Video Asylum

Posted by grantv (M) on February 24, 2009 at 07:45:33

So the semi-long story of it is:
I finally painted/finished our sunroom and threw a TV in there. We had two digital boxes in the house; one in our bedroom and one in my room. The spare room has just standard cable. Now that we have the sunroom to watch some TV in we needed a box in there. Considering we wouldn't watch much broadcast TV in my room we stole the converter from there.
New dilemna; we need something to record shows on in the sunroom. Don't want to take the VCR's from either the bedroom or spare room, so let's just take the DVD recorder out of my room (not watching TV there now anyway).
Me: "That means I'll have to get a new player for my room. And it may as well be a Blu-Ray player of course. I COULD use the five disc DVD player we're thinking of putting in the sunroom for music for you, but then you'll only have MP3 and a single disc player, no multi-disc."
Shelly: "Of course. Whatever. Stop telling me about it and just buy it. Can we go out for dinner now and get it after?". (All in a nice tone, she simply does not care)
So off we go. :)
Head off to the only store in town that stocks the Panny BD55 (checked earlier just in case...). I've read that it's one of the better players out there. "Sorry, we're out of them and won't be getting any more, new models coming." The Sony S550 is in stock and on sale, so I get it. This is not just giving in. 1) I live in a smallish town and nobody else sold the Panny BD55; I checked. 2) The Sony also has received a fair bit of praise. 3) I know that just because the Panny BD55 was a good player does not mean that it's following models will be the better option also.
First impressions "in" the box; boy this thing is small!
First impression unpacking; nice finish (although a bit "mirrory" for me. It's still small. :)
Get out the cables my bud (who works at an electronics supply house) got for me (SVGA x 50' and SVGA to component adaptor) and started to hook things up. Uh Paul, I need a male-female connection at some point, two males just does not work. Darn.
For those who are wondering, the X1 is a bit older. It accepts 1080i via SVGA input only. It does not have an HDMI input. Via the s-video and composite inputs it uses an internal Faroudja unit to improve picture quality. Via the SVGA input it uses the processor of the unit providing the picture.
So the first night is S-video connection only (Saturday night, too late to get something else). First impressions via S-video to the PJ is actually fairly good. The picture is better than standard DVD. Not by a ton, but I sorta had to get another DVD player anyway.
Last night I got the proper wiring and ran it along my lighting sconce and down to the player. Omigosh. Now I see the fuss. I'll state up front that I'm by no means a videophile. But this is some pretty fine improvement in picture quality. I compared using the same disc and pretty much watched the same movie again. Not only is the picture a lot more clear, but action scenes fare better also. The picture just seems more there/real. I'd venture to say that everything is better.
Still just first impressions. But they are good. Conclusion; coming from an audiophile first I am impressed enough to heartily recommend a Blu-Ray player to anybody in the same situation. Mine was on sale for $350 CAD (which directly works out to ~$280 US, which means it'd be around $220 to $250 US at most... we always pay more).
Well, what are you still reading this for? Get out there and buy yourself a new toy. :)