Blu-ray: Player vs Drive?

Planterz said:
I did the same thing for my brother and his new bride for their 1st anniversary. They have a big-ass TV, but had weak-ass sound. Rather than messing around with a receiver and speakers and whatnot, I just bought them a 160W computer speaker system that simply plugs into the headphone jack. Again, not a theater quality setup, but it's 10000% better than using the built in speakers. Most big TVs these days have built-in 2x10W speakers, but have less bass than some 5W computer speakers, simply because the thin design of the TVs doesn't allow for deep resonance. It doesn't matter how much power/volume they can put out if all they're doing is making the crap sound louder.


That, and it's less junk to hook up, since the computer will be hooked up to the TV regardless. And I kinda like the idea of controlling it all from my computer - more familiar that way.
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My bedroom tv(a decent size one too) doesn't even have built in speakers

I'm using my nice logitech computerspeakers on it through the headphone jack
 
That's weird. Is it a plasma or LCD? What brand?
 
I almost went with the Blu-ray drive for my computer, but then I noticed that Amazon was running a promotion on the TV I wanted that included a free LG Blu-ray player, so I got the player. And since the player was free, and I was intending to spend ~$100 on one anyway, I got the computer drive as well.:D When I get it all set up, I'll report back if I see any difference or advantage between the two.
 
5.56 said:
I just have to say one thing about the PS3(sorry Planterz, you can look away now)

The PS3 is compareably priced to equal quality stand alone units, and it performs other tasks......AND the most important, Sony is constantly updating it's firmware for FREE.

Yes it upscales regular DVD's

So yeah, the PS3 is the best option for non-home theater nuts who want a blu-ray player, imo
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Agreed. I didn't ever put any sort of critical account information on my PS3 so the hackers are a null concern. I have the Netflix at home thing for $15/month. I have player BluRay and regular DVDs with no problems. An added benefit to the PS3 over the rest of the options is that it can function as a basic computer in a pinch. Say your computer has a meltdown and you can't get it fixed right away - You can connect either through WiFi or Cat5 to a modem/router and get yourself back on Bladeforums within a couple minutes. Mine was a gift from my wiminz for the holidays a couple years ago. I don't have a home threater system, or a flat panel HDTV, but it works just fine for me.

If a conventional player is decided on, several people that I work with area always recommending Samsung. My cousin is employed by Bestbuy in Tempe (Magnolia division) recommended a Samsung BD5700 above most other models in that price range.
 
It doesn't hurt to get a BlueRay player nowadays since you can find one on sale for ~$100. You may not need a wifi/Netflix player now, but someday you might.

I have Bluerays on both our TVs and yes, I can attach a Laptop to it, but sometimes that's just a PITA to connect all the time. It's easy to just turn it on and stream Netflix on the TVs. Spent a recent Sat watching season 4 of Dexter.
 
Planterz said:
When I get it all set up, I'll report back if I see any difference or advantage between the two.
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jbob24 said:
Cool, I'm curious actually :thumbup:
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OK, I've been playing with my new toys for a few weeks now. So far the only Blu-rays I have so far are Firefly and Serenity. I can't tell any difference between using the LG player or the Blu-ray drive (coincidentally, also LG) on my computer, with Power DVD 11. Upconversion with either look alright, about the same with either, and both look better than using a regular DVD player plugged into the Aux.

However, with other DVDs, upconversion isn't consistent compared between the player and the drive. Overall, it seems as good or better when I use my computer. Watching Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy upconverted on my player makes things look overly glossy and smooth, giving it an ultra-real, but fake appearance. Hard to describe. Like watching a cheaply produced TV movie made with bad video, rather than film. Or the way the new Dr. Who looks if you're used to seeing the old ones.

Even more surprising is how the Lord of the Rings DVDs look upconverted. They look like absolute crap upconverted on my player. Low-res, digital crap. Like when you watch a youtube video in 360 or 480 fullscreen. However, it looks great when using PowerDVD 11 on my computer. I think the aspect ratio is the culprit. I loaded up No Country for Old Men on my player (same 2.35:1 aspect ratio as LoTR, and it looked just as awful...but fine on my computer. My Family Guy Star Wars DVDs however look fantastic on my player (the 1.78:1 ratio is the 16:9 HD TVs are).

It seems that the closer to the native 16:9 ratio a DVD is in, the better it'll look upconverted with my Blu-ray player, and the further from that (ie: the wider the screen), the worse it looks. However, with the Blu-ray drive in my computer, upconversion works well regardless of aspect ratio. Oddly, the same is true for 4:3 (old TV ratio) as well. Looks better on my computer drive than on the player.

Obviously I can't speak for other players, or a Playstation 3, but in my case, there's a clear advantage to having a Blu-ray drive in my computer rather than using a regular Blu-ray player. However, there's also an advantage to using a Blu-ray player specifically for Blu-ray DVDs over using the computer: for some reason the menus don't work with a mouse (only arrow keys and the Enter button work).
 
Have you connected the Blu-ray player to the TV with an HDMI cable? Upscaling doesn't work otherwise.
 
Yeah, both the player and the computer are connected to the TV via HDMI.
 
They have blueray players, and HD tv sets, but I wonder why there are no blueray HD recorders out there, it makes it hard to edit HD camcorder content unless one knows how to do it on a computer, so far I have had to hire people to do this.
 
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