May
23
The PS3 has become the Blu-ray player du jour for many and with good reason, it’s highly versatile, relatively easy to use, relatively inexpensive and one of the few profile 2.0 players available, it is not however perfect unto itself. The omission of any inherent ability to be controlled via infra-red makes it difficult to be integrated into home theaters with IR universal remotes, luckily though third party manufacturers have supplied solutions to this problem.
There are several different solutions to use a IR remote with the PS3 but one of the cleanest has to be the IR2BT (IR to Bluetooth) converter. In a nutshell the adapter receives PS2 IR commands (those remotes are still available) and converts them into the PS3’s Bluetooth commands. It really couldn’t get much simpler than that, well that is unless the PS3 already worked with IR. The device sells for $55 and is available direct from the manufacturer.
The other solution, specifically the Nyko “Blu-Wave” infra-red remote uses a IR dongle to receive the Nyko’s remote commands but from what I’ve been able to gather the Nyko remote lacks a few functions available from the PS3 controller, functions that are available with the PS2 IR controller as well. So in essence, if you just want to integrate basic shuttle commands into your universal remote the Nyko may be the way to go, on the other hand if you want 100% functionality with IR source codes, the IR2BT is well worth a look.
May
8
Blu-ray Player Recommendations (Part 2)
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Earlier this year I made a post about which Blu-ray players I would recommend and did so with the caveat that those recommendations would have a shelf life of about a month. Ok so it was two, I was close.
Back in March with the different player profiles just starting to be sorted out and no real profile 2.0 titles available to speak of, I was perfectly comfortable recommending the Panasonic DMP-BD30K. While I still consider it a capable player it’s not the one I would recommend today.
Panasonic’s BD-Live capable DMP-BD50 is where I’d put my money if I were in the market again. The player features Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD MA, HDMI 1.3 with Deep Color and x.v. Color, 1080p/24 playback and 5.1ch analog audio outs.
Mar
18
Purchasing a Blu-ray Player?
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This tip will have a shelf-life of about a month tops, because I’m going to examine the current state of Blu-ray player profiles and make a recommendation based on where we stand today, March 18, 2008. Ok with all the formalities out of the way let’s get to it.
By now I’m hoping everyone knows about the different Blu-ray profiles. The early players were profile 1.0 and handled basic playback only, recently we got into the profile 1.1 (also called Final Standard Profile) players which added picture-in-picture video playback and 256 MB of local memory storage.
Sometime later this year we should begin to see profile 2.0 players (also known as BD-Live) which will have mandatory ethernet connections and 1 GB of local memory storage. So unless you’re willing to wait till the fall and or settle for a PS3 as your primary Blu-ray playback device, you’re looking at a profile 1.1 capable player.
So which one do I recommend? The Panasonic DMP-BD30K can be found for as little as $430 and from all accounts is a fine player. Its features include HDMI v1.3, profile 1.1 playback, 5.1 analog outs and 24fps 1080p output. My basis for the recommendation really boils down to the fact that I’ve just gotten less negative feedback about this player than any other model we sell. As with all things Blu-ray however, what’s on top today might not be tomorrow, I’ll revisit this topic often throughout the year.
Feb
25
Format War Over – Blu-ray Victorious
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If you’re wondering whether it’s safe to buy into either Blu-ray or HD DVD in the midst of a “format war” just put HD DVD out of your mind and know that Blu-ray has won, the format war is over and you can take that to the bank.
In the past several weeks/months HD DVD has taken hit after hit, most notably starting with Warner Brothers announcement that they would stop supporting HD DVD by June of this year, followed by Netflix announcing they would stop renting HD DVD’s by the end of the year and then with Best Buy announcing they focus their attention on Blu-ray as well.
Feb
21
The PS3 as a Blu-ray Player
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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.