Keep the gaming system for gaming
March 11th, 2008 by Mike KnechtI’ve been watching DVDs through my xbox 360 DVD drive for the past year or so until a clear winner came out of the HD DVD / Blu-ray war. Since Toshiba officially threw in the towel a few weeks ago I now know Blu-ray was the winner I had been waiting for.
Some people suggest that a PS3 is still the best Blu-ray player out there and if you’re in the market this should be your player of choice. I couldn’t disagree more. While the PS3 definitely plays Blu-ray movies well and my xbox 360 plays DVDs equally as well, the additional wear and tear on the gaming unit from movie watching is just too much.
Gaming machines are expensive and I want my gaming machine playing video games for many years to come – there are better ways to play DVD and Blu-ray discs out there. If you figure your disc drive will only play for so many hours before it breaks down you need to decide if you want those hours spent gaming or playing movies.
For my money I want a stand alone player that plays movies really well, and a video game console that plays video games really well. The Blu-ray standard if finally getting on par with what HD DVD had right out of the gate and prices are steadily dropping as well. The Panasonic DMP-BD30 was the first Blu-ray player to be Profile 1 compliant and is on the top of my list. The only thing holding me back is the knowledge that the next generation of Blu-ray players is right around the corner. With cheaper prices and better functionality now is a great time to take the plunge. Just don’t make your PS3 or xbox 360 do your HD movie watching for you – they were born to game.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:29 am
I couldn’t agree more. I’m especially concerned about running my 360′s drive too much and getting a Red Ring of Death. So I prefer to keep it dedicated to gaming. I’m using a nice (if a bit low-end) upscaling DVD player for now, but once Blu-ray players hit the $200 range, I’ll bite. And I’ve currently got an open HDMI port just hungering for some HD movie content.
March 26th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Since I posted this it came to light that the PS3 is the only profile 2.0 player on the market (final spec) which does make it the “best Blu-ray player” out now. It doesn’t change my stance though, I will be waiting until a stand alone profile 2.0 player shows up before I jump into the blu-ray scene.