Marantz BD8002 Blu-ray player reviewed by Theodore Vireday
July 4, 2008
Design:
The front of the unit is all glossy black with a thin strip of silver along the bottom. To the far left is the Power button surrounded by a blue light which unfortunately can't be turned off in the settings menu. All the graphics are in high-def and are easy enough to navigate.
Remote Control:
The included remote is average for a Blu-ray player. We liked the centrally located directional pad and the clearly labeled buttons. One of our gripes is the location of the standard playback controls. They are far from the directional pad. There is a flip-down panel on the bottom of the remote but it's not a nuisance since it only hides some nonessential buttons like a number pad.
Features:
The main feature of this player is its ability to play Blu-ray discs. It can also play standard-definition DVDs and upconvert them to higher resolutions . Unlike Sony's PlayStation 3 and Sony's older BDP-S1 the BDP-S300 doesn't support SACD. This player has support for standard Dolby Digital and DTS surround soundtracks and it also has support for the slightly higher quality Dolby Digital Plus format. What's more important is that this player lacks support for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks. The connectivity is standard for the breed. There's an HDMI output which can handle both 1080p high-definition video along with high resolution audio. This player also has a couple of additional enthusiast-friendly features. One is the ability to output at 24 frames per second. We've tested a few players with this ability and haven't seen any increased performance with the displays we've used.
Performance:
We started off our test looking at Corpse Bride in 1080p on this player. This disc is extremely sharp and any difference in detail between the players should be visible. We found it very difficult to find any significant differences in the image quality between the players. This is even more so the case when watching at a standard viewing distance of around 8 feet for a 50-inch plasma. We took a look at some test patterns on Silicon Image's HQV test suite on Blu-ray in 1080p mode on both players. Like we said before there's really very little difference in Blu-ray performance among all Blu-ray players.
Rating:
Review sent in by Theodore Vireday. Thanks! Send in your reviews to Admin@buyblurayplayers.com
David Dymock from Hong Kong has sent in review of Daewoo DBP-2000 Blu-ray player
July 4, 2008
I purchased this player with the1.7 firmware and it was great. Yes, it did take a very long time to load Twister - almost 3 full minutes. That is due to the disc heavily using Java (BD-J) for interactivity. Few days ago I flash updated the firmware to 2.60 in about 17 minutes. See manufacturer's web site for the firmware and carefully follow the instructions. They will even provide you with the disc.
I purchased a 46" HDTV and a Toshiba HD-A20 1080p HD DVD Player player along with this Blu-ray Disc Player. I wanted to see the results of both Blu-Ray and HD DVD before investing in more expensive units. Blue Ray load time isn't long at all. I bought "I am Legend" with Will Smith in Blue Ray format and was blown away by the clarity Blue Ray offers. There needs to be a ethernet port or some other way to access updates online direct to this player, a wireless method possibly? My Toshiba HD DVD player has the CAT-5 ethernet port and it makes updating (not exactly simple) more flexible. Manufacture's website offers the image (ISO) burn to DVDR method for updating, but this seems backward at best. One other thing I immediately noticed is how whisper quiet this player is. There is no noticeable fan noise whatsoever. Compare this to the Toshiba HD-XA2 fan, which has a sound resembling the whine of a tiny fighter jet.
The remote control seems to be totally out of sync with the unit - making the entire thing very sluggish. Mine failed to work after 5 months of ownership. I had it replaced under warranty with a refurbished one and that one does not work either. The problem with this player is that it does not output Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA in any way shape or form. There is slight fan noise during dvd playback, which was only detectable with the tv turned off. While the movie is playing, I couldn't hear the fan at all. The display on the front is a gray-blue. There are 4 brightness settings (High-Med-Low-Off), which can be accessed with one button on the top bottom of the remote. Very nice. With the display turned off, this is a very nice viewing experience. There is also an additional display button on the remote, which tells you the TRT of the disc, which chapter you are watching, time remaining in the chapter, and bit rate.
Rating:
Review sent in by David Dymock. Thanks! Send in your reviews to Admin@buyblurayplayers.com
New Blu-ray player Pioneer BDP-LX70A reviewed by Michael McCain.
July 4, 2008
I possess a Sharp DV-BP1, Sony BDP-S550, and PS3. In the 2 week that I've had this player, it's done a terrific job on video and audio quality. I'm running it on a 55" Pioneer connected through HDMI. I've never had any of the stutters or other audio/video glitches that others have mentioned. I went with this player due to positive reviews and how I feel about the the brand. The BR players are all updatable so it's possible to play the latest movies. However, this player has a VERY difficult failure mode and upgrade procedure. But once you get that 1080p flat screen there's just no other way to watch video. Even with the problem it is worth getting this player for 1080p picures.
