ps3 price in india?

Dear All,
i had to post this to multiple sub-forums here, wish there was a provision to select all the forums we wanted this thread to appear in :-)

I am currently in the UK and will be coming to India very shortly. given the ridiculous baggae allowance by BA, i have become totally blanked out about the stuff i shoudl buy here. either way, the only reason some one would buy in the UK is because of non-availability of that product in india.
Anyways, to cut my long story short, i need to buy the below products for my home in bangalore over time frame of the next six months. I would avoid buying all the below here if these produts are competitively priced in india.
To make a decision, i need to know the indian prices (preferably bangalore prices)) and ease of availability of the below.
1. ps3 80gb ( how much would it cost in bangalore ,india. any bargains?)
2. oppo dv980h ( doubtful about availability in india, but has anybody mail ordered it)
3. onkyo sr875 receiver.
4. Panasonic ax2000 projector or the epson tw2000/homecinema 1080ub models
I would also want to know the region code of the ps3 sold in india.

Warmest regards
Murali

Murali:

I would give you the prices of the two items I am familiar with.

2. Dealership for the Oppo is just being finalised in India. We have had a thread where the prices for Oppo products were discussed.

http://www.hifivision.com/cd-players...rest-oppo.html

I dare say the 980H will cost around 15K in India. Roughly 340US.

3. The listed price for the Onkyo 875 is around Rs.90,000

Cheers

Since you are in the UK, you might want to consider the 160GB Limited Edition PS3.

Sony PS3 news - whathifi.com

Best Regards.

Thanks all..
160 GB Ps3 will debut only in oct, and i will get back to india in a fortnight, so kind of ruled out.
Another question which i am debating for long...i dont need the ps3 for games...just for movies. i think that spending on a ps3 is worthwhile as
1) it is ethernet enabled for firmware updates and blueray profile changes. so takes the headache out.
2) if, and a big if, i convert to playing games in the ps3 in the future, i wouldnt have to spend extra.
3) The negative is that it does not have scope for bitstream audio. Those of you who have heard bitstream, please can you advise if it is really a marked improvement over everything else of what we have hard before, in a home theatre environment?
4) were i to go for a bd player instead, ( do you get region free bd players?), what would be a good recommendation for around 25k INR? and what makes a bd player more effective than a ps3? ( other than bitstream audio)
Finally, what is the region code of the ps3 being sold in india?

There are many players today that are supported by firmware updates. You can do this with a CD costing 10Rs, and about 10 minutes of your time.

In my opinion, the two should be separated. I am not sure about the audio capabilities of the PS3, but I think today there are players there that may be better for audio and video decoding.

If the PS3 does not support bitstream audio, and you marry it to the 875, you will be asking the receiver to run at high speed after tying it's two feet together.

The 875 will decode audio better than most DVD and BD players excepting those costing 1000s of dollars or an Oppo . If you have an Oppo and a fancy receiver from Denon, Onkyo, Yamaha, NAD, CA, etc, you have to switch between decoding by the player and the receiver to decide which you like better. In most cases, when you have a standard DVD/BD player and a fancy receiver such as the 875, it is better to send audio in bitstream format for the receiver to decode. If you send by PCM, the receiver may not even recognise the audio format of DTS, Dolby Digital etc.

When you come to LPCM using DolbyHD or TrueHD, yes, LPCM is theoretically better, but this does not have anything to do with the supported bitrate. It is simply what formats are written into the HDMI specification as a standard. Since DolbyHD and TrueHD is uncompressed, the player or receiver does not have to do much to give you good sound.

Is there an audible difference? With a good player and a good AVR, I doubt you can tell the difference.

Region Coding for Blu-Ray

Instead of numbers, Blu-Ray follows an alphabet for region coding.

Region A: North America, Central America, South America, Japan, Taiwan, North Korea, South Korea, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.
Region B: Europe, Greenland, French territories, Middle East, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Region C: India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Mainland China, Pakistan, Russia, Central and South Asia.

Different studios follow different policies of enforcing the region code.

• All titles of Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios are region free
• Most titles of Sony Pictures and Warner Bros are region free.
• All titles of Warner's New Line division are region-coded.
• Lionsgate and Walt Disney Pictures have released a mix of region free and region coded titles.
• All titles except one of 20th Century Fox are region coded.

After the demise of the HD-DVD, almost all studios have started enforcing region codes. So we can expect future BDs to be region coded. And, breaking these region coding seems more difficult than a DVD player.

Panasonic seems to make players that are completely region free for both BD and DVD. There should be players from other brands also. The Blu-Ray web site should have more details. (Blu-ray.com - Blu-ray Movies, Players, Recorders, Media and Software)

The following site seems to have a list of BDs for each region alongwith information on whether they are region coded or not.

Blu-Ray Region Code Info

PS3 sold in India should be Region C.

Cheers

Venkat,
I am truly overwhelmed by your detailed reply.Cant thank you enough for taking your precious time to reply my query.
Thanks again!
Murali

I wonder we don't get 80 and 160 gig versions in india,officially.
The existing 40 gig version with gta 4 is 26990 INR.

VJ