Blu-ray players

Blu-ray had a troubled gestation, with the format war against HD DVD slowing its development, PC-like problems with partially-finished profiles on early models, and buyers understandably reluctant to fork out on a player while the format’s interactive standards were still evolving. Those days should now be past, with HD DVD consigned to history, BD Profile 1 and Profile 1.1 receding memories, and the bliss of Profile 2.0 users disturbed only by the gnashing of teeth and regretful wailing of early adopters.

Yet while it’s now very difficult to find a Blu-ray player which is actively ‘bad’ – the requirements of BD and HD are such that anything that meets spec is pretty much guaranteed to give you acceptable picture and sound performance – there are still plenty of areas where players can differ, including file format support, disc loading times, styling and build, general usability and AVR compatibility. let’s see how they compare...

First published in Home Cinema Choice 175

You can also download the pdf here

Everybody has sympathy for Toshiba over HD DVD, but few have shed a tear for LG. Let’s not forget that the plucky South Korean giant put its heart, s(e)oul and more than a few shekels into the Super Multi Blue idea, with combination Blu-ray/HD DVD PC drives and dedicated players. At the time the company didn’t just hedge its bets, it positively, er, rainforested them. And maybe it could have worked, had Warner not made the fateful decision to stop supporting both formats almost two years ago.

A dual HD deck, you see, was a highly attractive proposition, and LG would’ve been King of the Hill had it all panned out. Instead, as a result, the manufacturer has taken longer to get out of the blocks with dedicated Blu-ray spinners than rivals such as Sony, Panasonic and near neighbours Samsung. It took a fair while to even sing from the same hymn sheet, and as good as the BD370 was (reviewed in HCC #170) it was still a catch-up deck, offering essentially the same features the others have been touting for months...

First published in Home Cinema Choice 174

You can also download the pdf here

The original PlayStation 3 has proved far and away the most popular Blu-ray player on the planet. And while there are better-performing dedicated BD-spinners available, a rich combination of talents have made it a well-deserved market leader. So how does the new PS3 Slim compare? Does it offer a step-up in AV performance, and should existing PS3 owners rush to part exchange their old consoles for this year’s trendy new model? Let’s find out…  read more »

To satisfy those put off from buying into Blu-ray due to region-coding, leading internet-based disc-importer MovieTyme is offering the Panasonic DMP-BD60 in a 'hacked' edition able to play Blu-ray discs from Regions A, B and C and DVD discs from Regions 0 to 7.

On test here, it's a 240V-powered UK model, guaranteed for a year, which doesn't involve any tricky importing  read more »

Previously, I have proclaimed Panasonic’s BD80 the king of the affordable Blu-ray players. Then I got the opportunity to take LG’s BD370 for a spin. It seems Panasonic’s reign has come to a premature end…

This Blu-ray deck is a budget AV-Holic’s dream. Available for around £180 if you shop around, it offers excellent BD video performance, can bitstream DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD (as well as decode internally), and is fully ‘profiled’ to 2.0. It offers, like the BD80, YouTube connectivity via Ethernet and a USB 2.0 port.

But that’s where the similarities end. To my mind. it’s much prettier, aesthetically. There’s also a charming simplicity to its menus and general operability, and a Blu-ray disc can be viewed a mere 20-30 seconds after it’s been inserted (about the same as with a DVD). But although these are all highly impressive features, none of them explain why I’m so enamoured by LG’s latest...

First published in Home Cinema Choice 170

You can also download the pdf here

First to market with a Blu-ray player and now well into its third generation of machines, Samsung likes to think it’s taking the lead in Blu-ray hardware.

You can’t accuse the brand of incremental upgrades either. Its latest premium player features a radical wall-mounting design, slashed disc-loading times and adds wireless networking as the new must-have feature. It’s also the world’s slimmest Blu-ray player – for the moment, anyway...

For once, Samsung is aiming higher than both Panasonic and Sony in offering features, like the wi-fi dongle, that rival the Japanese brands simply don’t yet provide. This is a significant launch for the Korean corporation, but by streamlining its new player to a thickness of just an inch and a half, can it really offer the performance that a cinephile might demand, or is this just a player with a pretty face?..

