Playstation 3 vs. Sony BDP-S550 - Blu-ray Forum

ixlegitballinxl · 12-07-2008, 05:48 AM

owning both, i'd vote for the 550 ( when comparing them as blu ray players only )

DiverSpear · 12-07-2008, 10:16 AM

Pretty good piece of work. I too, would take the 550 over the PS3. You mentioned the PS3 doing the decoding, that's all well and good but there are receivers out whose audio DAC's are second to none, that is why you bitstream, not to see lights or messages on the receiver.

MOONPHASE · 12-07-2008, 11:57 AM

upscaling is the hardest one to judge because some movies look better then others. like for instance my dvds have great picture quality for just a dvd and yet my PS3 does make my dvds look amazing but i have seen some old dvds on my ps3 that look like crap. unless you play the same movie on 2 Blu-ray players and look at both screens side-by-side to see which Blu-ray has the best upscaling feature. and im just going to state an opinion but i think the Iron Man PS3 pic looks better

caliminius · 12-07-2008, 12:07 PM

I think if gaming is going to be listed as a feature, it would be important to note the PS3's media center capabilities as well. That to me is much more important than gaming since it's a feature many more people would be interested in having.

redlikefire02 · 12-07-2008, 01:05 PM

lets see the panny 55 vs ps3 .. id like to see that outcome

andyman1970 · 12-07-2008, 01:15 PM

Oh Dear Lord....Not Another PS3 Is God Thread....

Sonny · 12-07-2008, 01:21 PM

"Dolby HD MA"

caliminius · 12-07-2008, 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiverSpear

Pretty good piece of work. I too, would take the 550 over the PS3. You mentioned the PS3 doing the decoding, that's all well and good but there are receivers out whose audio DAC's are second to none, that is why you bitstream, not to see lights or messages on the receiver.

I know this analogy has been used before, but isn't lossless audio akin to a zip file on a computer? It shouldn't matter what program unzips the file, the extracted file should be the same. Just like it shouldn't matter whether the player or the receiver decodes the lossless stream into PCM, the results "should" be the same. If it isn't either the player or the receiver is altering the results (which sort of defeats the purpose of having a lossless audio track).

klester · 12-07-2008, 08:26 PM

Where did my original post go? I started this thread with a comparison of the PS3 to the BDP-S550 to help users decide between the two. I made an edit to it to add a little more content, and I haven't seen the post since (its been missing for several hours now). I re-posted it again in this thread and that post is now also missing.

Can a moderator let me know why my posts have been removed?

EWL5 · 12-08-2008, 08:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiverSpear

Pretty good piece of work. I too, would take the 550 over the PS3. You mentioned the PS3 doing the decoding, that's all well and good but there are receivers out whose audio DAC's are second to none, that is why you bitstream, not to see lights or messages on the receiver.

In the case of the PS3, after it decodes and sends the PCM to the AVR via HDMI, you are still using the DAC's in the AVR (same outcome when bitstreaming: you still use the AVR's DAC's). Your post is a little confusing.

The only knock against the 550 in my book is the poor decision by Sony to make MIX the default setting. I hope most 550 and 5000ES owners by now have changed the setting to DIRECT to get lossless audio.

jessicababson · 12-08-2008, 09:11 PM

I'd take PS3 for all around functionality... blu-rays + games + ipod music + web surfing + more...

saprano · 12-08-2008, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiverSpear

Pretty good piece of work. I too, would take the 550 over the PS3. You mentioned the PS3 doing the decoding, that's all well and good but there are receivers out whose audio DAC's are second to none, that is why you bitstream, not to see lights or messages on the receiver.

The same DAC's are used if you bitstream or send the audio PCM.

saprano · 12-08-2008, 09:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by klester

Where did my original post go? I started this thread with a comparison of the PS3 to the BDP-S550 to help users decide between the two. I made an edit to it to add a little more content, and I haven't seen the post since (its been missing for several hours now). I re-posted it again in this thread and that post is now also missing.

Can a moderator let me know why my posts have been removed?

I was wondering the samething

klester · 12-09-2008, 02:18 AM

Since my original post got removed for some reason, I am re-posting here in smaller chunks in the hope that it will persist...

