Re: Panasonic intros fourth generation Blu-ray players

No personal feelings about Sony in this decision. It's big, ugly, non compatible with my remote, Not clear enough for my liking, and will most doubtly melt in my cabinet. Really is anyone here that doesn't like the PS3 not allowed to have an opinion? We are on the planet earth, arn't we?

sure reaggie..you're always entitled to your opinion. as we are entitled to respond to your opinion. maybe the sony just doesn't jive with your system..and that is perfectly fine. but it jives with mine, and i love the thing. and "yes", i also use it as a game machine.

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[Post edited by bladerunner1 on Nov 14, 2008]

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I've never seen any of the PQ issues that ReaggieP reports with the PS3. I don't recall any of the enthusiasts over at AVSForum reporting this issue either over the past years (and many of them also owned the XA2 and were duel format).

Considering that the standalone Toshiba HD DVD players are actually "computers", I doubt it's a "computer" issue. My Toshiba A2 is crappy Celeron, contains RAM and ROM where the operating system is stored. The first Toshiba generation was Linux, but I think they wen't with Windows CE on the second generation...

BTW, by coincidence I picked up some HD DVDs from Zellers today... many titles mixed up in some throw-away bins for $6. I got Sleepy Hollow, Heartbreak Kid, and Arctic Tale. It was a little hard seeing many titles in there that I already own and paid $34.99 for!

I'm seconds away from ordering the Panasonic DMP-BD35 and it is set to replace my PS3 as main playback system.

Main concerns I have always had with the PS3:

- Power consumption
- Bluetooth remote (That is not backlit)
- No HD audio bitstream *

* This is a REALLY big one for me and I really don't understand why they don't allow it. The PS3 has all the technology to do it so why not? Any insiders know why?

The PS3 does NOT bitstream HD audio?? What the...I thought it did.

So this means if you want your receiver to do the decoding you can't with the PS3? I'm assuming it will sound better if the receiver decodes the audio correct? Depending on the receiver of course.

I don't think it will ever support bitstream output (to pass HD audio to a receiver for processing) due to the version of the HDMI chipset used. The chipset version did not change in the new 40gb or 80gb model.

However it can decode them internally and pass them out as 7.1 PCM, which is pretty much the same thing sort of. It does this currently for Dolby TrueHD, but does NOT support the same for DTS MA. In theory it could be added via a firmware upgrade and is probably a requested feature by PS3 owners. I don't know because I don't own one. If I have made a mistake please do correct me, but this is how I understood it to work. In the mean time...

Buy one for this

The PS3 has had decoding abilities for DTS-MA HD a few upgrades ago. As far as whether decoding is better on the receiver or not, I would guess that decoding is decoding. In other words, it's an application of the licensed decoding algorithm (a mathematically based formula). 2 + 2 = 4, no matter which device you choose to do the math...

Keep in mind, one disadvantage of decoding audio codecs on your receiver is that you cannot mix audio streams for Pip and other multi-stream audio effects with HD audio. Using your player (PS3 or Blu-ray player) for decoding will give you the capability to mix both HD and non-HD audio streams in different formats by decoding them, then remixing them as L-PCM. The PS3 is technically "bit streaming", however the only codec it bitstreams is multi-channel L-PCM which is a binary stream and still requires digital-to-analog conversion (DAC). The DAC part is done in players when you use players with the analog out RCA connections for audio.

Considering L-PCM is a higher bandwidth bitstream than DTS HD MA (when decoded), I have no idea why you would require a special HDMI connection when one can do the former already.

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However it can decode them internally and pass them out as 7.1 PCM, which is pretty much the same thing sort of. It does this currently for Dolby TrueHD, but does NOT support the same for DTS MA.

Correct, except it also converts DTS-HD MA to PCM.

However, in my own tests my Onkyo 805 did a much better job in direct comparison.

The Panasonic DMP-BD35 is now on the way and I'll try to have a review up when I get a chance to put it trough the paces. Looks like it could be one of the best stand-alone players right now.

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As far as whether decoding is better on the receiver or not, I would guess that decoding is decoding. In other words, it's an application of the licensed decoding algorithm (a mathematically based formula). 2 + 2 = 4, no matter which device you choose to do the math...

So your saying that a $30 CD player has just as good sound as a $300 player? All Blu-ray players has the same picture quality? They are just decoding VC-1 or H264?

I'm not buying that logic.

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[Post edited by Henning on Nov 18, 2008]