Best upscaling BD player

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Pacemaker10000

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what BD player inc a PS3 does the best job of upscaling standard DVD's?
how good is it compared to a PC/scaler?
cheers
 
what BD player inc a PS3 does the best job of upscaling standard DVD's?
It's a good question - and one that will be in flux over the next few months as we see players from the likes of Denon, Pioneer and Oppo emerge.
 
I would still say the PS3 even if I wished it would be different so that I could change this gaming console for a true BD PLayer. :rolleyes:
 
I currently have two differing players, the Panasonic BD30 and the new Sony S-350. To my eyes, there's no perceptible difference with Blu-ray playback, but to answer your question, the Sony is actually rather good at upscaling and can easily be made region free. My Denon 3930 kicks both their asses though! :D
 
Panasonic claim the new models, BD35 and BD55 make an improvement.
 
No manufacturer will claim otherwise!! All have issues atm but to better the PS3, you perhaps need to look at the expensive Denon though I haven't seen it myself. What I have seen you are better off with a dedicated DVD player of quality. Much cheaper as well.
 
what BD player inc a PS3 does the best job of upscaling standard DVD's?
how good is it compared to a PC/scaler?
cheers

By upscaling I assume you really mean the whole video processing chain i.e. mpeg decoding, deinterlacing, filtering/processing as well as upscaling resolution ?

Whilst I haven't seen these personally the Denon 3800/Marantz BD8002 use the Silicon Optix Realta video processing and reliable third party reports claim class leading results with SD DVD.

I guess the "how good" question will depend on what PC/Scaler you compare.

AVI
 
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No manufacturer will claim otherwise!! All have issues atm but to better the PS3, you perhaps need to look at the expensive Denon though I haven't seen it myself. What I have seen you are better off with a dedicated DVD player of quality. Much cheaper as well.

OK, so maybe get an Oppo 983 then ?
 
OK, so maybe get an Oppo 983 then ?

That is where I put my own money. The 983 is quite a jump on a big screen from the 970, 971s and 981 I have. As fine as they are, the they could be improved in several area (these are minor criticisms as they do the basic correctly). These were:

MPEG2 decoding (the custom variant in the 983 just fixes the minor issues)
Greyscale tracking (983 better here )
Audio and video jitter (983 much better engineered here, especially audio)
High freq respomse (983 much better here as has lifted a veil off the fine detail in the picture)
Firmware (always a strength but my 983 has been bril in this regard)

to these improvement they added class leading film and video deinterlacing and a very high quality scaling algorithm, USBs, 7.1 analogue outs, Divx, USBs etc etc and better build.

I see allot of kit, some very fine, but only the select get bought with my own money.
 
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i currently use a pc with nvidia 7500gt for scaling/deinterlacing
am sure last time i tried a ps3 it couldnt compare but may have got the settings wrong
i am deciding if to upgrade the pc to take BD or go the seperates way and use a hdmi switch/new amp
havnt researched the auidio side yet but isnt there a prob with the ps3 not outputting high bit audio?
alternatly i could get a ext scaler/switch but that looks expensive
 
havnt researched the auidio side yet but isnt there a prob with the ps3 not outputting high bit audio?

PS3 decodes Dolby TrueHD and DTS MA internally and outputs to the HD audio to the AVR as multichannel PCM. It does not support bitstream output that is required if you wish to output the HD audio codec to an AVR.

AVI
 
PS3 decodes Dolby TrueHD and DTS MA internally and outputs to the HD audio to the AVR as multichannel PCM. It does not support bitstream output that is required if you wish to output the HD audio codec to an AVR.

AVI

thanks
mate just dropped a ps3 off for me to try tonight he said that it was coming in a software upgrade
 
LMAO!

The PS3 is a terrible DVD upscaler. Its on par with budget supermarket "HDMI" DVD Players. As a BD player, its pretty good (not the best though)

Get a BDP-S350.
 
LMAO!

The PS3 is a terrible DVD upscaler. Its on par with budget supermarket "HDMI" DVD Players. As a BD player, its pretty good (not the best though)

Get a BDP-S350.

I've owned a few standalone Blu-ray players (Sony and Panasonic) and the PS3. If the quality of SD DVD is important I would avoid the current Blu-ray players (unless it's the Denon/Marantz models mentioned above) and stick with a dedication SD DVD player i.e. Oppo 980 or similar.

AVI
 
The PS3 upscaling algorithm is pretty sophisticated and one of the machines strengths. One of the beauties of software and a massively powerful cell processor. Many of the standalone just do upscaling with the feebie scaling algorithm on the chip used, decent enough but hardly world beating. Has many simularities to a well done HCPC.
 
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mmm
may stick to a htpc then and get both for the price of one :)
 
LMAO!

The PS3 is a terrible DVD upscaler. Its on par with budget supermarket "HDMI" DVD Players. As a BD player, its pretty good (not the best though)

Get a BDP-S350.

I would still say stick with the ps3 and don't buy a s350. The ps3 upscaler is not as bad as you say and the ps3 still has the superior blu-ray pic quality over the s350. Unless you buy the Denon 2500 or the very appealing but stupidly priced denon 3800 nothing is going to touch the ps3.
 
just finished watching my first blueray film on the ps3 and it was very good indeed, a decent enough improvement over my htpc. sd was ok but not so good as htpc.
streaming avi's and mpegs was also very good but lack of dvd streaming support is a real pain as i have alot of movies on my hd
 
I would still say stick with the ps3 and don't buy a s350. The ps3 upscaler is not as bad as you say and the ps3 still has the superior blu-ray pic quality over the s350. Unless you buy the Denon 2500 or the very appealing but stupidly priced denon 3800 nothing is going to touch the ps3.

