Toshiba officially scraps HD-DVD Comments by Robert Purchese

Miths I read different, I can try and dig it up but I remember an article posted a while back about this topic. I read the AV forum alot too and Ive noticed alot of Sony enthusiats there(expected because they do make good TVs despite the pricetags and the brand is well respected by some still). Best player? no way Id beleive that, or somethings very wrong there(would Sony cannabalise their own stand alone players' sales in this way just to save the PS3?... and Im sure for a pure HD movie player from the likes of pioneer and co it would have better playback). Best value? used to be but not anymore according to that article(well the gaming arguement is subjective for some if all they want is a decent peice of home cinema equiment for a fair price).

What were talking about with the only future proof player comment? Firmware upgrades? Surely theres some out there that allow them... as someone said if you can already buy them for the PC(Id be pretty supprised if any of them at all dont support it), perhaps a decent mediacentre PC with one of those drives is a more suitable chioce for some?

@Calgon

I just spent ten minutes looking around a few "which Blu-ray player should I get?" threads at AV Forums. As far as I can see, the PS3 is still widely recommended.
It looks like the consensus more or less is that its operational speed (system boot, disc loading, menu system) is second to none, its picture quality is up there with the best of the stand alone players, it supports 24 fps playback, all types of audio (including TrueHD) are covered - and last but not least, the future proof thing thanks to a net connection and harddisk storage (even a few posts from yesterday indicates that there aren't actually any standalone players available yet with profile 2.0 "BD-Live" capability, or the possibility to be upgraded to that as they are lacking that net connection).

Sure, if we include Blu-ray drives for PCs we might move into different territory (at least in terms of upgrade capabilities, I honestly don't have a clue about Blu-ray software players etc., which can no doubt have some impact on picture quality) - but for many people (even some PC geeks like myself :), though I've moved to consoles for gaming), that means we're not really talking living room suitable setups anymore (or at least not the first choice unless you're really eager to save a bit of money), unless you place a laptop next to your HDTV or run some very long cables from whatever room where you may keep your PC.

Which means I do still think it's quite accurate to call the PS3 one of, if not the best overall choice among the consumer electronics Blu-ray players.
But of course I don't actually believe it will maintain that role for very long. It's just a matter of time - and probably not much of it - before we start seeing the first cheap, 2.0 ready, stand alone players.

not having a next gen movie format player drive whajamacallit hasn't hurt the wii, leader in console sales if i am not mistaken, proving that it really is about innovation in the games.

Best player? no way Id beleive that, or somethings very wrong there(would Sony cannabalise their own stand alone players' sales in this way just to save the PS3?... and Im sure for a pure HD movie player from the likes of pioneer and co it would have better playback).

If you're using hdmi, then the path from disk to display is purely digital, so final quality would presumable be exclusively down to the quality of your display, making the actual player used irrelevant.

Any post-processing a player did to give the impression of a better image would diverge from the actual image on disc and it's benefit would be subjective, so I would be wary of including that as a caveat.

The only other area I could think of a stand alone player being better, is that it may use higher quality components that lead to less error correction. Something I'd imagine unlikely though.

Ok it seems the article I was remembering was "PS3 No Longer Cheapest Blu-ray Player" and as I said I read the AV Forums alot and I know for a fact when it comes to brands there are people who stick to certain ones, so a pinch of salt is sometimes needed with some recommendations.

I mentioned specifically Media Centre PCs which would probably be alot better value for a new buyer and they are built from the living room. I can see already you dont want to conceed that you can get a better deal than PS3 already even for blu-ray, but try and be sensible even as a PS3 fan its not wise to get carried away about its importance especially given it might not be the automatic choice for the few who are interested in Blu-Ray at the moment.

BootLace I dont know where you got that "its digital so it doesnt matter" theory from lol, let me explain to you it does(youd always be using HDMI on a stand alone player one would think, I dont know why you brought connections in to it then), for start its compressed so your disk to screen theory is out the window already: you have the drive speed... PS3s is 2x(this is expected but the bare minimum youd expect from a stand alone player), the quality components of the drive themselves also matter(if you think Sony can afford to put the highest quality parts into the PS3 or would do anyway with what they are loosing on the PS3 then think again) how can you even begin to say its doesnt? This is optical technology its prone to the same problems as DVD and CDs were in some respects so yeah you do notice a little extra quality, why try and argue with that?

BootLace I dont know where you got that "its digital so it doesnt matter" theory from lol, let me explain to you it does(youd always be using HDMI on a stand alone player one would think, I dont know why you brought connections in to it then), for start its compressed so your disk to screen theory is out the window already: you have the drive speed...

HDMI is relevant as it is an uncompressed transport for digital data, meaning you lose one of the most significant areas for variation between players of previous formats, that being no need for onboard DACs to convert into signals suitable for component, S-Video, etc.

This leaves only 2 areas for variance assuming you're purely going for a straight reproduction/reconstruction of the recorded media:
1) the process of retrieving the raw data from the disc.
2) the process of expanding that compressed data

For the first, the quality of the optics/drive mech can certainly have an impact on the quality of reproduction; generation of read issues that error correction either can't fix, or only partially resolve, in turn leading to audio/visual glitches when decoded. The reason I stated an unlikeliness for this to be relevant though, is that devices that are required to supply raw code/data as well as compressed audio/video tend to have far more reliable mechanism. You can afford glitches in a/v data, but a single bit wrong in code/data can result in a useless disk (crashing executable).

As for the actual decompression of the data, this is a defined process, and barring bugs, I'd say the only room for the variation would be if the standards for the codec were vague and open to interpretation, but this would be applicable to both high and low end equipment and not necessarily be a factor of cost to produce.

PS3s is 2x(this is expected but the bare minimum youd expect from a stand alone player), the quality components of the drive themselves also matter(if you think Sony can afford to put the highest quality parts into the PS3 or would do anyway with what they are loosing on the PS3 then think again) how can you even begin to say its doesnt? This is optical technology its prone to the same problems as DVD and CDs were in some respects so yeah you do notice a little extra quality, why try and argue with that?

Now Blu-Ray has become the primary HD format, I'd be surprised to see little more than anything but a refinement of the format. As far as I'm aware, Blu-Ray disk movies have a defined max transfer rate of 48Mbit/s (1.5x), so I'm not sure the relevance of the PS3's 2x speed.