8mm Forum: Blu-Ray-What Player is recommended

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Posted by Tony Milman (Member # 7) on January 05, 2010, 12:18 PM:

So I pose the question, can I live without getting a Blu-Ray player? If I can't then what brand should I consider? There seems to be a huge range of different ones at differenet price tags.

If I were planning to buy a new VP to hook it up to would I get "blown away" by the sheer quality of it all or would I be best to save my money and buy some more 16mm

Any views/.?

Posted by Barry Johnson (Member # 84) on January 05, 2010, 01:09 PM:

Well Tony,you wont get 'blown away'but hooking up to a VP will certainly give you awesome screen entertainment.I have just done this and can confirm the outlay was worth every penny.Good detail,great sound-especially if hooked up to a 5.1 set up.
It took me months of soul searching but finally made the move.Well worth it.
Sitting alongside my set up is of course 16mm,Standard8 sound and of course S8.Depending on what I want to watch depends on wether I lace a film up or drop in a BR disc.!
There are so many players about and varying prices to suit individual pockets and tastes.
Go 0n! You know you want to!!! [Wink]

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on January 05, 2010, 02:23 PM:

Hi Tony,
Yes it will blow you away if you hook up a BD player to a good VP! We are talking near 35mm quality here with the very best quality Blue Discs. Just like film prints, BD quality varies quite a bit and frankly some don't look a whole lot different from DVD'S. But the good ones will definately get you jaw dropping picture quality. Some of the best titles:
Sleeping Beauty, Pinnochio, Snow White, Wizard of Oz, North by Northwest, Gone withe Wind

My BD player is a Panasonic BD60, which has had very good reviews. My advice Tony - jump in!

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on January 05, 2010, 02:56 PM:

A few weeks ago, a very good friend of ours asked us if we'd like his 32" Sony CRT TV (all 165 Pounds of it!) since he was getting something even huger (and I presume heavier...)

We said "Yes, we would like that". The timing was good...the set we had was plainly on the way to the big TV stand in the sky.

For Christmas, our two Nephews chipped in and bought us a BR player.

The guy that gave us the TV said "Oh no!: Now you need a new TV too!"

Thus the cycle of premature obsolescence has gone around once more.

(The difference is this time we're not jumping on! If only to preserve my back, the one we have will stay where it is!)

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on January 05, 2010, 03:14 PM:

Steve,
I have a 36 ins Sony XBR CRT and it weighs about 300 lbs! Yes, a real monster. Great picture though. I have yet to see a flat panel display that has a picture that good.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on January 05, 2010, 04:04 PM:

I was absolutely astounded by the weight of this thing! I half expect to find a sheet metal chassis full of vacuum tubes if I crack it open.

A couple of days before our new arrival my wife decided to buy a new TV stand for it (Moral: there is NO "Free TV"!). Only after we finished assembling it did we discover it was rated for a 120 pound TV (...of course!). a little quick analysis lead to some 2 by 4s being added between the cabinet bottom and the floor in just the right spots to reinforce it. All is well. Despite my Electrical Engineering degree, I'd say the Mechanical Engineeering courses they made me take were the most useful of all.

Oh well, back to the Elmos!

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on January 05, 2010, 08:19 PM:

Steve, I could go on for hours about the poor, and often dangerous, design of some TV cabinets. I'm not talking appearance and finish here, just the ability of the thing to actually safely support a TV! Clearly the people who design some of these stands don't have a clue about elementary structural design. I was over my daughters house a couple of years ago and she wanted to sit a 32 ins TV on a TV stand that previously had a 27 ins sitting on it. I knew the 32 ins was heavy so I decided to take a close look at the stand to see if it would take the load. Believe it or not the top wooden panel, which supported the whole weight of the TV, was only supported by 4 little wood screws to the side panels - in other words the top panel did not rest on the side panels, and the whole load of the TV was carried as a shear load across those four little screws! Just like you, I did a reinforcement of the whole cabinet before sitting that TV on it.

Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 1337) on January 05, 2010, 10:57 PM:

If you are buying a BR player, may I suggest a Playstation 3. They are not much more expensive than a good quality standalone unit. For added value they are also and excellent games console, are software upgradable and perform some of the best DVD upscaling I have ever seen.

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on January 06, 2010, 03:32 AM:

Tony, keep an eye on Richer Sounds as they're hoping to get some more Sony Blu-Ray players in stock around the middle of the month. £79.95 or £99.95 with multi-region DVD capability. Amazing.

