Decisions, decisions: which Blu-Ray player to buy?

[ONUOsFan]

It has an ethernet port, which makes updates a breeze.

And WiFi, which is key for me, because I don't have any wires coming into my entertainment center.

I do have to say, though, that downloading (on my PC), burning and installing a firmware update for my A2 was a piece of cake, so it's not as much of an advantage if firmware updates is the only thing you're using it for.

 

[teachsac]

I have an Onkyo 805, just set it up yesterday. I also have a 60GB PS3 as a Blu-ray player.

Congrats on your 805.

S~

 

[CochiseGuy]

I have an Onkyo 805, just set it up yesterday. I also have a 60GB PS3 as a Blu-ray player. I have close to 30 Blu-ray movies, and not one game.

Wow! You've been busy!
Congrats on the Onkyo 805.

Drawbacks? Well, a dedicated player may be easier to use. Right now, I turn it on, and slide a Blu-ray movie in, and it starts right up. But if I want to do a firmware update, I have to go thru a menu. Not a terribly complex menu, but one with a lot of options that don't apply to me, as I am not a gamer. Minor, to say the least. And the thing doesn't use IR for remote control, so I can't use my Harmony unless I buy an aftermarket "translator."

I figure one day when dedicated players get better and cheaper I'll get one, and move this to my bedroom - or sell it. As a game machine, it should keep more value over the years so I'll get some return on my money.

If you do get a PS3, get the remote.

I hated that remote with a passion, and I don't even use an universal IR remote. Have you ever seen so many tiny buttons on a remote that do absolutely nothing? And mine stopped working after a few months, and when you try controlling movie playback with that %$#@! toggle game controller and you'll be reminded that, at heart, you really have a game machine. Unlike a standalone player, there's no "Play, Pause" or other buttons on the console if your remote breaks.

For the OP, I've been an HD DVD supporter from early on, tried a PS3 for a few months earlier this year, wasn't impressed with the PS3 or BD movies, and sold the PS3 and went back to HD DVD only.

Well, I bought the Panasonic BD-30 yesterday at Circuit City and I am very impressed. Nice looking player, easy setup. I played Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Ratatouille last night, and they both blew away anything I'd heard or seen on BD with my PS3. FF2 looked very sharp compared to the first FF, and with the DTS-HD MA light lit up on my Onkyo 605 for decoding, it sounded fantastic! And I was never that impressed with the Disney POTC movies before for PQ on my PS3, but through the Panny, they knocked it out of the ballpark with Ratatouille - some of the very best video quality I've ever seen on my system, and the PCM audio was also terrific.

It is confusing if the Panny does TrueHD decoding - some specs say it does, others not. In my manual (p.21) it says that if you set the HDMI audio to PCM, it outputs DD+ & THD as 5.1 PCM. But, I don't have any BDs with TrueHD to test it with. But, as teach says - just set the HDMI audio to bitstream and let your Onkyo receiver do the decoding. I also have an A35 HD DVD player with HBR bitstream audio, and to my ears, even DD+ and THD sound better when my Onkyo is doing the decoding instead of the player.

I highly recommend the Panasonic BD-30. :up

 

[Lord Darth Vader]

Ordered the Panasonic BD30 and will pick it up Thursday from Circuit City after work. Thanks for everyone's suggestions.

 

[teachsac]

Glad to see everyone picking up the BD30. I don't think either of you will regret it. I have owned the 10 since it came out and Panasonic's attention to details and firmware is outstanding. PArt of it has to do with their Hollywood Labs that tests to ensure everything works accordingly. I get my Integra back today, so I will hook it up and play around with it today and tomorrow and write up a review.