First published in Home Cinema Choice 169

You can also download the pdf here

There's a growing choice for those looking for budget-buy Blu-ray  hardware - but do you get what you pay for when you snap up a bargain?
Supermarket chain Aldi is the latest vendor to offer cheapo HD disc spinners. The store, whose name is a contraction of 'Albrecht Discount', after the two German brothers who founded it - is best-known for a wide range of budget buys ranging from ale to yoghurt, but if you've been to an Aldi, you'll appreciate how the company's  read more »

Recently, Sony’s incredible £1,200 BDP-S5000ES kicked my reference Denon DVD-2500BT into touch and became the new daddy of Blu-ray players – the home cinema source against which all other video sources will be judged. Well, briefly. Mere weeks later, Pioneer delivers its first third-generation BD player, the BDP-LX91. The King is dead, long live the new King...

First published in Home Cinema Choice 167

You can also download the pdf here

When I was young and crazy I had a dream about making noodles – and one about Hi-Def movies so crisp, so bold and so natural you could step into the screen and be there. Immersing myself in the rich, oriental landscape of ancient China while watching Kung Fu Panda (a cracking CG-toon about a noodle-making panda) on Sony’s top-flight BD player, I realised I was never going to be a noodle chef. Still, one out of two dreams coming true can’t be bad...

First published in Home Cinema Choice 166

You can also download the pdf here

It’s no exaggeration to say that the £999 DMR-BS850 is the most advanced digital recorder yet sold in the UK; due to go down in AV history as the UK’s first Blu-ray recorder, it sports a 500GB hard drive and twin Freesat HD tuners.

That alone should be enough to grab headlines. But the deck does more. As I slowly, reverentially snooped my way around this review sample, I began to wonder not what it could do, but what it couldn’t.

David Preece, Panasonic’s marketing manager, told me weeks ago that it wasn’t so much a recorder as a media hub. And I think he’s right. The thing is a Cadillac of convergence.  read more »

You’ll probably do a double take when you first see Panasonic’s DMP-BD35. It’s unfeasibly thin. Sat atop my regular Blu-ray player, Pioneer’s hulking great LX-70a, it seems insignificant. How, you might wonder, can this lightweight deliver state-of-the-art picture and sound, let alone challenge the AV extremes of more esoteric machinery? But it can and does.

The BD35 is the replacement for the popular BD30 launched early in 2008. Standing just 49mm tall, thanks to a slim-line disc drive and some downsized silicon, it cuts a much smaller silhouette...

First published in Home Cinema Choice 163

You can also download the pdf here

The latest Blu-ray player from Pioneer is another inky black slice of high-def home cinema to match the brand’s Kuro plasma TVs. However, despite its size and premium styling, this isn’t the flagship model and controversially, it doesn’t even have an Ethernet port. Partly due to timing, but mainly because it was decided that BD Live simply wasn’t worth the compromise, Pioneer has pressed ahead with a high-quality playback machine promising outstanding picture and sound quality, onboard HD audio decoding, and full 7.1 channel outputs...

First published in Home Cinema Choice 163

You can also download the pdf here

When is a Blu-ray player not a Blu-ray player? When it’s a Blu-ray transport – like Denon’s imposing-looking DVD-2500BT. The nomenclature gives it away: this is a multi-purpose video disc-spinner, primarily Blu-ray and DVD, but its real strength lies in what it hasn’t got. Namely onboard audio-processing, multiple AV outputs or high-end video tweakery. In fact, spin this beast around and all you will find on the back panel is a solitary HDMI output, an RS232 port and a couple of multiroom jacks.

I have never been one for minimalism, but Denon just might have an idea here. If you have an all-singing, all-dancing AV amp, receiver or processor with cutting-edge audio-decoding and fancy video scaling built-in, why pay to duplicate these features?

First published in Home Cinema Choice 163

You can also download the pdf here

Using a hi-def Blu-ray player to watch YouTube clips is like buying a Bugatti and never going over 40, but that hasn’t deterred Panasonic from providing access to the ubiquitous video site through its latest models, the DMP-BD60 and DMP-BD80.
It comes courtesy of Viera Cast, which headlines the Japanese giant’s latest range and uses the deck’s Profile 2.0 internet connection to deliver targeted sites directly to your living room TV.

But in reality Viera Cast is a mere sideshow. The main attraction remains Blu-ray playback, and both the BD60 and BD80 pack an  read more »

First reviewed in HCC 162

Rating 4/5

Price: £700