For those people trying to decide between a Playstation 3 and the BDP-S550 as their primary Blu-Ray player, I have a little data for you that might assist in your decision. [If trying to decide between the Playstation 3 and the BDP-S350, then this review still applies, just ignore the first paragraph in the "Audio Outputs" section.]

I happen to have both at the moment, and one of them has to go back to the store, so I did a little testing last night to see how they stacked up against each other. I started with an easily quantifiable comparison between the two; load times.

Load Times
Below is a chart of the load time differences between a few different Blu-Ray discs that I have. “Load Time” is defined as the time between when the disc was inserted into the player and when the disc’s menu came up on the screen (a smaller value is better).

As expected, the PS3 consistently had faster load times - mostly due to the high quality components and fast processor inside the PS3.

Picture Quality
To compare the picture quality between the two, I picked out a few scenes from Ironman and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and took snapshots of the scene as played from each player. I tried to pick out some high and low quality scenes for a good comparison. A few notes: these were taken with a 10 megapixel camera and my TV is a Sony 52XBR6. Unfortunately I didn’t have a tripod, but I did my best to get an equivalent shot for each player.

A reference picture from each player is below, but they won’t be much value to you since they are heavily compressed so that they would fit on the screen. When I look at the full images on my computer and really scrutinize them, I can see some minor differences, but when I watched both scenes on my TV I could not see a noticeable difference at all (I watched them several times in succession and saw no differences). Perhaps someone with a very discriminating eye could tell, but I simply didn’t see any difference in the picture quality between the two players.

To judge for yourself, go to my Comcast web page here, download the images, and scrutinize away.

Iron Man reference pic:
BDP-S550

PS3

Audio quality
Not tested because I don’t have a receiver that has HDMI inputs, only optical inputs

Audio Outputs
The BDP-S550 has the PS3 beat in this category. If you don't have a receiver capable of accepting an HDMI input, then you cannot enjoy the latest HD surround sound formats using the PS3 (you will be limited to Dolby Digital or Dolby DTS). If, however you have a receiver that has digital audio inputs, then you will be able to enjoy all the latest HD surround sound formats if you get the BDP-S550. This is because the BDP-S550 has 7.1 analog outputs, so you can connect them to your receiver's audio inputs and start enjoying the latest audio formats.

As far as decoding of audio formats is concerned, I see these units as equivalent since they both decode all the major audio formats. The PS3 can't bitstream the audio to a separate decoder (such as your receiver), but in my opinion you would never really need to do this (other than you want to see "DTS-HD Master Audio" light up on your receiver's display), so I see these players as equivalent. Instead of bitstreaming the audio to a separate decoder on the PS3, you would simply decode the audio on the PS3 and output the audio via PCM over the HDMI cable to your receiver. This would give you the same lossless audio playback as if you bitstreamed the audio over to your receiver for decoding.

continued...

klester · 12-09-2008, 02:30 AM

continued from above...

Remote
This is probably the most significant difference between the two, especially when taking the "spouse acceptance" factor into consideration. The BDP-S550 comes with a fairly decent IR remote that doesn't have frame-advance, and also isn't backlit. The PS3, on the other hand, only comes with a wireless game controller, which is less than ideal as a Blu-ray remote. Though it may be funny to watch, the wife will probably get frustrated at the game controller within seconds of using it, so you'll really need to buy Sony's standalone Blu-Ray remote (~$25) to use the PS3 as your primary player.

The other complication is that the PS3 uses a Bluetooth remote and doesn't even have an IR receiver, so there is no way to control the PS3 via a universal remote out of the box - at least not until a universal remote comes out that supports Bluetooth. To get around this and control the PS3 via a universal remote, such as a harmony remote, you will need an IR “translator” that will receive your universal remote's IR commands and translate them to the appropriate PS3 Bluetooth commands. See a few of them here, here, and here which can run up to $100. As an alternative you can get the Nycos PS3 remote which has an IR dongle for the PS3, and program your universal remote for the Nycos remote functions, but you won't be able to control all the PS3 functions (namely it won’t allow you to turn off your PS3).