S~

If you don't like it, I'll take full blame

 

[ONUOsFan]

Well, I bought the Panasonic BD-30 yesterday at Circuit City and I am very impressed. Nice looking player, easy setup. I played Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Ratatouille last night, and they both blew away anything I'd heard or seen on BD with my PS3. FF2 looked very sharp compared to the first FF, and with the DTS-HD MA light lit up on my Onkyo 605 for decoding, it sounded fantastic! And I was never that impressed with the Disney POTC movies before for PQ on my PS3, but through the Panny, they knocked it out of the ballpark with Ratatouille - some of the very best video quality I've ever seen on my system, and the PCM audio was also terrific.

I can't tell from this post - did you ever actually compare the SAME movie on the PS3 and the Panasonic? Just curious...

 

[CochiseGuy]

I can't tell from this post - did you ever actually compare the SAME movie on the PS3 and the Panasonic? Just curious...

Right - that was two new movies I bought the same day I bought the Panasonic, Ratatouille & FF2.

I tried 4 older titles last night that I have watched on the PS3.

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Warner, VC-1 - No noticeable difference in PQ
Black Hawk Down, Sony, Mpeg2 - Seems like a slight improvement
Remember the Titans, Disney, AVC - Slight improvement; I was disappointed in this transfer
Apocalypto, Disney, AVC - Looks much sharper & smoother than I recall.

The load times are only slightly slower on the Panasonic than on the PS3, about the same as my A35 HD DVD player.

I mentioned the video codec on the titles because the Panasonic says it supports AVCHD, which I'm not familiar with. The manual says its DVD-R and -R DL AVCHD, so I suspect it's HD content burned to either single or dual layer DVD using the AVC video codec. So, I'm thinking the Panasonic may be "optimized" for discs using the AVC/mpeg4 codec.

 

[Lord Darth Vader]

Well, got the BD30 all connected, and everything's fine except for one issue: the unit will NOT let me turn the BD-Video 24p output to "on." That's grayed out with the "off" option being the only thing available. Now, my Samsung TV does support 1080p; the HDMI resolution is set to auto, and the aspect ratio is set to 16:9, all three requirements needed to be able to select BD-Video 24p output to "on."

I called Panasonic tech support and their answer is: "The Onkyo 805 receiver does not support 1080p resolution; therefore, the DVD player cannot be set to 24p BD-Video. You will have to connect the HDMI cable directly to the TV in order to be able to select 24p BD-Video output to yes."

WTF is that?!?

Edited to add: I'm now on level 2 tech support w/ Panasonic. The gentleman with whom I just spoke told me the Onkyo 805 does support 24p. He further explained that the problem is most likely with my Samsung 6189S LED DLP HDTV, that it most likely doesn't support 24p. If true, that sucks.

 

[diogen]

He further explained that the problem is most likely with my Samsung 6189S LED DLP HDTV, that it most likely doesn't support 24p.

He is most probably wrong: the 89S series does support 1080/24p input.
The problem is, it can't always negotiate this refresh rate with the player,
i.e. it doesn't give a proper "answer" when "asked" by the player about its capabilities.
It can also be that the Onkyo (being in between) adds to this "misunderstanding".

The easy way to check this is to connect to the TV directly and play the movie on a PS3
with the firmware version 1.9: it can force 24p regardless of what the TV says it is capable of.

Diogen.

 

[teachsac]

Like Diogen suggested, try connecting the player directly to the TV first. Also make sure that the "HDMI Out" setting in the Onkyo is set to through not 1080p or any other flavor. Also go into the Samsungs settings and set film mode to on.

S~

 

[Lord Darth Vader]

He is most probably wrong: the 89S series does support 1080/24p input.
The problem is, it can't always negotiate this refresh rate with the player,
i.e. it doesn't give a proper "answer" when "asked" by the player about its capabilities.
It can also be that the Onkyo (being in between) adds to this "misunderstanding".

The easy way to check this is to connect to the TV directly and play the movie on a PS3
with the firmware version 1.9: it can force 24p regardless of what the TV says it is capable of.

Diogen.

