[randytsuch]

Thanks for the suggestions everybody.

I bought the Panny 35 and paid $153 after all rebates, discounts, etc...

George

George
I am thinking about jumping into BR, and the Panny 35 looks good.

How did you get it for $153?
That's a really good price.

Randy

[mattyturner]

I have one, it's on an open rack maybe 6/7 feet from listening position.

The fan kicks in watching blurays / dvds and is audible, but only during quiet scenes. It's not too distracting either, like a low murmur.

Interestingly, it makes more noise with dvd playback over bluray. I believe this is because the processor works harder upscaling dvds than playing back blurays at native resolution. I only catch myself noticing it sometimes during dvd movies so I guess it's a matter of how far it is from your listening position, how noisy your unit is and your personal tolerance.

The transport mechanism is noisy when you load a disk (slot loading) and it does not seem smooth at all (e.g. the slot loader on a WII is really nice compared to PS3) but I haven't noticed any disk noise during playback once it's loaded.

Biggest pluses for PS3 I think are
a) Blurays load REALLY fast compared to many stand alone players... in fact faster than many DVD players i've used!
b) DVD playback is very nice.
c) Multifunctional unit... lets you play guitar hero!

[ted_b]

Thanks for the suggestions everybody.

I bought the Panny 35 and paid $153 after all rebates, discounts, etc...

George

George
I am thinking about jumping into BR, and the Panny 35 looks good.

How did you get it for $153?
That's a really good price.

Randy

I told George about it here.  Go in through live Search.  if you don;t have an account, open one for free.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=62199.msg559027#msg559027

[randytsuch]

Thanks for the suggestions everybody.

I bought the Panny 35 and paid $153 after all rebates, discounts, etc...

George

George
I am thinking about jumping into BR, and the Panny 35 looks good.

How did you get it for $153?
That's a really good price.

Randy

I told George about it here.  Go in through live Search.  if you don;t have an account, open one for free.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=62199.msg559027#msg559027

Thanks.
Just got it.
I did not have the 10% coupon, so it was $185 shipped for me, still a great deal.
I also ended up buying a duet.

Randy

[low.pfile]

zybar scored!
I was happy with my direct from panasonic bd55 for $320 delivered - via a work discount, last month!  Works great for DVD too.
so pay attention to these great deals.

[Airborn]

Thanks to all, especially Ted b and josh k for the links.  Like George, I also ordered the Panasonic BD35k from Cleveland Plasma for the buy it now price of $260, which comes to $156 after the 30% MS live cashback and 10% ebay coupon.  This is my first BR player and I decided to pull the trigger b/c of the price and b/c I just got a Sharp Aquos LC-46D64U. I am hoping for some good Blu-Ray disc recommendations to use with my HT.

[GHM]

Thanks to all, especially Ted b and josh k for the links.  Like George, I also ordered the Panasonic BD35k from Cleveland Plasma for the buy it now price of $260, which comes to $156 after the 30% MS live cashback and 10% ebay coupon.  This is my first BR player and I decided to pull the trigger b/c of the price and b/c I just got a Sharp Aquos LC-46D64U. I am hoping for some good Blu-Ray disc recommendations to use with my HT.

Congrats on the purchases! You'll enjoy the BRs on the Sharp..I own a similar model. The best bet is Net flix if you want to preview movies. I put the whole trilogy of Band of Brothers in my queue. I should get the first three disc tomorrow. From what I've read..this movie on Blu ray is spectacular!

[ted_b]

Probably should start another thread, but yes, congrats on the BD player.  If your sound system is a decent 5.1 or 7.1 then absolutely must you hear the sound in the Blu-Ray version of Blackhawk Down.  OMG.  

[Airborn]

Thanks for the recommendations guys.  I see that someone has already started a blu-ray recommendation thread, so I'll continue over there--but, I do have Blackhawk Down on regular DVD and the sound I awesome, so I'm sure the BR version is great!

[Phil Taylor]

I just got a BD35K earlier this week via Fleabay and Live - final cost $157 delivered. It's as nice as everyone says it is - a great player.

[launche]

I came across this info about the PS3 from Amazon by a PS3 owner, might address part of the noise issue.

"I'd like this review to explain what exactly this configuration is (there's a lot of confusion about that,) and why I think it hits the sweet spot. Basically, there are currently 2 versions of the PS3 on the market now. Ignoring the size of the drive for a second (because you can always swap the drive anyway, and it has no real bearing on the rest of the specs) think of them as Version A (currently available - or not as the case may be - in the PlayStation 3 80 GB Metal Gear Solid 4 Pack) and Version B (this one.)

The first thing that you need to understand is that there are three relevant differences between these two versions besides the included bundle and the price (the MGS one is $499 from amazon, more from third parties.)

Difference #1: Version A (MGS pack) is backward compatible with PS2 games while this one is NOT (they are both backward compatible with PS1 games however.)

Difference #2: Version A has 4 USB ports as well as memory card slots, while this version has only 2 USB ports and NO memory card slots.

Difference #3: AND THIS FOR ME IS BIG: Version A has the older and larger 90nm Cell processor, while this one has the smaller (and some say more reliable) 65nm Cell processor. Power consumption on this unit is lower as well, dropping from 200 Watts to 135 watts. The end result is a machine that runs cooler and, according to all reports as well as my personal experience, much quieter. An extremely relevant factor if you watch movies with it.

