Is the PS3 a very good Blu-ray player?

[SoundOfNothing]

Im really concerned about picture quality most, followed by audio; but how good is the PS3 in that regard? I have a hard time believing with all that circuitry in there Sony payed critical attention to the power supply or video decoders and upscalers for that matter. I would like to be told otherwise because for what it is/does it seems incredible. Not to mention all the constant firmware updates.

[Hdale85]

It doesn't upscale well at all actually. It's a decent blu-ray player though. Just don't expect spectacular performance for upscaling DVD's.

[audioqueso]

Agreed.

Blu-ray, it does a good job. For me, I wouldn't say "decent" as I haven't seen much of a difference in blu-ray performance from Sony or Panasonic blu-ray players. It's just as good as the others. But it loads fast and handles any BD disk. DVD, it upscales... but just ok. I have a Marantz DVD player that upscales a bit better, but even if I didn't have the Marantz, the PS3 still does ok. Better than no scaling at all, right?

[David Meek]

The PS3 is pretty amazing for a gaming system so if you are primarily interested in that aspect of entertainment, it's a lot of bang for the buck. But, if you are more concerned about PQ than gaming, I'd consider something else. The Oppo BDP-83 (Blu-Ray and SACD) comes to mind, although I'm fantastically happy with my Pioneer BDP-05.

[audioqueso]

True, if you want an entertainment center the PS3 does A LOT. But for movies only, I can't see the Oppo being passed up.

[Chris D]

Well, I'll say this--those here know that I'm a hard-core A/V guy, and don't ever sacrifice quality for just easy accessibility, portability, or convenience, like MP3's or such. But after some soul-searching, I bought one of the first PS3's when they first came out, primarily as a BD-player. 3 years or so later now, it STILL IS MY ONLY BD-player. It works just fine for me, and I can get incredible PQ and SQ from it, through my reference system. Works better than fine, it still does great.

Are there better performing players out there now? Yes. But I'm not going to get anywhere close to enough of a performance improvement, to justify buying a separate dedicated player yet. So I'm plenty good with my PS3.

[Ovation]

Well, I'll say this--those here know that I'm a hard-core A/V guy, and don't ever sacrifice quality for just easy accessibility, portability, or convenience, like MP3's or such. But after some soul-searching, I bought one of the first PS3's when they first came out, primarily as a BD-player. 3 years or so later now, it STILL IS MY ONLY BD-player. It works just fine for me, and I can get incredible PQ and SQ from it, through my reference system. Works better than fine, it still does great.

Are there better performing players out there now? Yes. But I'm not going to get anywhere close to enough of a performance improvement, to justify buying a separate dedicated player yet. So I'm plenty good with my PS3.

Ditto.

[Race Car Driver]

My only gripe with my PS3 is the fan noise, its sooooo loud!

I dont know if the new ones have this issue. I am also aware that other say theirs are quiet, yet I know I am not the only one displeased by this.

I actually bought a Sony BR player this holiday season for the reason of not having to listen to the fan on the PS3.


I love the PS3 though, I play video games from time to time and have about 30 PS2 games so it was a no brainer for me.

[Hdale85]

Christopher, yes I agree, I had 3 different PS3's and they all were incredibly loud. I'm not sure if this has been fixed in later models or not but I sure hope so. I had to move my media rack into a closet because it was bothering me lol.

[audioqueso]

Maybe I don't notice the fan noise because the PS3 is so close to my center speaker that maybe the audio from the center speaker floods over the fan noise. Maybe???