You won't have any issues using a universal remote with the BDP-S550 since it uses an IR remote.

Other differences
The remaining major differences between the two players are listed in the chart below:

* = subjective - no hard data to back this up
** = noise will vary based on ventilation and distance from unit.
*** = see section "Remote" above
**** = PS3 power rating source. BDP-S550 power rating source
***** = the BDP-S550 hasn't been out long enough to get a lot of data on this, but one reviewer mentioned that the BDP-S550 didn't handle damaged discs very well. This has been supported by a a few user reports of discs not playing in the unit. No hard data here, but it seems to be a little worse than the PS3 here.
****** = based on user reports and my own testing. This is very subjective.

Summary
Well, there you have it. All the primary differences that I noticed are listed above, so you should have a little more ammo when making a decision between the BDP-S550 and the PS3. Both are great players with their own pros and cons, and it's up to you as to which one will better serve your needs.

In the end I went with the PS3 with the additional purchase of the Sony Blu-Ray remote. My justification was that the price difference between the two was not very large ($100), and for the extra $100 I get a lot more functionality from the PS3 - namely gaming and the option to take advantage of its media center capabilities. I am not a gamer by any means, but should I decide that Rock Band is too much fun to only play at Best Buy, at least I'll have the option to play it at home if I get the PS3.

If the picture quality had been better with the BDP-S550, then I definitely would have chosen it. But since they were essentially equal in quality and relatively close in price, I went with the player that gives me the most bang for my buck.

cajmoyper · 12-09-2008, 02:56 AM

I thought I just read somewhere that the PS3 eats up power like a real fatboy. Is that not true? Under Power Usage, PS3 says medium.

klester · 12-09-2008, 04:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cajmoyper

I thought I just read somewhere that the PS3 eats up power like a real fatboy. Is that not true? Under Power Usage, PS3 says medium.

True - the PS3 consumes 173 watts during regular movie play [source], whilst the DBP-S550 consumes a mere 29 watts [source]. Assuming these sources are accurate, then I'll update my chart to put the PS3 in the "High" category.

mophious · 12-09-2008, 07:26 AM

I own PS3 but I'm thinking about buy 550.
You clear my questions and spec.
Very Nice guide.
Thank you very much!

bkbluray · 12-09-2008, 01:37 PM

My parents just got the 550, and I thought it did an excellent job upscaling DVD's. Get it, you won't regret it.

ZMan · 12-09-2008, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ixlegitballinxl

owning both, i'd vote for the 550 ( when comparing them as blu ray players only )

Same here! However, that's only as a blu-ray player. If we speak about all-around versatility then the PS3 is the best.

12-07-2008, 11:57 AM	#3
MOONPHASE Blu-ray Duke Top contributor Member since:Jun 2007 Location:California 4K collection:8 Blu-ray collection:520 DVD collection:820 Blu-ray reviews:18 Trading Score:29	upscaling is the hardest one to judge because some movies look better then others. like for instance my dvds have great picture quality for just a dvd and yet my PS3 does make my dvds look amazing but i have seen some old dvds on my ps3 that look like crap. unless you play the same movie on 2 Blu-ray players and look at both screens side-by-side to see which Blu-ray has the best upscaling feature. and im just going to state an opinion but i think the Iron Man PS3 pic looks better Last edited by MOONPHASE; 12-07-2008 at 12:00 PM.

