I just got am LG Blu-Ray burner, fits in a pc, no fuss, no muss, one day I'll buy an HDTV, but the old Sony Wega will do for now

Best Buy has the HDA-35 for $149.00.

JJK

garymd:

It's still unclear as to which route I should take. Assume that HT and 2-channel are of equal importance and I want to get the best bang for my buck. I also want to play SACDs. Would it be better to go with the OPPO which does all the 2-channel stuff very well and does a good job on the HT side too, just no Blu-Ray. If I did the Blu-Ray thing, I'd need a separate SACD Player, correct?

Sony marketing is top notch!

No, you don't have to buy a Blu-Ray thing and a seperate SACD player.  Its funny that many people scoff at the idea of the PS3 as a seperate entity from Blu-Ray players when it happens to be the best, and future proof at the moment.  Yes, the PS3 plays sacd's, no other blu-ray player does.  Yes, Sony's PS3 will be Profile 2 compliant; current and other machines on the market will not be; they require firmware upgrades.

Though many shopper perceive the PS3 to be a gaming device, it is not.  It is a central media hub that Sony crafted and gambled with, and only now are slowly seeing the fruits of thier highly risky labors. Turning your nose up at this option, which is the cheapest, is hurting yourself and your wallet.

 I purchased an blu-ray burner from newegg.com. works great under ubuntu, I'm going to order another one for my one Vista box which has AnyDVD, CloneDVD amd ImTOO Platinum on it.  Now I just have to replace the Sony Wege I've been using for years, but I have this thing for classics that work well.

T2 looks a little better than DVD but not an example of the kind of quality you can get.  Some of the movies older than a few years were not considered worth cleaning up as much, so the quality off the print shows on the BD.  Some films (Casablanca) were considered worth cleaning up and look astounding despite their age.  Take a look at Crank, or Sunshine, or the Spider Man films (not sure what your taste is or I could recommend more) or the harry potter films for examples of pristine video.  Black Hawk down is also good with stellar sound to match.

el jopez:

Turning your nose up at this option, which is the cheapest, is hurting yourself and your wallet.

I agree 100% with el jopez. I'm lovin' my PS3 and only have a single game.

What do PS3's cost?  Is it a better option than the OPPO because it is a BluRay player?  Does it play DVD-A in addition to SACD?  How does the SACD/CD player sound in comparison to the OPPO?  Anyone heard both?  I could connect to both my Scott 299b and my Sony HT receiver simultaneously?

Sorry for all the questions but I'm real close to pulling the trigger on one.

Tom - Thanks for letting me hijack the thread temporarily.

Myself, 

When my son hooked up his PS3.............I really noticed the noise (almost a swooshing sound), when it was running, it was very apparent.............2c worth.

The PS3 ia a great idea, good graphics processor and priced relative to my Blu-Ray drive which is Writeable, so I can make archive copies of my new BD's or just rip the movie part into an avi, and put several avi files on a BD disk. Sure I'd love a PS3, but I am starting to develop an addiciton to PC based games, I don't need another gaming console.

I'm more of a "True Romance", "Pulp Fiction kind of guy. ALthough I do the new Star Wars trilogy on occasion and I do game.  I bought an LG Blu-Ray burner through newegg.com and my slysoft software has no problem handling it.  My TV isn't HD, I'm holding out for another year.

I may buy another LG Blu-ray burner for the Linux machine, but the drivers may be lacking for it.  I guess I hanging on for Windoze 7.

synthfreek:

Are you guys POSITIVE that the 40GB PS3's play SACD discs. I only assume they don't since they removed the SACD logo from the machine. Can some confirm this? This(and the backwards compatibility thing) is what has been holding me back from a purchase.