Righto! now i know what to get...

Charging_Mooses

It would be nice if Sony included the BD remote with the unit, especially if they're serious about capitalizing on the PS3's position as a serious player.

But come on, if you're willing to drop $600 on a BD player, get the PS3 and remote. It's just silly to do otherwise, especially when you consider the upgradability of the PS3 player.

macserv

@Monty: Excellent point. But I find it sad that the PS3, a GAMING console, is MAINLY being used now as a BR player. Anyone see the oddity in that?

BostonPimpDaddy

There are people that will not spend $400 for a PS3 to watch BR movies because they are unwilling to buy a $15 infrared adapter? I know that the PS3 is supposed to include everything, but it really is okay to spend an extra fifteen bucks, guys.

Monty

@rulerofthemoon: Why?

BostonPimpDaddy

No infrared remote plus it's a power hog. The whole transition to a high def DVD has been a goat screw.

rulerofthemoon

Darn PS3 does not have an infrared remote and it's a power hog. Also, the 80G version is too hard to find. What a cluster.

rulerofthemoon

@zed0: uhhh, why don't you just buy the ps3?

UTnick

I'm glad I waited for more reviews. The Panasonic sounds like the player for me. Sony fail, their best player is still the PS3.

zed0

hd-dvd FTW, you were warned

fastm3driver

Why is Sony making Blu ray players in the first place? Seriously, PS3 is your Blu ray player. Start making Blu ray players when they are actually affordable and (you guessed it) cheaper than the PS3.

daftrok

How can Sony not make a stand alone BR player worth a crap? Worse case scenario they could put a PS3 in a DVD player case right?

I know it isn't that simple, but come on...you think Sony might just have a plan here to sell PS3's as BR players and hope people buy games sometime in the future?

max11221

@rulerofthemoon:

There are about 25 80GB MGS4 bundles in stock in the various stores around here at any given time...

@ItsRabid:

Yes.

BD has significantly better than picture quality than DVD on my Samsung LN40A550, even with DVD upconverting via my PS3.

kaizoku80

-Am I the only one who noticed that there really isn't much of a difference between DVD and Blue Ray?

ItsRabid

@macserv: If you go to blockbuster, they have $500 bundles that has a 40gig PS3, a PS3 game and blu-ray (I can't remember either), an HDMI cable, and the BD remote.

TheDoomer

First I'm not sure how your going to compare a $400 BD player vs a $600 BD player and call the $600 BD player the winner over sound codecs that 99% of people can't tell the difference between. #2 since when can any receiver accept advanced audio codecs via anything but HDMI. All receivers max out at 2 channel PCM or 5.1 dolby+/DTS via optical.

gimmetaffy

Too bad they can't show screenshots. Guess mySQL is packing it in in the long run with the load times, but the infatuation with software architecture is killing Sony release dates. Just make it work.

heroineworshipper

@kaizoku80: Meanwhile you had all the BR fanboys saying prices of the movies AND the players would come down IMMEDIATELY after HD DVD's demise. NOT!

BostonPimpDaddy

Either way, BD will die a slow death unless the price of BD players AND HDTV's come down significantly in the next year or so. The BD section at the local video stores looks like the old LaserDisc section...small with a poor selection.

kaizoku80

@BostonPimpDaddy:

No argument from me there. I'm not a fan of either format, as all I care about is watching movies in HD, regardless of how they're delivered.

By including a BD player in the PS3 Sony made one heck of a marketing gamble that paid off...unfortunately, they don't seem to be smart enough to capitalize on it by lowering the licensing fees and player costs for a short-term loss but a long-term gain.

kaizoku80

See this is why I think the idea of a Blu-Ray/DVD hybrid, much like the HD DVD/DVD hybrid, is a good idea, and why I supported HD DVD over Blu-Ray. No one is going to buy your shit anymore if they can't use it on their existing hardware. Sneaking the format into homes and then give the opportunity to have people upgrade is better than forcing people to buy new equipment and then be backwards compatible. Why the hell do you think PS2 games are still being churned out at all? A lot of people bought the PS2, are happy with it, and will not be ready to upgrade until its poor little heart fails, and that's keeping games to the old fart.

If anything, the way to do create a more compelling Blu-Ray would be to put all the extra features on the Blu-Ray disc, and only leave the movie itself on the DVD. That would give the download services a bit of a challenge, while giving far more appeal to the Blu-Ray. As in "Hey you, guess what? You know that deleted scenes and commentary you like so much? Well now it's only on Blu-Ray!" Cruel as it may be, it will sell players and discs. Count on it.

Ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble. Ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble. Ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble .

Ok I'm done ramblin'.