Paul, I agree with what you say about CRT televisions compared to LCD's and plasma's. My Philips was the first sub-£1000 widescreen set and it still presents image quality superior to any high definition flat screen. And that is one of the reasons higher definition imagery has finally come about, because the poor quality offered by LCD and plasma. Funny to think that all those years ago when I worked for the IBA the engineers developed 1200 line widescreen high definition; superior to today.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on January 06, 2010, 05:40 PM:

Which Blu-ray player should you get?

One that works.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I'm no help to anyone!

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on January 06, 2010, 06:14 PM:

Like Paul we bought a Panasonic DMP-BD60 it was cheap to buy and when connected HDMI to our 42inch Panasonic Plasma TV looks great, for many years our TV was a Philips 32inch CRT it was indeed a very heavy unit, when we sold it both myself and my son were strugging to hold the dam thing "awkward to grip" and came close to dropping it a couple of times [Eek!]

I was glad to get rid of it [Smile]

watching Blu-ray or even normal DVDs on the Plasma is really good, watched the Blu-ray of "Logans Run 1975" the other night... excellent.

Regarding the question "can I live without getting a Blu-ray player".... is no you cant [Wink]

Graham.

Posted by Thomas Murin, Jr. (Member # 1745) on January 06, 2010, 11:21 PM:

I've had 4 Blu-Ray players since the intro in 2006 (yes, I was an early adopter!). They have all been pretty good with their plusses and minuses.

I am currently using the Pioneer 51FD in my bedroom where it was recently moved from the home theater. It's a very good player even if it does look like a small receiver! Man, this thing is huge! Video and audio performance are both excellent.

For the home theater, I'm using the Magnavox 500MG1F, one of several players Wal-Mart sells. I got it for $78 last month. I intended it for the bedroom but the thing is so small that I was afraid the TV, which would rest on top of it, would crush it.

Anyway, the Magnavox is a great basic player. Audio and Video are actually a bit better than the Pioneer as are the load times so I'm glad things worked out they way they did.

Yes, the PS3 is still considered the benchmark for a BR player, but there are many very good players that are cheaper and will suit your needs. Look around, do some research and you should be happy with what you get.

As for the quality of BR software, like ALL home formats, including Super 8, how good (or bad) the quality is depends on the condition of the source materials, the mastering, and finally the authoring (does not apply to Super 8 of course!)

I can honestly say I haven't been disappointed with any BR and I have a couple hundred of them! Any questions, please ask!

HEY! Just noticed this is my 105th post! YAY!

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on January 07, 2010, 01:41 AM:

Beware of the Panasonic BDP30. It is a good player, but the six RCA line level audio outputs is not outputting the sound through quality electronics. Direct comparisons with this unit hooked up into a professional Dolby CP650 processor showed a HUGE difference in audio quality loss on those connections.

If you are going to use the coaxial digital audio out connection though, you're safe.

I only post this for people considering a blu-ray player...if you are planning on using the line level audio outputs, you might not know what you are missing until you do a comparison. The Panasonic BDP30 failed miserably in that one department. I have not yet had the chance to check out their current model.

Posted by Martin Jones (Member # 1163) on January 07, 2010, 07:45 AM:

To clarify what Brad is saying...it's not the form of connection that is at fault (wired RCA audio outputs are not inferior signal-wise to optical outputs) but it's the decoding circuits within the Panasonic that are of poor quality (producing poor results to feed the RCA sockets) compared with an external high quality decoder.
Just a case of producing as much facility as possible for the consumer while keeping the price down (you get what you pay for!).
Martin

Posted by Tony Milman (Member # 7) on January 08, 2010, 03:26 AM:

Thanks Guys- very useful and much appreciated

Posted by Christian Bjorgen (Member # 1780) on January 08, 2010, 03:34 AM:

I would go for a Samsung, you can't go wrong with Samsung.

Especially if you have a good TV (40" or bigger) with Full HD and a surround system (5.1 or 7.1).

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on January 08, 2010, 02:14 PM:

Martin said it better than I did. Thanks for clarifying Martin. [Smile]

Beware of some Samsung blu-ray players. Some of them won't play burned blu-ray discs (which given enough time WILL be as popular as burned DVDs), and "so far" those that I have seen have excessive load times. That of course doesn't mean they don't have an awesome player on the market now...I just haven't used it yet personally.

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