It’s hard to keep up on manufacturer’s latest offerings. BluRay is still relatively new, but the manufacturer;s have been falling all over themselves offering new models with a baffling array of differentiating features. But the latest isn’t necessarily the greatest. Pioneer’s BDP-51FD may be an older model, but it is still a great BluRay player. Many newer players offer BD-live or the ability to directly download films from the likes of Amazon or Netflix. But how well do they do the job of playing BluRay discs?
The many Amazon reviews suggest the offerings from mass market manufacturer’s may be less than all the glitzy features suggest. While the prices are low (in fact the cost of these things has dropped like a rock in the past year), performance and consistency seem to match. Quirky to downright poor performance have been described for the products from many of Pioneer’s competitor’s. Read more...
The What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision team talks through the January issue news: Blu-ray in a box Group Test, Pure Sensia review, Linn stops CD player production, component matching.
I watched a friends copy and liked the film a lot; even the DVD video quality was great. After watching it on Blu-Ray, all I can say is wow! What a visual delight! Travis Rice is an innovator; he is so fun to watch, and I hate how good he is! I’m making all my friends come watch the movie again… on Blu-Ray this time! Read more...
Feature
The Season’s Most Anticipated Snowboard Film, a perfect blend of the natural and the surreal
A visually stimulating piece of work that pulls in a wider audience by encompassing the most progressive riding in the world with unbelievable travel and nature footage
This quest took the riders to New Zealand, Japan, Germany, Canada, Valdez, AK, Jackson Hole, WY and Mammoth, CA
Riders: the Dream Team lineup: Travis Rice, Nicolas Muller, Terje Hakonsen, Jeremy Jones, John Jackson, Mark Landvik
I have looked for a player that plays both Blu-Ray and DVD discs well, since I have read that some Blu-Ray players may play either DVD or Blu-Ray discs well but not both. Since I own a DVD collection, I wanted to make sure that a player I would get plays both with good quality. This unit does not skimp on the quality of DVD playback for Blu-Ray or vice-versa. I am satisfied with this unit’s performance. Also, the included 6 foot HDMI cable is really nice, since I needed one to connect this to my HDTV. It comes with a composite cable in case you want to play discs to a standard definition television as well. Connectors on the back include HDMI, Component, Composite, and speaker connections. Read more...
Feature
Blue-ray Disc Player plays back BD discs in Full HD 1080p
I was excited to get this player. I had been waiting a long time for one that had a good set of features and a reasonable price. Overall, in the 2 weeks I’ve had it, I’ve really loved it. I’ll go over the good and the bad of this Blu-ray player. First the bad: The remote, like all Sony remotes, are very basic. It handles the Blu-ray player functions fine. It also has built in TV remote functions as well. I have a Sony Bravia TV that is about 2 years old. However the remote doesn’t work for about half of the functions, making this remote useless for controlling the TV. The remote can be set to a handful of TV brands. You would think that it could at least handle a Sony TV properly. NOTE: When registering the device on the Sony site, this model is not listed (as of this review). I selected the model S570 instead and that worked for me. When playing a Netflix movie, one time the movie locked up the player. It didn’t respond to the remote, then completely restarted itself. Of course it didn’t remember where it had stopped in the movie and I had to search to find where I was to finish the movie. Hopefully this doesn’t happen often. At the time of this review DLNA has not been included with the player and will be available later, so I could not test this out. Being that it isn’t relly a new thing, you would think that they’d have this already included. AVI file playback is only avalable to Canada players. The buttons on this box are tiny and the labelling is just as small and hard to read. Pale white print on black is always hard to read. In a dark area it is nearly impossible, even with the little light that it shines on the lower button panel, so using the remote is the way to go. Don’t forget it when you go to load a disc. You’ll probably end up memorizing button locations if you like to use the buttons on the player itself. If you are playing a disc and decide to stop play for any reason, it exits disc mode entirely, connects you to Gracenote, and returns to the Xross menu. Forget about returning to where you stopped. You have to go back to the very beginning of the disc loading process. You have to point the remote directly at the player to get it to do anything. It’s very picky about this. Read more...
