criticism of PS3 as a blu-ray player

[Marlon]

Blu-ray is now truly blessed with films of the utmost transfer quality and the two films I'll be using for testing purposes will be 'Eight Below' and 'Flightplan'. Also I'll be comparing the PS3 to the reigning bluray champion which is, of course, the elite Pioneer BDP-94HD (or as its known in Australia LX-70). Needless to say I own both machines as well as the sammy BDP-1000, which is not really worth bothering about.

Firstly, as I watched these two films on my pioneer, I was struck just how, on the whole, remarkably pure, grain free and pristine these films looked. It was just beautiful. I mean seriously beautiful to watch. I might also add that the pioneer also showed up just how artificial and superimposed the grain effect looked in the otherwise splendid movie '300'. The only other way I can describe the aforementioned movies is that they are of a crystaline beauty in terms of presentation, but as I learned, the better the setup then so much better will be results.

I thought that it would be interesting to compare the PS3 bluray performance with the pioneer with respect to these two films. If you're already getting that sinking feel, then I can tell you it'll only get worse. Anyway I'll cut straight to the chase.

1.) Compared to the pioneer the COLOURS rendered by the PS3 are manifestly inferior and the skins tones are especially bad, really BAD. Actually the PS3 made the actors look rather ashen or sallow or pasty (you can take your pick). I really couldn't watch those films any further and the pioneer's rendering quality is just incomparably better.

2.) The CONTRAST of the PS3 is again very inferior to the pioneer and as a consequence the PS3 picture quality lost a lot of vividness. I found the PS3's picture quality looking quite dim and dull in comparison to the pioneer.

3.) The PS3 suffers from GRAINESS where the pioneer has the barest minimum or none at all. This was the most suprising find of the test and I can say that never will the PS3 touch the pristine rendering qualities of the pioneer. The grainy performance of the PS3 spoilt the movies for me and in particular the many close ups in 'flight plan'.

The main purpose of this post is not to bash the PS3 which I really love as a gaming platform, but to report to you the differences between it and a truly great stand alone machine.