Finally got a ps3 at retail at a wally superstore!

[cheddar]

I had to drive 50 miles to a wally superstore before I got one - the last one - that was jammed into the kiosk storage area. It took two employees to figure out how to work the box free without breaking the glass door.

Unpacked it and set it up last night. It is really not so much a gaming machine as a home entertainment unit. Its build quality is definitely better than the 360. The piano gloss finish is more familiar to high end audio. It certainly looks great in the rack and fits in well with the lsis. The plastic dvd tray on the 360 looks and feels flimsy, as if it would snap off very easily. But the way the ps3 sucks in the bds is just cool. The feedback lights, touch panel buttons, etc. all function like a solid piece of quality audio equipment should. Although I would like to get a keyboard and a remote for it, navigating bds was smooth and very responsive with the gamepad. Nothing like the stories I've heard of stand-alone linux hd-dvd and blu-ray players. And the select key brings up real-time data transmission info on the blu-ray being played so you can actually see the bitrate for audio and video.

I watched superman returns last night. The PQ was excellent. Sharp and detailed. I was most impressed by how my eye could follow very detailed motion in the distance without loss of quality. Like the opening scene when krypton's sun collapses almost to a point then explodes or when lex luthor fires the krypton/crystal torpedo and it thuds into the ocean with a very distant but 3 dimensional splash. I only noticed one scene that had obvious artifacting on the blue wall of superman's hospital room. Not sure what caused it. I am running it on a sharp 45gx6u. This is a 1080p native panel that has an outboard box that accepts only 1080i. So I know there is some voodoo going on between the 1080i signal and the 1080p panel. It's possible to hook the source directly to the panel for full 1080p. But it requires some adapters so I haven't done it yet. Now that I've got the console, I've finally got the incentive though. Besides that one scene, the blu-ray otherwise was just stunning. Time to start building the library all over again....

What was really surprising was the audio quality. I don't have an hdmi capable receiver at the moment, so I was just watching with the dolby track via optical. And it was the best dolby track I've ever heard. It sounds like the best of the dts tracks I have on dvds. I certainly wasn't expecting an increase in audio quality like this since the ps3 doesn't have analog outs to get at the new hd audio formats without an hdmi pre/pro or receiver. But even dolby on blu-ray disk is standard at 640 kbit/s. That compares with 384-448 kbit/s for dvds. And the difference in sound quality is definitely there even for vanilla dolby. I can only imagine what the hd formats must sound like since they have bitrates that are much higher (all within the Mbit range).

Haven't even tried any gaming titles yet. And at this point, I'm not in a hurry to. Still working my way through some 360 titles anyways. This is the cheapest way to get into blu-ray at this point, half the price of stand-alone players. And from my first impressions, it's worth every penny as just an affordable blu-ray player. Keep having to remind myself that I need to pick up some games for it too!

[mKvDuBBy]

So what are you going to run. I want to get a Harmon 445 that has a HDMI input. What is the best way to get the best picture and sound quality out of the PS3. What do you have to do?

[AndyGwis]

That sounds awesome! You should work for Sony, because your testimonial is the best sales pitch I've come across for getting PS3.

Just curious, in general, is HD Dolby audio only passed through HDMI? Can the newest / best Dolby audio still be passed through standard coax or optical for HD-DVD and BR?

[mKvDuBBy]

That sounds awesome! You should work for Sony, because your testimonial is the best sales pitch I've come across for getting PS3.

Just curious, in general, is HD Dolby audio only passed through HDMI? Can the newest / best Dolby audio still be passed through standard coax or optical for HD-DVD and BR?

x2 on the HD Dolby question

[cheddar]

It is my understanding that the high definition audio formats can only be passed through hdmi. At least that's what I've read. Makes sense too, since there aren't any receivers or pre/pros that can decode dolby true hd or dts-hd signals. So what would be the point of passing the signal to an old receiver?

However, CES had several receivers and pre/pros that are hdmi 1.3 capable and that decode the new hd audio formats. So we should be seeing these released by the summer of this year would be my guess.

Now I wasn't expecting to be able to hear the 5.1 LPCM track through my receiver via optical. But my ps3 clearly shows the 4.6 Mbps LPCM track playing and a nice, clear signal goes to all seven of my speakers via my 3803. I've compared the LPCM track to the Dolby and it's really hard to hear a difference in the sound quality except that the Dolby seems to be passing a better .1 track out to my subwoofer. So I'm not sure what exactly is being passed to my receiver playing the LPCM track except that it's not registering as dolby or dts with my receiver and it plays when I choose the PCM option under mode selection. Sounds as good as the dolby track. But I was expecting it to sound earthshaking with a deeper low end than I heard, so can't say for sure I'm getting all the LPCM goodness via optical.

[cheddar]

That sounds awesome! You should work for Sony, because your testimonial is the best sales pitch I've come across for getting PS3.

Well, I'm not alone in thinking the ps3 is a quality HT product:

http://ultimateavmag.com/hddiscplayers/1206ps3blu/

It does have some limitations, though. No analog outs for the decoded dolby true hd is a big one. So you really need a next gen receiver or pre/pro to take full advantage of it. But at $499 for the 20GB ps3, that leaves a lot left over to put toward a nice new component compared to most of the stand alone players.

[Lowell_M]

Check out the latest Sound and Vision mag. The PS3 did pretty damn well against a couple $1000 players....

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/hd-...c-players.html

[cheddar]

Nice article. And I figured out what I'm getting through the ps3 lpcm. It becomes 2 channel pcm over optical and my dts:neo voodoos it to multichannel.