Other nice features of this player include variety of media: You can play not only standard music CDs (a given) but also MP3 discs. For those who wonder if it will play homemade Blu-Ray DVDs I can report that I have sucessfully created a Blu-Ray DVD with menus on a 25G Single Layer BD-RE (Rewritable) disk using the LG GGW-H20L burner. One drawback that keeps this unit from being perfect is no ethernet connectability for firmware upgrading. It is my opinion that this player was released prematurely based on its feature set. This player did a great job on the Bluray compatibility & picture quality and the DVD upconversion quality. This player is good as far as disks that work on it but it does not support 48kHz/24-bit HD true sound that most blu-ray disks come with. The sound will pop out of sync with the visual. Before you buy call the manufacturer and ask if they have solved this problem by issuing a firmware (disk to put in the machine to update the harddrive) or not.
Upconversion on this player is mediocre, which is essential if you have large library of DVDs. I figured instead of spending $75 or so on upconvert DVD player to work with my new TV, I decided to go directly to Blu-Ray, since the Blu-Ray is now standard of HD DVDs. This player is by far the best picture quality on DVD upconversions thanks to the HQV chip that player uses. The audio and video quality is also great for blu-rays. Overall, I found this player to be competent Blu-ray player and a great upconverting DVD player.
Rating:
Review sent in by Michael McCain. Thanks! Send in your reviews to Admin@buyblurayplayers.com
Sony BDP-S300 Blu-ray player reviewed by Zdenka Smith
July 3, 2008
Design:
This player's design is pure understatement. The simple rectangular component sports a LED display on the bottom half of its face. In the upper right section there are some basic playback controls. On the top of the player are two critical buttons--open/close and power--which can be somewhat irksome if you're planning to stack components.
Remote Control:
The included clicker is fairly standard. There's a centrally located directional pad with playback controls located nearby. Our biggest complaint concerns the lack of button differentiation--especially with the playback controls--which makes it a bit hard to use by feel. Better universal remote is recommended.
Features:
This player can play standard- definition DVDs and CDs as well as Blu-ray. This player was released before the deadline and it only conforms to the older Profile 1.0. This player won't be able to play some picture-in-picture commentary tracks on newer discs. This won't be a deal breaker for everyone since many people barely have enough time to watch a full movie. It has onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus. It lacks bit-stream audio support for high resolution formats which means you can't send encoded Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks to new receivers with decoding capabilities. This player's connectivity package is solid. The main connection is the HDMI output which is capable of outputting 1080p video at 24 frames per second. High-definition video can also be output over the component video outputs (limited to 1080i).
Performance:
We started off our test looking at Corpse Bride in 1080p on this player. This disc is extremely sharp and any difference in detail between the players should be visible. We found it very difficult to find any significant differences in the image quality between the players. This is even more so the case when watching at a standard viewing distance of around 8 feet for a 50-inch plasma. We took a look at some test patterns on Silicon Image's HQV test suite on Blu-ray in 1080p mode on both players. Like we said before there's really very little difference in Blu-ray performance among all Blu-ray players.
Rating:
Review sent in by Zdenka Smith. Thanks! Send in your reviews to Admin@buyblurayplayers.com
Ethan Grantz from Malaga has sent in review of Sharp BD-HP50 Blu-ray player
July 3, 2008
I obtained this player with the1.6 firmware and it was great. Yes, it did take a very long time to load Independence Day - almost 3 full minutes. That is due to the disc predominantly using Java (BD-J) for interactivity. Few days ago I flash updated the firmware to 2.60 in about 13 minutes. See manufacturer's web site for the firmware and carefully follow the instructions. They will even provide you with the disc.
I purchased a 46" HDTV and a Toshiba HD-A20 1080p HD DVD Player player along with this Blu-ray Disc Player. I wanted to see the results of both Blu-Ray and HD DVD before investing in more expensive units. I've not had many complaints of load times. The average is about 30 seconds for most films. I have had a few that take several minutes but I don't sweat it much. It just gives some extra time to get something to drink and run to the bathroom before starting! There needs to be a ethernet port or some other way to access updates online direct to this player, a wireless method possibly? My Toshiba HD DVD player has the CAT-5 ethernet port and it makes updating (not exactly simple) more flexible. Manufacture's website offers the image (ISO) burn to DVDR method for updating, but this seems unpolished at best. One other thing I immediately noticed is how whisper quiet this player is. There is no noticeable fan noise whatsoever. Compare this to the Toshiba HD-XA2 fan, which has a sound resembling the whine of a tiny fighter jet.
This player's plastic remote is reasonably good. It's well designed and compliments HDTV - the remote controls the TV's basic functions too. I have a 60inch 1080p Sony tv and a decent 5.1 home theater-in-a-box sound system.After doing research I bought a (too expensive) "high-speed" monster HDMI cable rated to handle 1080p audio/video. There is low fan noise during dvd playback, which was only noticeable with the tv turned off. While the movie is playing, I couldn't hear the fan at all. The display on the front is a gray-blue. There are 4 brightness settings (High-Med-Low-Off), which can be accessed with one button on the top left of the remote. Very nice. With the display turned off, this is a very nice viewing experience. There is also an additional display button on the remote, which tells you the TRT of the disc, which chapter you are watching, time remaining in the chapter, and bit rate.
Rating:
Review sent in by Ethan Grantz. Thanks! Send in your reviews to Admin@buyblurayplayers.com