As he explained, the Sammy HLT6189S does "3-2 pulldown," and as such, cannot support 24p BD-Video output. Changing the mode on my Sammy from Dynamic to Movie does nothing (except for making the overall screen darker, which I don't like anyway).

 

[Lord Darth Vader]

Like Diogen suggested, try connecting the player directly to the TV first. Also make sure that the "HDMI Out" setting in the Onkyo is set to through not 1080p or any other flavor. Also go into the Samsungs settings and set film mode to on.

S~

Just to add, the Onkyo 805 doesn't have the ability to set HDMI Out to "through." The 875 does, but apparently the 805 does not. I tried doing that but it's not even an option.

 

[teachsac]

Changing the mode on my Sammy from Dynamic to Movie does nothing (except for making the overall screen darker, which I don't like anyway).

That's different than the film mode in the setup menu, but after reading your owner's manual (p.60), this feature is only available w/analog and s-video modes. I could find nowhere in the owner's manual where it stated it would accept a 1080p/24 source. It does only display 1080p @30fps, though. That I did find on the Samsung site.

S~

 

[Lord Darth Vader]

That's similar to what the Panasonic rep. told me. He looked on line on Sammy's web site and looked up the detailed specs, which is where he found the info about 3-2 pulldown and other details that told him it wouldn't support 1080p/24 video.

 

[navychop]

The Onkyo 805 does support 1080p. If you input HDMI to the 805, and output HDMI from the 805, it will pass what it's given- presumably 1080.

What the Panny rep was probably thinking was that if you use HDMI out from the 805, but use, for example, component in to the 805, it will downscale it to 720p. With HDMI out, any non HDMI input to the 805 will result in 720p out.

Yes, the 875 will keep things at 1080, or presumably even up 720 to 1080 (I think). That's what you get for the much higher price- a better video processing chip.

Those of us that plan to only feed HDMI into the 805, and HDMI out to the HDTV, have no need for that feature, or concerns about it. My AV receiver is there to act as an HDMI switch, and provide great audio- and offer the option of taking non-HDMI inputs and sending them to the HDTV over the single HDMI input that it has. For example, since I play DVD-audio discs, and the PS3 won't play them, I have a JVC 7 disc DVD player hooked up via analog and component. True, not much video out of those DVD-audio discs, but since I was hooking things up anyway......

Plus, my current HDTV is 720p anyway, so if, god forbid, I ever reconnect a VCR to the system and feed S-video to it, the 720 out will be an improvement.

The Onkyo 805 also has component monitor out.

 

[Lord Darth Vader]

The Onkyo 805 does support 1080p. If you input HDMI to the 805, and output HDMI from the 805, it will pass what it's given- presumably 1080.

Yes, I know. I didn't say it didn't; rather, I said the HDMI "through" option is not available on the 805. It is available on the 875.

 

[diogen]

As he explained, the Sammy HLT6189S does "3-2 pulldown," and as such, cannot support 24p BD-Video output.

And this is understandable, I've never seen the 89S supporting 72/96Hz (but it should recognize 1080/24p as input).
I got the impression you wanted to make sure the TV set does the 3:2 (not the player and not the AVR), i.e. the video stream arrives in 1080/24p.

Changing the mode on my Sammy from Dynamic to Movie does nothing (except for making the overall screen darker...)

This is usually a sign of going from RGB [0-255] to video colorspace [16-235].
It would probably be better to keep it in Movie mode and recalibrate.

Diogen.

 

[Lord Darth Vader]

Actually, the darker result is expected. When one toggles over the "movie" mode, the explanation on the bottom of the screen states that the screen becomes darker to simulate a movie theater environment.

 

[navychop]

Yes, I know. I didn't say it didn't; ...

My Lord, I was referring to the Panny rep's comment: "The Onkyo 805 receiver does not support 1080p resolution"

 

[Lord Darth Vader]

My Lord, I was referring to the Panny rep's comment: "The Onkyo 805 receiver does not support 1080p resolution"

Apology accepted, navychop.