DVD player Or Blu Ray player

Hi folks,

This is my first post. I have been browsing this forum for some time now. Really interesting to find lots of information. Also my hats off to all audiophiles for their technical details on advises/recommendations on HT products.
Good work folks and thanks to those for knowledge sharing on this forum. Really useful for novice people like me.

As this post relates to DVD - i post in this category. I shall post other queries related to other HT components in other threads later.

My current setup:
A philips DVP 3120 brought 2 yrs back. I think its high time now that i change as it started giving problems by not reading the disk at times. Already serviced once.
TV: Just a 14" inch Akai 10yrs old. Still runs fine with no major problems. (I know its pretty old, but again economic constraints do matter to upgrade).

Planning to do a HT setup. (Ofcourse step-by-step).

DVD player:
I had narrowed down to Pioneer DVD 600v (which apprx is Rs 12000- iam not looking for grey market) (based on good reviews in various sites).
(Pioneer service center is available in bangalore, chennai.)

Onto Blu-ray dvd player:
Then while checking i found that blu-ray players are the future. I happen to see the Sony's BDP-S300 1080p Blu-ray player which by far is the cheapest among the blu ray players. (If iam wrong, do correct me with any other good low cost blu-ray players!)
The cost in US is 199$ whereas in india it is Rs29,999 apprx (sony site). That's lots of difference (assuming tax and other stuff if any, still its a big amount). If $199 converted to indian rupees again its apprx close to the Pioneer DVD 600V player. So why not go for blu-ray than the usual DVD player?
(Sony service center available in bangalore, chennai.)

My question - if i buy one of those from US and take it to the sony service center here in india and change the settings (or upgrade) from NTSC to PAL (i understand all players in US are setup for NTSC format), will it work? ( I had a chat with sony USA person and he gave me the information about blu ray players of Sony in USA are in NTSC format)

Is there anything else iam missing so that i can get this blu ray player work for formats used in indian cds/ dvds/ mp3 etc?

Or if you folks would recommend any other DVD/blu ray player? (My investment should last atleast another 10yrs). (My budget not more than 15000Rs max)

thanks for your time.

Welcome to the forum.

Whether a Blu-Ray player purchased in the US be converted into NTSC and PAL can only be answered by the company's service center. But I very much doubt it. Please check with the service center in India and get a commitment. Many times they will say yes now, and then look at you as if you are mad when you actually bring the unit to them.

In addition to NTSC/PAL, you also have to worry about the Region Code. Please check the following link for more information:

http://www.hifivision.com/surround-a...ice-india.html

Cheers

At present in India, Blu-ray in regional languages is rare (except "Saawariya"). Selected english titles are available in Landmark (Chennai) but not affordable. Time should bring down the rates by demand and popularity. Also, present rates would'nt fit into your budget of 15k for blu-ray players.

If you can give your DVD player serviced by authorised Philips service and manage, it would be an better idea to wait patiently for another 8-12 months.

Or invest in lower budget DVD players <5k (temporary solution for your current DVD player)

Since buying any >10k DVD player won't become a permanent technical solution for the future, as and when blu-ray player rates gets slashed you would be tempted to own one. Who knows in future some better technology like in research stage for Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD - can hold 3.9 Terabytes) may be killer to blu-ray technology.

Moreover, you should have the title to play in your blu-ray player. So what is point in having a player without the media. When I enquired in Chennai, a blank blu-ray (write once single side - 25GB) - Verbatim costs Rs.700/-.

Electronics is a fast paced where upgradation happens on technical improvements, quality and cost. If you take for example my case.......I own a videocon tv which was purchased 15 years ago, still the tv is performing good. But I upgraded to 29" Philips (4 years ago) for big screen and technical factors like support for S-video, component inputs. Recently, upgraded to Samsung LCD 46" for much more big screen. Finally Iam having three tvs which I get peanuts for exchange of old CTVs, so have retained philips and kept in my bedroom and donated the videocon to my watchman. I don't know when my next upgrade will happen.

When blu-ray players are slowly getting popularised in India then you should wait for the rates to go down and own it instead of investing 12k for DVD player rather than again investing in 15k (assumption - hope the rates slashes) for blu-ray in another 12 months. Also, let more and more blu-ray titles are available and the rates gets slashed.

That HVD things makes the Blu Ray look like a baby !

Please do visit the exclusive pioneer showroom in bangalore located on Infantry road before you make your purhcase. Call 080-41529090 for location details

Having seen several postings (including this) on DVD players, I can share one of my recent experiences:
I had a Pioneer budget region-free DVD player, one of the first with progressive scan both PAL and NTSC in use with a 55" Philips Pixel Plus RPTV, a good combo for occasional movie watching. However, the Philips is HDTV-ready and can handle 1080i signals, I believe will give a better picture than 480p or 576p. So a few months back I started looking for a DVD player capable of 1080i and on writing directly to Pioneer Europe, they immediately recommended their DV-LX50 player which had excellent reviews. They wrote to me that the player would output 1080i signal.
I bought it recently and suddenly on reading the manual I find that its maximum resolution for DVDs is still 480/576p and NOT 1080i!!! It can handle 1080i with Divx and JPEG! I felt cheated and immediately wrote to Pioneer about the misinformation they provided me and alas I have lost my money, that is it.
No doubt the DV-LX50 is an excellent player but it does not meet MY requirements as falsely promised by Pioneer themselves. The same player has been reviewed in the Indian edition of What Hifi (Apr 2008) where they are even mentioning about its upscaling capability to 1080p!!!
The home theater field is full of such hidden mines and one has to be very careful choosing a source or processor or amplifier so that later one doesn't regret.
Just sharing an experience.
Thanks.

> murali

On ho , that is a waste !! But murali this is just a thought - Why don't you borrow any of your friends DVD player (non pioneer one which can do 1080i) playback a dvd and then compare the same output to your pioneer dvd player. I have a hunch that the difference will be nominal . Pioneer players have excellent video reproduction. This way you will not feel totally cheated out. I still think you could have gone back to the shopkeeper and traded in your dvd player for a Higher model. The shopkeeper would always be interested if you are going for a more expensive model. Even if he would have paid you 80% of the current player price you could have gone for a new pioneer dv 600/610 for complete peace of mind. ---- Just a suggestion

Just FYI Pioneer DV-LX50 is almost twice the price of 610/600.

why not go in for a ps3 ? It is a blue ray/ dvd (NTSC)/cd/sacd player for 24k .

Oh I did not know that !!