For those that have been looking for a while, this is basically the 40GB machine that was offered recently, with a larger hard drive and an upgraded controller - they replaced the basic sixaxis controller with the Dualshock 3 controller (which means it has rumble.)

Now Version A is packaged with Metal Gear Solid. It has an 80GB drive like this one, and the same controller. The big differences are listed above. Until this configuration was released, the larger hard drive and Dualshock controller were 2 of the 4 reasons many people felt the MGS pack was worth the additional $100. Those two factors are now eliminated. The remaining differences are the backward compatibility with PS2 games and the MGS game itself, which can of course be bought separately.

So to sum it up, if you NEED PS2 compatibility, you might want to grab the MGS pack if you can get one - that or keep your old PS2. For new buyers though, and for all of the people that are going to just play PS3 games, as well as avid movie watchers, this particular configuration is fantastic. You get the big drive, the good controller, PLUS the cooler running chip, a quieter machine and a system that uses about 33% less power.

And ok - just to satisfy the basic requirements of a review, I'll list some other nice stuff: It includes a Blu-ray DVD player (one of those runs almost as much as, or more than, this entire box), the online play is FREE, wireless connectivity is built in (you don't have to buy an additional piece as with some others), reliability has been quite good (much better than some others), there are some great PS3-only titles, and you can stream media to it from your PC. There's more, but there are plenty of people outlining it."

[Bob in St. Louis]

The thread seems to be focusing heavily on a game console, so I was asked if I could move the remainder of the conversation HERE.

Bob

[ted_b]

I got a Blu-ray player last week or I guess two weeks ago now and I went with a samsung Up-5000 it is a phenomenal blu ray player, plus it plays hd-dvd (I just got King Kong for less than 5$ shipped)  Add the reon video scaling and the bitstreaming or internal decoding of all surround formats, and you have yourself a hell-of-a player.  If they ever go live with the BD 2.0 profile update for it it will be unbeatable.  Only issue they don't make it anymore, price range is 275-350 though, and they are still releasing firmware updates for it.  The oppo though which should come out it 3-5 months will blow it away for blu ray player with built in SACD and DVDA and anchor bay video scaling, for 5-600 though according to oppo.  For under 400 though I agree the bd-35 can't really be beat.

Rick,
I reposted this from the enders forum (moderators wanted that PS3 gamer discussion to splinter over to there). This might get us back on track. 

I agree that the Sammy 5000 is a nice swiss army knife find, at least for the time being.  Oppo BD-universal looks very promising; and OppoDigital Corp is always a good bet, but they are best once a few firmware updates are released (which they are very good at, BTW).

[zybar]

A little info on the Oppo player here:

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/transports/high-definition-dvd-players-hd-dvd-blu-ray/oppo-bdp-83-universal-blu-ray-player

I am definitely looking forward to getting one!

George

[rydenfan]

It is looking really sweet!! I am sure by the Spring time it will be a really nice player 

[BigRick]

I got a Blu-ray player last week or I guess two weeks ago now and I went with a Samsung Up-5000 it is a phenomenal blu ray player, plus it plays hd-dvd (I just got King Kong for less than 5$ shipped)  Add the reon video scaling and the bitstreaming or internal decoding of all surround formats, and you have yourself a hell-of-a player.  If they ever go live with the BD 2.0 profile update for it it will be unbeatable.  Only issue they don't make it anymore, price range is 275-350 though, and they are still releasing firmware updates for it.  The oppo though which should come out it 3-5 months will blow it away for blu ray player with built in SACD and DVDA and anchor bay video scaling, for 5-600 though according to oppo.  For under 400 though I agree the bd-35 can't really be beat.  I would also take a look at the Bd-2550 from samsung the upconversion is the same as the up5000.

[Philistine]

I've sat on the wall with High Def DVD, if HD-DVD had won the format war I would have jumped in before now but with Sony being behind Blu-Ray my view was that it had all the makings of a cluster f**k and considered it prudent to back off.

Well I broke down a few weeks ago and bought the $140 Memorex 2510 that Woot had on offer, connecting it up yesterday for the kids (well me really) I was very impressed with the quality of the hardware and the overall image quality, with it outputting at 1080p/24.  So much so that I wish I'd bought a second to put in my home theater.  This is the start of the breakthrough pricing the format is going to need in order to get traction with Joe Public.  If you can pick this up for $150 or less then its a screaming deal.   

But:
Going back to my rant - I see that some of the high end players need an internet connection to upgrade their firmware.  Some of the newer Fox releases (such as Dark Night) won't play in the Memorex unless you also upgrade the firmware, which entails downloading files from the Memorex website and burning to a CD-R.  I'm impressed that Memorex has jumped on this relatively quickly and I had the upgrade installed in minutes.  With Joe Public not understanding these issues then it's going to be difficult for the format to become established in the main stream.  Another Sony format screw up in the making?

[TF1216]

Has anyone used Microsoft Live Cashback recently (last month) to purchase a BD player?  I can not seem to get the discount to work for a friend.  Did the refund expire on December 1st?

[zybar]

Has anyone used Microsoft Live Cashback recently (last month) to purchase a BD player?  I can not seem to get the discount to work for a friend.  Did the refund expire on December 1st?

I believe that ship sailed over a month ago.

George

[Brad]

Panny '35
Under $300, great picture on my Dad's Sony LCD HDTV.
Good upsampling too.