ViewtifulJason

I really thought that when Blu-Ray "won," prices on players would drop, all the specs would be up to date, etc. etc. But I am starting to care less and less about Blu-Ray because they just aren't moving fast enough. If prices don't drop fast, they'll be going the way of HD-DVD also.

i BaldEagle

well, i bought the ps3 solely to surf the net on my tv without flash. everything else was an expensive bonus. especially buying all those cables.

UTnick

This isn't comparing like with like. Sony have a S550 model coming out soon which would be a fairer comparison as it costs about the same and also has audio decoding.

DrXym

I enjoy the Panasonic branded players in general, but I hope you never have to deal with their tech support. Truly horrendous. I got a DVD-recorder for Christmas that was not quite right, so I exchanged it. The second one did the same thing. Two months of "Customer Service" later, it got fixed. It needed a firmware update that wasn't available on their website. Now it still randomly tells me that I have a DVD or DVD-Ram during playback, but I can live with that so long as I don't have to talk to them morons.

Optimistic Prime

@ItsRabid: If you read the reviews of Blu-ray disks, you'll often see comments like, "Not much better than the DVD release," or, "I don't know why they bothered to release this on Blu-ray." I know on my set, a 51 inch Pioneer Elite, HD cable versions of movies look better than the DVD versions of the same movie but not that much better. I still have no plans to buy a Blu-ray player.

friendslikeJimRome

wtf do you need an infrared remote for when you have a wireless controller?!

I love my PS3 and have ab-so-lutely no clue why anyone would spend AS much for a plain old BD player.

@ItsRabid: If you're watching on a PS3, and/or a fancy schmancy tv like myself - you're probably getting an upconverted DVD picture. If not... you might want to get your eyes checked (source material dependent.)

avconsumer2

ItsRabid, you won't notice much of a difference until you play it on a Full HD TV. BIG DIFFERENCE in video quality!

Phredd

Anyone else find BD-Live to be pretty underwhelming? I gave it a go on the Persepolis disc and found it pretty clunky and far too slow to be useful.

dry-roasted-peanuts

Blu-Ray... what a dud. Seriously, how stupid do you have to be not to have an Ethernet port from the begining 1.0 spec? the physical part costs pennies in bulk.

I own a PS3 which is the only tolerable Blu-Ray player at the moment.

HD-DVD really was a better spec guys.

axiomatic

The only reason prices would drop after HD-DVD died, is if there was suddenly a large spike in Blu-Ray sales due to finally having one single format. But the demand is not quite there yet, so economies of scale haven't kicked in.

We will get gradual drops in prices due to maturing manufacturing tech, but that takes longer. There's no short or long term motive for Sony or others to discount and lose money on the hardware, because they've already won. They'll have to wait it out, just like us consumers. It's not exciting, but money doesn't grow on trees for either side.

The PS3 may help us out yet, as Sony is still locked in a battle with Microsoft and does have incentive to drop PS3 prices sooner than later. We'll see what happens in Q4. If they are able to pump up PS3 sales then that can improve economies of scale for all Blu-Ray players, plus a $600 dedicated Blu-Ray player will look pretty stupid compared to a $250 (someday) PS3.

Until then, let's all enjoy our upconverted 'HD' DVD's!!!

madmaxmedia

The problem is that so few people have a 1080p set and, therefore, can't take advantage of BluRay anyway. If you don't have a 1080p set it just doesn't matter and most people just don't care enough to buy a new TV just for BluRay.

And BluRay is still getting SMOKED by regular old DVD. Out of the $6.2 Billion in sales in the first 6 months of 2008 only $200 Million was BluRay. That's a 30-1 ratio. And for those thinking that the masses will somehow choose BluRay over upconverting DVD players there were ~500,000 BluRay players sold last year (not counting PS3's.) That doesn't even come close to the 3.5 MILLION upconverting DVD players that were purchased in 2007. Analysts predicted a billion dollars in BluRay sales for 2008. They will be lucky to hit half that.

So far everything is coming up short for BluRay. They have a long hard road ahead of them to achieve some sort of "relevant" market penetration. I'm perfectly happy with my 720p HDTV and regular old DVD player. I'm CERTAINLY not going to shell out $600 for a new player and more than a grand for a new TV just so I can sit 6 inches closer and say, "yep...that pictures better!"

ninjamurf

@ninjamurf: Heh... well if you're happy with whatcha got - be happy! Gotta say though, it's quite a jump better than sitting 6 inches closer and saying "yep...that pictures better!"

First time I saw 1080p material on my current setup, it was a little more like "HOLY @#$*ing @*#$!!"

I think my grandfather said it best, he equated it to not knowing you needed glasses, to getting a good pair (beer mug bottom thick).

avconsumer2

@ItsRabid: you are the only one.

badweasel