Blu Ray, buy now or wait while longer?

Liquid Ideas

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Hi everyone,

Pretty much as the title says, Im now considering adding Blu Ray to my set up. With HD-DVD losing out(Transformers was worth it though :D) I will have to sooner or later add Blu Ray to get new releases for my HD fix.

I was all set to get a PS3 thinking that i could have my cake and eat it, gaming and movies in 1 package. Then i started reading reviews, opinions of the newer generation of players such as the pioneer 51, panny 55 etc and it is no longer quite so appealing particularly with the apparent lower quality sound and possibly picture in comparison to a standalone player.

Prices of players such as the pioneer 51 which seems to be getting great reviews and user feed back are very reasonable now but and this is a big but, do i go for it now or wait for the next lot of players to be released? It seems like BR players have advanced quite rapidly the last 6 months or so but will the next lot make such a big leap forward?

Having managed to resist buying sooner i can hold on for a while longer but will any developments made be worth waiting for? My main focus is picture and sound improvements, the extra features, online content etc are secondary.

Any insight and advice would be much appreciated and suggestions regarding current player choice upto around £500 welcomed.
 
With your sort of budget, you will have a good choice of players. My advice would be to find a dealer that can offer you a demo. For your sort of money they will almost definately say yes and there is always a deal to be done!

Do not automatically buy the most expensive machine as alot depends on what TV you are using. Also buy a good quality HDMI cable, but do not go mad. £20-£30 should be ample.

Finally, take some discs that you know and love to compare. Dealers tend to be crafty and play ones with lots of CGI or animated films. You want films with panning shots, close ups of faces etc.

I use a Sony BDP-S350 and love it - it cost £167.00 from Richer Sounds and is multi-region for DVD too.

There are good models from Panasonic, Denon and Pioneer too.

I can recommend Multi-Region Magic in Peterborough & Classic HiFi in Kettering. They are not near you, but they have a good website for starters. Good Luck & Happy Hunting, that is the best bit!!
 
Having managed to resist buying sooner i can hold on for a while longer but will any developments made be worth waiting for? My main focus is picture and sound improvements, the extra features, online content etc are secondary.

Any insight and advice would be much appreciated and suggestions regarding current player choice upto around £500 welcomed.

Hi mate. :)
I think it's definitely the right time to buy :thumbsup: do you use an amp at all?
Cheers.
 
I think the new models will undoubtedly improve upon previous ones, there's plenty of scope, but some of the pricing has been good on current models.

I personally would expect the new Panasonic's to show up fairly soon, not least because they appear to have sold all their 55 models (all that's left is what is at dealers) and I doubt they want to leave that sector to other manufacturers. The new Pioneers may take a bit longer as over here, we haven't had the current ones more than about 3-4 months, and that was well after the US got theirs. Also, we got one model the US didn't as I don't think they sell KRP equivalent screens over there with media boxes.

The difficult part is price increases due to currency issues. They are starting to come through, and I think it will get worse before it gets better.
 
I think considering you're running an Onkyo 875 amp, you have two easy choices.

Either go high end and spend £600 on a Denon DVD2500BT or go for the best of the budget and spend £320 on a Pioneer BDP51-FD. (both at Richer Sounds and of course a number of retailers advertising on here that match the same great price such as TLC Broadcast).

It's that simple. Those would be my choices. You can bitstream everything over HDMI to the Onk, so it's a no brainer really. Now just decide how much to spend! (Oh and get your HDMI cables from Mark Grant. That's what I've done and he's very good & reasonable too. You'll find him in the cables power buy section).
 
Forgot to add my kit list, now on my sig but its as follows.

508xd, onkyo 875, xe1, xbox 360 then have my older hifi bits pre av bug era connected up to the amp - marantz 6000ki cd player, video logic dab radio.

The price of the pioneer 51 in particular has caught my eye and also the fact that it looks such a beast in comparison to anything else at that price lol.

Like Ian S said, there will be improvements on the newer models so taking this into consideration going for a mid price player around the 3-350 mark which probably give the best price to performance ratio now will not sting as much to upgrade when and if i decide to change.

Has anyone been able to compare the panasonic player to the pioneer? This seems to be the comparsion to make at that price.
 
Has anyone been able to compare the panasonic player to the pioneer? This seems to be the comparsion to make at that price.

Yes :smashin: (35) found it similiar with Blu-ray PQ,there's more picture adjustments on the Pioneer to play with though.
All the best.
 
Forgot to add my kit list, now on my sig but its as follows.

508xd, onkyo 875, xe1, xbox 360 then have my older hifi bits pre av bug era connected up to the amp - marantz 6000ki cd player, video logic dab radio.

The price of the pioneer 51 in particular has caught my eye and also the fact that it looks such a beast in comparison to anything else at that price lol.

Like Ian S said, there will be improvements on the newer models so taking this into consideration going for a mid price player around the 3-350 mark which probably give the best price to performance ratio now will not sting as much to upgrade when and if i decide to change.

Has anyone been able to compare the panasonic player to the pioneer? This seems to be the comparsion to make at that price.

