Best BR Player for around £150?

[Brand86]

As per title, what is the best BR player out now for around and preferably with wireless capability, so that I can stream music from my PC to it? (I have been told this is possible, is this true?)

Also, which cables should I buy to go with it?

Just saw a really nice Samsung for £180 but didn't know enough about it to buy there and then.

Thanks as always!

 

[Revels]

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Ele...finition-Player/Product.html?searchtype=genre

Was it that one?

 

[Brand86]

Off the top of my head...not sure! All Samsung stuff looks the same to me.

This one any good then Revels? Not too bothered about one with built in HDD.

What about this one otherwise:

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Ele...lu-ray-Player-+-3-further-titles/Product.html

 

[Dink]

i've got the samsung bd-p1400 as in above link

i've not had a problem with it playing any of my blu-ray discs but it is a bit slow

 

[dk]

best one at the moment seems to be the sony s350, £175 from amazon with 5 blu-rays (was £159 before christmas when i bought it).

its a second generation so is quick to load, has an ethernet port for firmware upgrades.

Don't believe you can stream stuff to them though, need a PS3 for that i think.

the blu-rays you get are decent too, hanc0ck, mamamia, wall-E, casino royale and batman begins (last two by filling out online survey)

 

[Al_G]

best one at the moment seems to be the sony s350, £175 from amazon with 5 blu-rays (was £159 before christmas when i bought it).

its a second generation so is quick to load, has an ethernet port for firmware upgrades.

Don't believe you can stream stuff to them though, need a PS3 for that i think.

the blu-rays you get are decent too, hanc0ck, mamamia, wall-E, casino royale and batman begins (last two by filling out online survey)

Picture quality any good? Are you happy with your purchase?

For £175 I'm tempted to go for one of these over a PS3 (already own a 360)

 

[J9HHY]

I got a sony s350 too, for the money dont think you can go wrong. I picked mine up on here, was like new for £150. Keep and eye out u may get one on ebay or look around.

 

[craig2206]

The Sony S350 is quailty. Upscales normal DVDs aswell. Check out the review on What sound and vision site.

 

[dk]

Picture quality any good? Are you happy with your purchase?

For £175 I'm tempted to go for one of these over a PS3 (already own a 360)

perfect picture, i have a ps3 too and played the dark knight on both and they were the same really.

The only thing the ps3 has over the 350 is the ability to decode DTS HD MA sound, the 350 only does Dolby True HD, so it depends on what your amp does, whether it does any decoding, whether you just rely on the player to do it and pass it on to the amp etc.

My dad has the 350 and the sony 1300 5.1 amp and speakers, and as that doesn't decode HD sound internally he only gets HD sound from Dolby True HD discs, with DTS disks he gets standard DTS and not the MA HD version.

Not a problem, personally I can't tell the difference between the HD sounds and non HD, its not like the difference between a SD and HD picture, not as noticable as far as I am concerned, but i'm not an audiophile.

 

[Brand86]

Cool thanks for the advice, will probably opt for the Sony model then based on the reviews here and now a few more from the net sounds pretty solid.

 

[pete_clio]

is there a sony BR player with surround sound that would use the same plugs for surround speakers used on other normal sony dvd players?

only thing stopping me to be honest.

 

[Brand86]

Do they have different connections then?

 

[Revels]

I think he means he has a Sony DVD player that has an amp built in, so all his surround sound speakers plug into the DVD player, so he wants to get a BR player that has the same plugs with the amp built in so he doesnt lose all his speakers..

 

[dk]

my dad had the DAVS300 which was a favourite from a few years back, he wanted to do the same. Problem is that the systems are more powerful these days, i persuaded him to change the speakers to the ones that came with the new amp, he just kept the speak cables the same.

The connections were different so we cut them off and soldered the new ones on, worked a treat.

You can get a sony bluray player with built in amp but they are expensive and come with speakers anyway, and more difficult to upgrade as you need to replace both.

We went for the S350 and the sony 1300 surround system, that way you can upgrade either the sound or the player separately.

 

[Brand86]

DK, I am using the audio outputs from my TV at the moment, so that I can run the sound through my Sony stereo amp from both TV and DVD. The DVD player is connected via scart to the TV.

I assume that with this new BR player, I can continue to use the system like this, just with the BR running through HDMI rather than scart?

 

[dk]

yeah, so hdmi into the tv, then the tv to the amp via i am guessing the red and white phono leads?

Does mean its not proper dolby but you'll get the same type of sound that you currently do from dvd's, with the better picture. Plus it upscales all your dvd's too and if you have region 1 dvd's you can turn it into a multi-region player using one of those all-in-one remotes.

 

[Brand86]

Cool mate sounds exactly what I am after then, although does kind of mean now on top of my MD component being useless, so is my CD component as can just play through the BR player. What a waste of £400 that was! I actually really liked MD at the time, shame it never really took off!

Thanks for the advice!

 

[dk]

Cool mate sounds exactly what I am after then, although does kind of mean now on top of my MD component being useless, so is my CD component as can just play through the BR player. What a waste of £400 that was! I actually really liked MD at the time, shame it never really took off!

Thanks for the advice!

np, MD was a shame, so many times has the best technology lost out!

For once blu-ray was a winner and sony finally got the big one, really glad as they should have done well with MD too!

 

[Revels]

MD is still used largely by radios etc.

I had a personal MD player that cost me a bomb

 

[pete_clio]

I think he means he has a Sony DVD player that has an amp built in, so all his surround sound speakers plug into the DVD player, so he wants to get a BR player that has the same plugs with the amp built in so he doesnt lose all his speakers..

that is it precisely...so really just need a sony BR player with 5.1 cababilities minus the speakers.

 

[Brand86]

Just ordered the Sony 350 from Amazon. Got some HDMI leads that were only £10 but come highly recommended, I know people who work in stores who say the really expensive ones make little or no difference anyway so will see how they perform and can always up[grade them later on, just severely skint now!

 

[Bash]

£250 and you can have this Loewe worth £750.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/home-cinema/review/2008/04/17/Loewe-BluTech-Vision-Blu-ray-Player/p1

 

[Bash]

Just ordered the Sony 350 from Amazon. Got some HDMI leads that were only £10 but come highly recommended, I know people who work in stores who say the really expensive ones make little or no difference anyway so will see how they perform and can always up[grade them later on, just severely skint now!

10 pounds for a cable? a 10m cable should cost £10 and a 1 meter cable should be no more then £3/4. you didn't buy the gold plated cables did you?

 

[dk]

10 pounds for a cable? a 10m cable should cost £10 and a 1 meter cable should be no more then £3/4. you didn't buy the gold plated cables did you?

theres nothing wrong with paying £10 for a HDMI cable, £100 yes, but £10 is fine.

 

[Al_G]

Some good info here

http://www.avforums.com/forums/ps3/723933-hdmi-cables-what-you-need-know-before-buying.html

 

[Munson]

I went through two all-in-one sound systems in 6 months. I've had my separates system for 6 years and it still owns. Lesson learnt.