Feb
21
The PS3 as a Blu-ray Player
Filed Under Blu-ray
I’m often asked how does the Playstation 3 perform as a Blu-ray player and would you recommend one? The answer to the second question is a little easier to tackle than the first, as direct comparisons of the PS3 to current standalone Blu-ray players generally leave the standalones at a slight disadvantage. That slight disadvantage will no doubt change in the coming months as we see more profile 1.1 and 2.0 standalones enter the market. (The PS3 is already profile 1.1 capable and it’s assumed that a profile 2.0 update is in the works)
But getting back to recommending the PS3 as a Blu-ray player, the short answer is yes I do recommend them as Blu-ray players, but that recommendation comes with a few caveats. Yes the PS3 produces great looking video from Blu-ray discs and yes it’s able to decode Dolby TrueHD and transmit PCM audio but it doesn’t have the ability to transmit bitstreamed audio (i.e. letting your receiver do all the decoding of the audio stream versus the player) but my biggest gripe about using the PS3 as a Blu-ray player is its lack of an IR remote.
I can’t think of a single full-featured, universal remote with the ability to learn Bluetooth, but there are tens of thousands of learning, universal IR remotes on the market right now. The simple inclusion of a infrared receiver in the PS3 would have been a fantastic way to better integrate the unit into our home theaters. Now a few months ago this was a relatively serious problem, luckily since then aftermarket solutions have become available but its still not as clean a solution as supporting IR internally.
That said, sure the PS3 makes a fine Blu-ray player, I enjoy mine very much and as long as none of the aforementioned issues are outright deal breakers, I’m sure one would suffice just fine until the day full-featured, profile 2.0 players reach mainstream price points.
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