12-09-2008, 02:18 AM	#14
klester Junior Member Member since:Dec 2008	Re-posting original Thread post Since my original post got removed for some reason, I am re-posting here in smaller chunks in the hope that it will persist... For those people trying to decide between a Playstation 3 and the BDP-S550 as their primary Blu-Ray player, I have a little data for you that might assist in your decision. [If trying to decide between the Playstation 3 and the BDP-S350, then this review still applies, just ignore the first paragraph in the "Audio Outputs" section.] I happen to have both at the moment, and one of them has to go back to the store, so I did a little testing last night to see how they stacked up against each other. I started with an easily quantifiable comparison between the two; load times. Load Times Below is a chart of the load time differences between a few different Blu-Ray discs that I have. “Load Time” is defined as the time between when the disc was inserted into the player and when the disc’s menu came up on the screen (a smaller value is better). As expected, the PS3 consistently had faster load times - mostly due to the high quality components and fast processor inside the PS3. Picture Quality To compare the picture quality between the two, I picked out a few scenes from Ironman and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and took snapshots of the scene as played from each player. I tried to pick out some high and low quality scenes for a good comparison. A few notes: these were taken with a 10 megapixel camera and my TV is a Sony 52XBR6. Unfortunately I didn’t have a tripod, but I did my best to get an equivalent shot for each player. A reference picture from each player is below, but they won’t be much value to you since they are heavily compressed so that they would fit on the screen. When I look at the full images on my computer and really scrutinize them, I can see some minor differences, but when I watched both scenes on my TV I could not see a noticeable difference at all (I watched them several times in succession and saw no differences). Perhaps someone with a very discriminating eye could tell, but I simply didn’t see any difference in the picture quality between the two players. To judge for yourself, go to my Comcast web page here, download the images, and scrutinize away. Iron Man reference pic: BDP-S550 PS3 Audio quality Not tested because I don’t have a receiver that has HDMI inputs, only optical inputs Audio Outputs The BDP-S550 has the PS3 beat in this category. If you don't have a receiver capable of accepting an HDMI input, then you cannot enjoy the latest HD surround sound formats using the PS3 (you will be limited to Dolby Digital or Dolby DTS). If, however you have a receiver that has digital audio inputs, then you will be able to enjoy all the latest HD surround sound formats if you get the BDP-S550. This is because the BDP-S550 has 7.1 analog outputs, so you can connect them to your receiver's audio inputs and start enjoying the latest audio formats. As far as decoding of audio formats is concerned, I see these units as equivalent since they both decode all the major audio formats. The PS3 can't bitstream the audio to a separate decoder (such as your receiver), but in my opinion you would never really need to do this (other than you want to see "DTS-HD Master Audio" light up on your receiver's display), so I see these players as equivalent. Instead of bitstreaming the audio to a separate decoder on the PS3, you would simply decode the audio on the PS3 and output the audio via PCM over the HDMI cable to your receiver. This would give you the same lossless audio playback as if you bitstreamed the audio over to your receiver for decoding. continued...

12-09-2008, 02:30 AM	#15
klester Junior Member Member since:Dec 2008	continued from above... Remote This is probably the most significant difference between the two, especially when taking the "spouse acceptance" factor into consideration. The BDP-S550 comes with a fairly decent IR remote that doesn't have frame-advance, and also isn't backlit. The PS3, on the other hand, only comes with a wireless game controller, which is less than ideal as a Blu-ray remote. Though it may be funny to watch, the wife will probably get frustrated at the game controller within seconds of using it, so you'll really need to buy Sony's standalone Blu-Ray remote (~$25) to use the PS3 as your primary player. The other complication is that the PS3 uses a Bluetooth remote and doesn't even have an IR receiver, so there is no way to control the PS3 via a universal remote out of the box - at least not until a universal remote comes out that supports Bluetooth. To get around this and control the PS3 via a universal remote, such as a harmony remote, you will need an IR “translator” that will receive your universal remote's IR commands and translate them to the appropriate PS3 Bluetooth commands. See a few of them here, here, and here which can run up to $100. As an alternative you can get the Nycos PS3 remote which has an IR dongle for the PS3, and program your universal remote for the Nycos remote functions, but you won't be able to control all the PS3 functions (namely it won’t allow you to turn off your PS3). You won't have any issues using a universal remote with the BDP-S550 since it uses an IR remote. Other differences The remaining major differences between the two players are listed in the chart below: * = subjective - no hard data to back this up = noise will vary based on ventilation and distance from unit. * = see section "Remote" above ** = PS3 power rating source. BDP-S550 power rating source * = the BDP-S550 hasn't been out long enough to get a lot of data on this, but one reviewer mentioned that the BDP-S550 didn't handle damaged discs very well. This has been supported by a a few user reports of discs not playing in the unit. No hard data here, but it seems to be a little worse than the PS3 here. ** = based on user reports and my own testing. This is very subjective. Summary** Well, there you have it. All the primary differences that I noticed are listed above, so you should have a little more ammo when making a decision between the BDP-S550 and the PS3. Both are great players with their own pros and cons, and it's up to you as to which one will better serve your needs. In the end I went with the PS3 with the additional purchase of the Sony Blu-Ray remote. My justification was that the price difference between the two was not very large ($100), and for the extra $100 I get a lot more functionality from the PS3 - namely gaming and the option to take advantage of its media center capabilities. I am not a gamer by any means, but should I decide that Rock Band is too much fun to only play at Best Buy, at least I'll have the option to play it at home if I get the PS3. If the picture quality had been better with the BDP-S550, then I definitely would have chosen it. But since they were essentially equal in quality and relatively close in price, I went with the player that gives me the most bang for my buck. Last edited by klester; 12-09-2008 at 04:13 AM. Reason: Updated the chart to include updated power ratings

