Blog observer Chad asked why I’m down on any Blu-ray player but the PlayStation 3. Here’s why.

First, it’s an extremely powerful machine. There’s a reason why scientists are increasingly using it to crunch numbers for complicated research; the PS3 has monster processors. Yes, it’s also a video-game system, which some pundits and the HD DVD camp continually ridiculed. Big deal. It’s also a great Blu-ray player with an easy-to-use interface. Don’t think of it as a video-game system that plays Blu-ray Discs; think of it as a Blu-ray player that plays video games and all other kinds of media, including storage cards. My friend Don Lindich, who writes a nationally syndicated consumer-electronics column, used to be critical of the PlayStation 3 when he championed HD DVD. When that format took a nosedive and it became obvious he would need to buy into Blu-ray, he picked up a PS3, partly at my urging. I think I’m safe in saying that he takes back everything negative he said about the PS3 now that he actually has used it.

Some people are turned off by the PS3 as a Blu-ray player because it stands vertically, as shown in this photo. But it also can be placed horizontally to match the orientation of a stand-alone player and other home-theater components. It also has a remote control available for those who don’t want to use the shown controller.

Second, there is no other Blu-ray player on the market that is able to play all of the planned features of Blu-ray discs. Blu-ray Discs essentially have three generations, or profiles. Profile 1.0 was the first generation, essentially a disc that holds the movie plus typical bonus material like a standard DVD. All Blu-ray players can handle 1.0 discs, including Chad’s Samsung BD-P1400. Some Blu-ray Discs now have Profile 1.1, which essentially adds the capability for the player to do picture-in-picture and other Java-based supplements on the fly, such as director’s video commentary, through the hardware. If you want to play all features of a Profile 1.1 disc, you have to buy one of the few stand-alone players that have just come out that have this capability. If you have a PS3, though, you’re good to go. It’s so powerful that it doesn’t need the internal hardware for Profile 1.1; it updated to that version with a simple patch that Sony released last year. The next version of Blu-ray Discs, Profile 2.0 or BD-Live, requires an Ethernet port and connection to the Internet for online-related disc features. No Blu-ray player now on the market has this capability, although the first model is expected soon. But you’ll have to buy a stand-alone player all  over again to gain this capability. The PS3 is already Profile 2.0-compliant, as it has been since Day 1.

Third, any updates to the PS3 are painless to install. It connects wirelessly to the Internet, so you just download and install. Through such continual updates, the PS3 has gained, for example, Profile 1.1 capabilities, SACD playback and photo slideshow features. Updating players such as your Samsung usually requires burning a disc and going through a needlessly laborious process. (And Samsung has notoriously lagged in issuing updates. Its players often have trouble playing features on the newest discs until it issues an update weeks later, spawning a class-action lawsuit over the matter.) 

Fourth, you can play video games on the PS3. It even plays the older PS1 and PS2 games (on most models). That might not be a primary concern to most people, but it’s a great bonus. It also does much more. Slip in a storage card or burned disc, and it blazes through photos, songs and videos. You can also surf the Internet, because it has a built-in browser.

Even when Profile 2.0 players become widespread, it will be a while — if ever — before any of them match up to the PS3. It’s a dynamic machine that continually evolves to meet the latest Blu-ray developments without needing to buy a new player each time.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 8:06 am and is filed under DVDs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.