Thats bull, it has been stated again and again in professional reviews and from feedback from people on this forum that the S350 produces a better bluray picture than the ps3 and allows for bitstreaming.

You claim the PS3 has better bluray pc quality than the S350??! Please explain how..

The S350 also has a by far better DVD upscaler than the PS3 - I have seen the two running side by side and may others can vouch for this.

This is simply because one machine was designed for movies and the other for games, with movies as an afterthought.

If you enjoy the noise of a noisy fan when watching a quiet scene in a movie, then by all means, go for PS3
 
Thats bull, it has been stated again and again in professional reviews and from feedback from people on this forum that the S350 produces a better bluray picture than the ps3 and allows for bitstreaming.

You claim the PS3 has better bluray pc quality than the S350??! Please explain how..

The S350 also has a by far better DVD upscaler than the PS3 - I have seen the two running side by side and may others can vouch for this.

This is simply because one machine was designed for movies and the other for games, with movies as an afterthought.

If you enjoy the noise of a noisy fan when watching a quiet scene in a movie, then by all means, go for PS3

Dont ever call my opinion bull again. Its my opinion and If I want to make it I will wither it sits well with you or not.

Moving on, let me guess your a s350 owner ?

I never mentioned what was better regarding scaling, I simply said the ps3 wasnt as bad as the last poster made out. I also have not commented on the noise of a ps3, I dont want to do down that tangent.

As you have seen the ps3 and the s350 side by side when testing the upscaling on the dvd side of things, I take it you can get some blu-ray pics up for us all, side by side and prove my opinion wrong then ?
 
Dont ever call my opinion bull again. Its my opinion and If I want to make it I will wither it sits well with you or not.

Moving on, let me guess your a s350 owner ?

I never mentioned what was better regarding scaling, I simply said the ps3 wasnt as bad as the last poster made out. I also have not commented on the noise of a ps3, I dont want to do down that tangent.

As you have seen the ps3 and the s350 side by side when testing the upscaling on the dvd side of things, I take it you can get some blu-ray pics up for us all, side by side and prove my opinion wrong then ?

I wouldnt call anyones opinion bull, but you tried to pass it off as a fact. The FACT is that the PS3 and S350 have been tested side by side extensively and the results has always shown the S350 to have a sharper more superior picture.

Yes im a S350 owner, but a recent one. I was in the position to buy a BD player and did very seriously consider the PS3. Between DVD region locking, the noisy fan and the inability to bitstream, the S350 (over the PS3) was a nobrainer - and that decision saved me £100!
The problem is there is a lot of misinformation being spread about the PS3 being the be all and end all for BD movies, when in fact that isnt really the case, even Sony openly describe PS3's "BD limitations". This misinformation largely come from fanboys who have an agenda for Sony to win the console gaming race.


I have seen the PS3 and S350 running side by side in a controlled environment testing the noise and performance of both machines. The S350 is head and shoulders above the PS3 for movies, yet I cannot provide you with pictures.. how about a few reviews?..

Sony BDP-S350 | Review | TechRadar UK

Sony BDP-S350 review – whathifi.com


Agreed the PS3 is not a bad player, its just not the best. Heck, I may even buy one in the future for gaming, but I would NEVER use it as my primary movie player.

Especially with the new profile 2.0 players out, it is being beaten in terms of performance and (if you are interested in movies alone) value.
 
Thats bull, it has been stated again and again in professional reviews and from feedback from people on this forum that the S350 produces a better bluray picture than the ps3 and allows for bitstreaming.

You claim the PS3 has better bluray pc quality than the S350??! Please explain how..

The S350 also has a by far better DVD upscaler than the PS3 - I have seen the two running side by side and may others can vouch for this.

This is simply because one machine was designed for movies and the other for games, with movies as an afterthought.

If you enjoy the noise of a noisy fan when watching a quiet scene in a movie, then by all means, go for PS3

I haven't seen the S350 in action so can't compare it to the PS3. It's good that it gives a better Blu-ray picture than the PS3 in your opinion.

I don't understand why the PS3 would have inferior picture quality because the implementation of the Blu-ray player was an 'afterthought'. If Sony had started out by making the PS3 a Blu-ray player first (is there evidence that they didn't?) and a game player second, or indeed just to play films this wouldn't necessarily have guaranteed a player that could equal or surpass the S350.

My PS3 40GB isn't noisy when watching a quiet scene.

It's good to hear that there is a player out there that may be better than the PS3 at a cheaper price:smashin:

Scott
 
I don't understand why the PS3 would have inferior picture quality because the implementation of the Blu-ray player was an 'afterthought'. If Sony had started out by making the PS3 a Blu-ray player first (is there evidence that they didn't?)

The evidence is the very fact that its a PLAYstation 3 - the successor to the Playstation 2 games console. It can just happen to play Bluray movies, as the PS2 can just happen to play DVDs.

My PS3 40GB isn't noisy when watching a quiet scene.


You honestly saying you cant hear that fan at all? Watch something like BladeRunner, a quiet scene eg Deckards apartment or the Voight Kamp test (these were scenes I tested between S350 and PS3) there is just too much distracting noise coming from that fan.
 
MODERATOR COMMENT

There are plenty of reviews on the PS3 and the other standalone players out there. Please debate the pro's and con's of all of them, and help inform fellow members about what possible issues they may have. The hands on users experiences are exactly what makes AVForums so informative, and differences of opinion and the debate that usually follows adds to that.

But please also keep this discussion civil. :smashin:

Gliese 581c and syfodyas you both have different views, but you must remember we are all AV enthusiasts and should treat each other with the respect we all deserve, you have both come very close to crossing the line. Please don't.
 
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