Hell of a price difference though.... i agree that the 51fd looks a lot better but

Panasonic DMP-BD35EB-K Profile 2 Blu-ray Disc Player: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo - £184

vs

PIONEER BDP51FD at Richer Sounds - HI-FI Separates, Home Cinema, Speakers, MP3 DVD Portables, Plasma LCD, etc. - £319

I found the PQ to be very similar... the Pioneer analogue outputs tempted me but i wasn't impressed with the options at the moment - new firmware due soon should resolve that! As a result i would have gone for the Samsung BD-P1500 (i need non HDMI audio) but did actually prefer the Panasonic.
 
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Buy now.

IMO The new models will not be more expensive than the current batch (The current economic market simply won't support it), but to counter the high exchange rate, they will have to find ways to decrease costs and that could translate to cutting corners with components and build quality etc.

On the other hand, if you after a Pioneer, then the current batch do have teething problems and the next models should have ironed these out.

Either way, the current crop are all good players and you are depriving yourself of all that BD goodness if you wait.
 
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Descisons descions, following on from all your comments I am now seriously considering the lower priced bd 35 or sony 350, doesnt seem to be such a vast difference in PQ and and the money saved could be well spent in starting my new disc collection.

All audio will be going through the amp via hdmi so analogue connections are not required.
 
Having only just got the AV bug back after several years of chugging along with my old hifi kit I bought a Sony S350 as my HD source. It seems as good as most others around that price range and as it's only £180 you can't go too far wrong.
If technology were to progress on leaps and bounds then buying a "better" player isn't going to hurt the wallet too much.
 
Today I finally bit the bullet, and ordered Sony S550. My plan was to wait for the Oppo or the Panasonic BD80, but surprisingly a local dealer dropped the price of S550 so low that it was really a no-brainer for someone who already has Oppo 981HD and only one blu-ray. Perhaps Oppo and BD80 will be a lot faster and take their distance more clearly to PS3 than S550 has taken, but for my needs, S550 will have to do... at that price.
 
I think it is a good time to get into. I got into BD over 6 months ago with the Samsung 1500 and the Sony S350 later on. I feel the brand name players are fine as they are. They are a lot faster than older models and so far I haven't come across any discs that will not play in either players.

BD disc prices are excellent as long as bought in offers. Discs are as low as £9 with the average being £11-£12. I was paying £20 for a DVD when the format was still 2 years old just like BD is now.
 
Liquid Ideas Similar situation to you.
5080 pio, XE-1, and an 805. I went for the Panna BD 35 at just before Xmas and then blow the rest of my 400 budget on discs.

the 35 looks great and sounds great.
 
I have to admit that i had no intention in buying a BD player for quite a while too, untill i came across the deal which Blockbuster were doing with the Sony 350 and the 6 free films.

I just found it a bargain not to be missed at £200 with atleast £80 worth of movies free.
A great introduction even if you didn't intend on buying many blu-ray movies (which i didn't at first) :smashin:
 
When the right deal comes along go for it, I found the cheap price of the Samsung and the 350 hard to resist.
 
When the right deal comes along go for it, I found the cheap price of the Samsung and the 350 hard to resist.

Hi Nic - may I ask what is the Samsung like compared to the Sony; which would be the better machine? Cheers.
 
Liquid Ideas Similar situation to you.
5080 pio, XE-1, and an 805. I went for the Panna BD 35 at just before Xmas and then blow the rest of my 400 budget on discs.

the 35 looks great and sounds great.
I just did the same but used the extra to go multi region Blu Ray.
 
Different. One is not better per se at Blu ray, especially if you want to bitstream at 24p. 350 is better built, supported and quieter. 2500 is better at SD and has DTS re encode (and average analogue). Depends what you want from a player. Some want good SD performance, others just want Blu ray performance, some digital,some analogue and some even think some players are optimised for LCDs and not plasmas!
 
Different. One is not better per se at Blu ray, especially if you want to bitstream at 24p. 350 is better built, supported and quieter. 2500 is better at SD and has DTS re encode (and average analogue). Depends what you want from a player. Some want good SD performance, others just want Blu ray performance, some digital,some analogue and some even think some players are optimised for LCDs and not plasmas!

:D:devil:
 
So how much was it then??

Around 240 euros which is close to what it would be in pounds. This was a no-brainer really as S550 in Finland is generally priced at +400 euros (although the place I ordered it from has been selling it for 299 euros).

The new Oppo will be around 550 euros, I guess, and Panny BD80 will probably be about 350-400 euros. Considering I have a dvd-Oppo and only one blu-ray, I doubt there would be sense in waiting for those (even if I stepped up my dvd performance going from 981HD's Faroudja to 83's Anchor Bay).
 
Well i picked up a BD 35 last night, not had a chance to view anything with it yet but hoping will be able to tonight. Got a few discs already - I am Legend and Kung Fu Hustle but will be ordering Dark Knight/ Batman begins and probably few others. I'll be interested to see how it compares to HD material played back on XE1.
 
less noise from the player and that seems to about it.

Oh and the annoying BD format.

:devil:
 

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