I purchased the BDP-83 to replace my 5 year old non Blu-Ray OPPO DVD player. Which still works great. Since I am so pleased with the existing player I figured upgrading to Blu-Ray with another OPPO would be a good move. I am not disappointed. The BDP-83 is one solid piece of equipment. It’s very well put together. Though probably a bit heavier & larger than some competitive products I chaulk it up to the quality of the overall construction. The picture quality for Blu_ray is great & load times super fast. The picture rendition of non Blu-Ray DVDs’ is where this unit also shines. Due to it’s ability to up convert the standard DVDs’ to 1080P you get as close as you can get to high definition viewing from non Blu-Ray DVDs. Setup was easy using the wizard & it was up and running in a matter of minutes. I’m not big on the audio stuff so I can’t really speak to that end other than to say that I use the Dolby Digital 5:1 & DTS options & they sound great. The only downside, which I was aware of anyway prior to purchase, is the lack of data streaming ability. But since I have plenty of PPV & on demand options available to me via my satellite & cable providers I don’t see this as any great loss. Though the OPPO brand isn’t very well known I always recommend OPPO when asked about DVD players when asked by friends & family. Read more...
Even though it’s new out on the market, there are already some great HP Pavilion Slimline s5350z reviews. It appears to be a very promising desktop PC that’s powerful enough for the entire family! It has a good amount of hardware in compact form. Don’t let its small size fool you, either – this computer is great for multitasking, multimedia, web browsing, shopping, managing files, listening to music, etc.
With a starting price of $479.99, you can easily afford a lot of performance. The best deals are available online. You can find plenty of HP Pavilion Slimline s5350z coupons on the internet to help you get the best bargain possible. You will be impressed with its appearance when you receive it. In addition to its small form, it has a nice, glossy black finish with chrome accents and a brightly illuminated power strip. On the front you will find a 6-in-1 digital media card reader, USB ports, and a headphone jack. This computer also comes with a pocket media drive for portable storage. Read more...
I was excited to get this player. I had been waiting a long time for one that had a good set of features and a reasonable price. Overall, in the 2 weeks I’ve had it, I’ve really loved it. I’ll go over the good and the bad of this Blu-ray player. First the bad: The remote, like all Sony remotes, are very basic. It handles the Blu-ray player functions fine. It also has built in TV remote functions as well. I have a Sony Bravia TV that is about 2 years old. However the remote doesn’t work for about half of the functions, making this remote useless for controlling the TV. The remote can be set to a handful of TV brands. You would think that it could at least handle a Sony TV properly. NOTE: When registering the device on the Sony site, this model is not listed (as of this review). I selected the model S570 instead and that worked for me. When playing a Netflix movie, one time the movie locked up the player. It didn’t respond to the remote, then completely restarted itself. Of course it didn’t remember where it had stopped in the movie and I had to search to find where I was to finish the movie. Hopefully this doesn’t happen often. At the time of this review DLNA has not been included with the player and will be available later, so I could not test this out. Being that it isn’t relly a new thing, you would think that they’d have this already included. AVI file playback is only avalable to Canada players. The buttons on this box are tiny and the labelling is just as small and hard to read. Pale white print on black is always hard to read. In a dark area it is nearly impossible, even with the little light that it shines on the lower button panel, so using the remote is the way to go. Don’t forget it when you go to load a disc. You’ll probably end up memorizing button locations if you like to use the buttons on the player itself. If you are playing a disc and decide to stop play for any reason, it exits disc mode entirely, connects you to Gracenote, and returns to the Xross menu. Forget about returning to where you stopped. You have to go back to the very beginning of the disc loading process. You have to point the remote directly at the player to get it to do anything. It’s very picky about this. Read more...
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