Best blu ray player in the UK?

[BandofBrothers]

Hi guys, was just wondering what the best player is..

I heard good things about the Sony BDP-S1 but its USA only?

The Samsung BDP1000 is cheap now, but I heard it sucks compared to the decent players (its blurry?)

Thx for any help

 

[Goooner]

Don't know where you heard that, I've got a Sammy and it's brilliant.

 

[cheesegoduk]

I think the sammy had a firmware update not long after release that fixed all the picture quality issues people were having.
I only have a PS3 so I can't really comment, tis a good blu-ray player tho if you don't mind that it can play games as well.

 

[Damian1978]

On BD discs the Samsung is brilliant. Sounds pretty decent too via its internal decoders with 5.1 PCM. It's not worth £900 and I'm amazed they set it that high at its release. I'm really pleased with mine (paid £380 new) but it's not brilliant for DVD.

 

[Nic Rhodes]

Damian summary is a good one above. As a BD player the Samsung is great but it is low on the features count. It is a very different player with the latest firmware compared to the one I first saw last July which was which is probably when those reviews were written.

 

[Vern]

Generally very impressed with our Sammy (UK model). Had to do the 1.0 firmware update (in theory same as that installed?!) to get The Descent to play. Rock steady, reliable player and thus far none of the stalling or lock-ups experienced with the HD-DVD US player.

 

[Oakleyspatz]

I think the PS3 is the current best Blu-Ray player in the UK, although now the Sammy has come down to a realistic price and the firmware has been improved, it is worth consideration.

 

[charliecossie]

As the OP asks which is the "best" player, with no reference to price, the the Panasonic is the best.
It's picture is as good as the Samsung and PS3.
Sound is better than either.
Will support TrueHD and DTS-HD this month, perhaps.
Plays DVD audio.
Best DVD playback of the three.
Allegedly, decent CD playback.
Plays home-brewed BDMV.
Ergo, it's the best.

 

[mremulator]

As the OP asks which is the "best" player, with no reference to price, the the Panasonic is the best.
It's picture is as good as the Samsung and PS3.
Sound is better than either.
Will support TrueHD and DTS-HD this month, perhaps.
Plays DVD audio.
Best DVD playback of the three.
Allegedly, decent CD playback.
Plays home-brewed BDMV.
Ergo, it's the best.

Agreed, and I own the Panasonic and the PS3 also. No comparison... the panasonic has better picture (sharper/colour), sound and is generally a better all-round machine. DMP-BD10A will be even better. No 1080/24 though

I think the Pioneer will be the 'best' player though, if it ever arrives that is.

 

[MattZani]

PS3 is your best bet at the moment, seeing as its the cheapest, and you get an ace games console! i don't see how anything can be better for sound than PS3, because at the moment no systems support True HD Sound, which is what PS3 outputs in, or is it because stand alone players have dedicated outputs?

Matt

 

[Nic Rhodes]

But it isn't the cheapest!! TrueHD is just a format decoded by the player, all outputs are multichannel PCM which is also the 'lossless' format of choice of the most BD discs which ALL players deal with. TrueHD is on a tiny minority of discs. The fact that the PS3 doesn't even output an analogue audio multi channel signal is why many don't bother with it!

 

[MattZani]

so you're saying that there's no way to get the sound of out of the PS3, other than HDMI?

Matt

 

[Duncan Harvey]

You can use optical, but obviously this is bandwidth restricted, so no uncompressed multi channel.

I think its the sound options that swing it. If you have an HDMI amp then I would go for the PS3, as the spec is such that the infamous BD 1.1 and Java issues should not be an issue.

It will be interesting to see if the PS3 has enough grunt to cope with DTA-MA, which the Panny cannot.

The Panny does do DVD-Audio, but the PS3 does SACD.

Its horses for courses really, I've just sold my US Panny (which is a damned fine machine) and bought another US PS3. So I now have two of them.

 

[thornton]

There seem to be number of informed BR player owners on this thread - can any of you answer the question I have posed on the thread at:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=505475

with regard to zooming capabilities of the Panasonic, Sammy and PS3? Please at least TRY to answer the question rather than insulting me. I am happy to acknowledge in advance that I am a sad deviant philistine with contempt for the art of cinematography, just to get that out of the way.

 

[Duncan Harvey]

Must admit I'm not aware of any zoom functionality, but then again its not something I've looked at.

TBH, cant you use the picture size function on your TV to zoom the image?

 

[BandofBrothers]

thanks for the info guys.

I might look into the Sammy player then, see if I can get some discount codes etc

 

[Nic Rhodes]

so you're saying that there's no way to get the sound of out of the PS3, other than HDMI?

Matt

Not for multichannel DD+, DTS (non core), TrueHD, DTS HD MA or PCM. Plain DTS and DD will come out the Toslink optical however but that is no more than DVD players have done for most of ther life and LDs before them.

 

[grey torq]

To clarify the vanilla DTS & DD via optical from Blu-ray is full bitrate DTS at 1.5mb/s and the DD is also full bitrate at 640kb/s which is actually the same as DD+.
This is a noticable step up from DVD and is definitely an improvement you will notice.