this system so that the novel use of the Wiimote to hack and slash is not as good as it could be. For examplpe it makes no difference in Zelda or Resident Evil if you hack left or right - the game code simply views this as an attack (perhaps button xyz on the cube controller) and as such translates this as such on the screen). This is only one step away from those dire MMV games that were released for the CDi and Mega CD in the 90s. This could be because Nintendo was trying to rush this to market to compete with Xbox and Playstation. However, there is no excuse now in my opinion.

However, Nintendo has done something I thought impossible, bought the games arena to the world of traditional non-gamers and for that they deserve an accolade. However, saying that, do they really? They are a company which by default is designed to make profit and thus they merely exploited a gap in the market to do so. The problem is that the niche of hardcore gamers that have been used to the games I have described above is a large enough sector for developers to churn out the same nonsense and still maintain healthy profits. Thus, I feel there will not be many more developments like the Wii for some time to come. Developers will still churn out the same mediocre stuff whilst we buy it, which i guess is the argument with most consumer items.

I agree that technically the Wii is a masterstroke. I was tempted to buy one before Christmas but now demand is higher than supply again and I will not pay over the odds. However, this system seems to be beset by lazy developers too.

I am basing my opinion on having played a few games on my friends system when slightly intoxicated. However, it seems that Nintendo and others have rushed ports from games designed for the Gamecube onto this system so that the novel use of the Wiimote to hack and slash is not as good as it could be. For examplpe it makes no difference in Zelda or Resident Evil if you hack left or right - the game code simply views this as an attack (perhaps button xyz on the cube controller) and as such translates this as such on the screen). This is only one step away from those dire MMV games that were released for the CDi and Mega CD in the 90s. This could be because Nintendo was trying to rush this to market to compete with Xbox and Playstation. However, there is no excuse now in my opinion.

However, Nintendo has done something I thought impossible, bought the games arena to the world of traditional non-gamers and for that they deserve an accolade. However, saying that, do they really? They are a company which by default is designed to make profit and thus they merely exploited a gap in the market to do so. The problem is that the niche of hardcore gamers that have been used to the games I have described above is a large enough sector for developers to churn out the same nonsense and still maintain healthy profits. Thus, I feel there will not be many more developments like the Wii for some time to come. Developers will still churn out the same mediocre stuff whilst we buy it, which i guess is the argument with most consumer items.

also , one thing i found out about the wii , and it could be a hassle to a potential buyer

 it has a virtual console feature that allows you to buy retro games to pay on your console - the games aren't the problem,  some of them are incredibly god fun and remind you of the days when gameplay not graphics mattered

the problem is when you try selling the console on and discover the games you've downloaded are tied 100% to the console you've bought

so basically if you want to play the games again ( say you want to buy a wii in a years time when better games come along ) - you have to download and pay for them them ALL OVER AGAIN !!! 

and that can cost quite a few quid when you've got kids in the house , let me tell ya ! :)