Playstation3 's Blue-Ray vs Stand Alone Units

Be careful with Blu=Ray. They are not equal. There are various versions of BluRay, and sometimes some discs will not play on some players.

What about the audio quality in blu-ray or DVD in comparing to a good quality blu-ray player? I especially interest to know if both running optical cable instead of hdmi to pre/pro, I think this is most system are running. This is the only part in suspect as audio always require more sophisticated circuit to present nice sonic...anyone did compare please share.

Thanks, Mekong. I wish I had known that was going to be the case a few months ago. I would have gone with the PS3 instead.

I don't think I'll be buying any audio-only Blu-Ray discs, though. I have a few too many DVD-As laying around collecting dust to buy music on yet another new format that is mainly centered on video.

Ekobesky-
There is now a firmware update for the PS3 that allows for upconversion of standard DVD's (I think to 1080p). I don't know what version # is, but if you updated with the latest FW version on Sony's site for the PS3, it will include the upconverting update. That should level the playing field between the PS3 and standalone players (if, to you, the difference in video performance on Blu-ray discs is negligable).

I recently updated my PS3 with the firmware, and IMHO the upconversion performance is about the same as the Panasonic DMPBD30K.

Oh, and to answer the question you actually asked...using the HDMI output to an Onkyo receiver and Infinity speakers, I couldn't tell much difference in the audio tracks on movies and music videos but the store did not have any audio-only discs so I was limited to that.

So with all that being equal, I went with the dedicated player on the assumption that it does one thing as opposed to being a gaming console and a disc player.

I found the Blu-Ray image quality on the discs I tried similar with both the PS3 and standalone units.

The problem is, the PS3 only outputs 480p with standard definition DVDs and does not upscale.

Since 98% of my collection is standard DVDs, it made sense for me to go with one of Sony's standalone players that upscales to 1080p.