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12-07-2008, 05:48 AM	#1
ixlegitballinxl Banned Member since:Feb 2008 Location:Magic Kingdom, FL Home Theater Gallery:7 Blu-ray collection:631 Trading Score:22	owning both, i'd vote for the 550 ( when comparing them as blu ray players only )

12-07-2008, 10:16 AM	#2
DiverSpear Active Member Member since:Mar 2008 Location:St. Cloud, Florida Blu-ray collection:154 Trading Score:1	Pretty good piece of work. I too, would take the 550 over the PS3. You mentioned the PS3 doing the decoding, that's all well and good but there are receivers out whose audio DAC's are second to none, that is why you bitstream, not to see lights or messages on the receiver.

12-07-2008, 12:07 PM	#4
caliminius Senior Member Member since:Aug 2007 Location:The Negative Zone Blu-ray collection:84	I think if gaming is going to be listed as a feature, it would be important to note the PS3's media center capabilities as well. That to me is much more important than gaming since it's a feature many more people would be interested in having.

12-07-2008, 01:05 PM	#5
redlikefire02 Active Member Member since:Aug 2007 Home Theater Gallery:3 Blu-ray collection:69 Blu-ray reviews:6	lets see the panny 55 vs ps3 .. id like to see that outcome

12-07-2008, 01:15 PM	#6
andyman1970 Blu-ray Guru Member since:Aug 2008 Location:Birmingham, Alabama, USA DVD collection:9 Blu-ray reviews: 45 Trading Score:7	Oh Dear Lord....Not Another PS3 Is God Thread....

12-07-2008, 01:21 PM	#7
Sonny Blu-ray Ninja Member since:Aug 2007 Home Theater Gallery:8 Blu-ray reviews:6 Trading Score:1	"Dolby HD MA"

12-07-2008, 08:26 PM	#9
klester Junior Member Member since:Dec 2008	Where did my original post go? I started this thread with a comparison of the PS3 to the BDP-S550 to help users decide between the two. I made an edit to it to add a little more content, and I haven't seen the post since (its been missing for several hours now). I re-posted it again in this thread and that post is now also missing. Can a moderator let me know why my posts have been removed?

12-08-2008, 09:11 PM	#11
jessicababson Junior Member Member since:Dec 2008	I'd take PS3 for all around functionality... blu-rays + games + ipod music + web surfing + more...

12-09-2008, 02:56 AM	#16
cajmoyper Blu-ray Ninja Member since:Jun 2007 Location:San Antonio, TX Home Theater Gallery:8 Blu-ray collection:182	I thought I just read somewhere that the PS3 eats up power like a real fatboy. Is that not true? Under Power Usage, PS3 says medium.

12-09-2008, 07:26 AM	#18
mophious Active Member Member since:Oct 2008 Location:Sydney, AUSTRALIA Blu-ray collection:107	I own PS3 but I'm thinking about buy 550. You clear my questions and spec. Very Nice guide. Thank you very much!

12-09-2008, 01:37 PM	#19
bkbluray Blu-ray Guru Member since:Jun 2007 Location:MN Home Theater Gallery:57 Blu-ray collection:185 Blu-ray reviews:25	My parents just got the 550, and I thought it did an excellent job upscaling DVD's. Get it, you won't regret it.

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