PS3 as a Blu ray player - any good??

[lambysdad]

Hi all,

I'll soon be living on my own so will be needing a new TV, Blu ray player and other electrical stuff.
I don't really need a PS3 but thought it might be fun, so i thought i could kill 2 birds with 1 stone and use it's Blu ray facilities as well.

What do you think, is it any good??

[Bullett]

It's all I use and it's excellent.

I'm sure an expert will tell you it's not as good as a dedicated player for the same price but it is also a games machine, media player and web browser. It's also been updated recently to be 3d compliant and Sony keep updating it.

[Racefan_uk]

PS3 through my surround system is brilliant. It's one of the reasons I got it, so I didn't have to get a seperate player.

[IforB]

Yep. The PS3 is excellent. I use it to stream music to, as a Blu Ray player and occasionally to play games. It's a great piece of kit.

[hungry_hog]

It's great, you need a remote for it though as using the controller is pretty clunky. The official remote is nice but chews up batteries.

The other point to note is that it doesn't work with most universal remotes as they are based on IR whereas I think PS3 uses Bluetooth.

[lambysdad]

Thanks all for the replies,

Bullett said:

It's all I use and it's excellent.

I'm sure an expert will tell you it's not as good as a dedicated player for the same price but it is also a games machine, media player and web browser. It's also been updated recently to be 3d compliant and Sony keep updating it.

You say it's a web browser, i'll also be looking at getting a new TV (thread coming on that soon), do i need anything in particular TV wise, will it connect wireless to my Broadband or do i need Sky or similar??

[lambysdad]

hungry_hog said:

It's great, you need a remote for it though as using the controller is pretty clunky. The official remote is nice but chews up batteries.

I've seen the Sony remote on Play.com for about 15 quid, seems not a bad price. Is there any alternative to this remote then if it eats batteries??

[lambysdad]

Thanks again everyone,

Ok so it sounds like a PS3 is the way forward, now which one (package?), would you recommend?
Do i need leads, Scart etc?

Also, i would like to get Guitar Hero (preferably Metallica), as i don't have a lot of time to get really in depth with other games. Anyone used it?

[Bullett]

I've not found the official controller eats batteries tbh. Still on the original set in my case 2-3 years (although I use a Harmony One with an adapter now).

TV wise, any HD set will be fine but you might want to consider a 3D tv (as the PS3 supports this) and to get in early the standard what TV answer on here is Panasonic.

Connect to PS3 via HDMI

[pugwash4x4]

have a new panasonic and a PS3- and the panasonic remote controls the PS3 perfectly.

PS3 is superb- it even upscales DVDs- its quite hard to see the difference between DVDs and blu-rays even on a 46" from 7 foot away!

[allgonepetetong]

hungry_hog said:

It's great, you need a remote for it though as using the controller is pretty clunky. The official remote is nice but chews up batteries.

The other point to note is that it doesn't work with most universal remotes as they are based on IR whereas I think PS3 uses Bluetooth.

You need one of these
http://www.logitech.com/en-roeu/remotes/accessorie...

Works faultlessly with my Harmony 1

[allgonepetetong]

pugwash4x4 said:

have a new panasonic and a PS3- and the panasonic remote controls the PS3 perfectly.

PS3 is superb- it even upscales DVDs- its quite hard to see the difference between DVDs and blu-rays even on a 46" from 7 foot away!

It will also upscaled streamed media - it really is a great bit of kit.

[lambysdad]

So how does the PS3 connect to the internet? Will it just pick up my wireless connection or will i need to run cables (not going to happen btw).

[Luke.]

lambysdad said:

So how does the PS3 connect to the internet? Will it just pick up my wireless connection or will i need to run cables (not going to happen btw).

It'll pick up your wifi.

[pugwash4x4]

allgonepetetong said:

pugwash4x4 said:

have a new panasonic and a PS3- and the panasonic remote controls the PS3 perfectly.

PS3 is superb- it even upscales DVDs- its quite hard to see the difference between DVDs and blu-rays even on a 46" from 7 foot away!

It will also upscaled streamed media - it really is a great bit of kit.

alwasy wondered if this was the case- iplayer looks better than low def tv and it doesn't even stream that much data!

[lambysdad]

All sounds good, so i need to buy;
1- PS3 (any idea what model?)
2- HDMI cable
3- TV Panasonic P42G20 42@ Plasma
4- 2.1 Surround or amp and speakers? (ideas welcome)

Anything else??

[pugwash4x4]

same panny (well mines a 42g15 but they aren't a million miles)

ONly thing i would say is link the TV audio out into the amp- the pannys speakers are seriously poo

[WeirdNeville]

lambysdad said:

All sounds good, so i need to buy;
1- PS3 (any idea what model?)
2- HDMI cable
3- TV Panasonic P42G20 42@ Plasma
4- 2.1 Surround or amp and speakers? (ideas welcome)

Anything else??

You'll need to look into your sound system. As pointed out, the speakers on any "flat" telly really aren't up to much.

I have my PS3 hooked up to a surround sound amp, which also acts as a "switching box" as I have a hard disc recorder and Xbox also hooked up. As mentioned, to get the tellys sound to a surround box for decoding and amplification, you'll need an optical cable (hilariously called TOSLINK) to go from the TV's "sound out" to the Amp. This carries a digital signal to the amp.

Do some research, you can buy the PS3 and telly to be getting on with, and decide how much you want to spend and what sort of compromise you can come to to get the sound side of things right, from a little all in one box to a separate amp and 5.1 speakers.

[lambysdad]

WeirdNeville said:

lambysdad said:

All sounds good, so i need to buy;
1- PS3 (any idea what model?)
2- HDMI cable
3- TV Panasonic P42G20 42@ Plasma
4- 2.1 Surround or amp and speakers? (ideas welcome)

Anything else??

You'll need to look into your sound system. As pointed out, the speakers on any "flat" telly really aren't up to much.

I have my PS3 hooked up to a surround sound amp, which also acts as a "switching box" as I have a hard disc recorder and Xbox also hooked up. As mentioned, to get the tellys sound to a surround box for decoding and amplification, you'll need an optical cable (hilariously called TOSLINK) to go from the TV's "sound out" to the Amp. This carries a digital signal to the amp.

Do some research, you can buy the PS3 and telly to be getting on with, and decide how much you want to spend and what sort of compromise you can come to to get the sound side of things right, from a little all in one box to a separate amp and 5.1 speakers.

Thanks for that,
Will definately get the TV and PS3 first. Don't know whether to look at soundbar's as i don't really want speakers all over the place. Or maybe a decent 2.1 system?

[thatone1967]

reading this thread makes me very said... the Mrs brought me a PS3 on flea bay a couple of years ago for xmas, did not use it until xmas came (about a month later) and when I did... I was US region... so ALL I can use it for is a games console... I brought Blu Ray player soon after....