Hands-on: Blu-ray on the PlayStation 3

I've been watching Blu-ray movies on the PS3 for the past couple of weeks and, for the most part, am pleasantly surprised: It's not a bad Blu-ray disc player. Numerous reviews of the Blu-ray experience on PS3 have been coming out over the past couple of weeks. One of the most thorough is by PC World, but here are a few of my impressions.

Video quality with native 1080p Blu-ray discs is superb: I've had the good fortune to compare the PS3 against the Panasonic DMP-BD10, both of which are connected via HDMI through the Pioneer Elite Pioneer VSX-82TXS A/V receiver to the superb Pioneer PRO-FHD1 1080p 50-inch plasma. The 1080p version of Mission Impossible III looked clear, sharp, deep, and colorful—indistinguishable between the two players.

No upscaling to 1080p from regular DVDs: While the Panasonic player does an amazing job of making my regular old 480p Deadwood DVD look high-def in 50 glorious inches, the PS3 does not (nor did it upscale the Björk videos from all the 5.1 Surrounded DVDs I played). Fortunately, because the video processing on both pieces of Pioneer equipment is so good, the difference was hardly noticeable more than eight feet away. But I'm surprised, considering the PS3 is the only Blu-ray player that's capable of handling HDMI 1.3 (next-gen HDMI that's capable of doing HD soundtracks and more color depth, also known as "Deep Color").

It's strange that the PS3 is future-proofed for Deep Color-capable TVs that aren't even out yet and HDMI 1.3 components that aren't really out yet either, but it won't do simple upscaling that would work nicely on today's 1080p TVs. Not to mention the annoying fact that Blu-ray discs won't play in full 1080p on TVs that don't support HDCP, as PC Magazine's John Dvorak pointed out last week.

Presumably, this oversight will be remedied with the promised software upgrade/patch that will also make PlayStation 2 games work on the PS3. That said, I wonder if the PS3 will be outdated by the time these next-gen Deep Color and HDMI 1.3 devices hit the market.

Surprise—not—video game controllers make lousy remotes: As with the PS2, the PS3's SIXAXIS controller can be awkward. It took me several days of practice to get proficient at navigating the basic and Blu-ray-specific interactive features of each disc. The triangle, for example, calls up the in-movie menu, whereas the square calls up an onscreen "remote" keyboard with all-virtual controls for you to maneuver around using the directional arrows. Skipping forward and backward between chapters is achieved by pressing the L1 and R1 keys, which I found easy to accidentally press. Also, I kept accidentally pressing the O button, which quits the BD player entirely.

All in all, I found myself pressing the wrong buttons on several occasions. The same problem exists using the Xbox 360's controller as a remote, but at least Microsoft has a dedicated remote already out. Sony plans on releasing a special remote in the next few months.

Getting the surround sound to work properly can be tricky: If you have a home-theater-in-a-box system or an A/V receiver with HDMI pass-through, you're in luck, because at least the standard Dolby 5.1, DTS 5.1, and PCM soundtracks will come through with no problem. But if, like most people, you have an HTIB system with an existing DVD player and an optical in for extra components, get ready for confusing inconsistency when trying to get the 5.1 soundtracks going.

I experienced countless inconsistencies and glitches when trying to get a simple 5.1 Dolby soundtrack working via the optical input to a KEF Instant Theater KT200—a recently released, $3,000 system. After numerous tries, I got the Black Hawk Down surround soundtrack to play, for example, but could only get Mission Impossible III to work in 2.1! (By contrast, both discs delivered fantastic 5.1 surround sound using the HDMI connections via the above Pioneer system.)

The sound problems seem to have something to do with whether I have my PS3 or Panasonic Blu-ray player set to output audio via bitstream of linear PCM. I won't get into the nitty gritty of what each means, because there is no rhyme or reason to which disc works with 5.1 (or at all) with which setting—despite what the manual or tech support people say (and I spoke to plenty of them). Even the PC World review doesn't quite get to the bottom of these issues, despite some extra explanation (the players just don't work as directed, or at all, for surround sound via optical, in my experience).

Surround sound not working via optical inputs, particularly in the case of HTIBs, is a huge problem with Blu-ray discs, and I will follow up with a separate post on this later. But for now, be warned: If you have an HTIB system, you may not be able to get any 5.1 soundtracks working.

All this said, the PS3 is a fine early-adopter Blu-ray disc player, future-proofed for HDMI 1.3 connections coming out next year (yet strangely not for the Blu-ray Live online interactive features, also due some time in 2007). If you're an early adopter, this is the best price you'll get on a Blu-ray player, when and if you find one.

The most important thing for HD junkies such as myself: When you get the PS3 working with native 1080p discs on fine 1080p-capable TV sets, the picture and soundtrack experience is stunning and unparalleled. Too bad most of the Blu-ray discs out are of the Ultraviolet/RV/League of Extraordinary Gentlemen variety. Needless to say, I've watched a lot of bad movies over the past couple of weeks.

Sorry, but nearly every boast about Blu-ray needs to be qualified, despite its numerous fine qualities. I'm still not sure that either Blu-ray or PS3 will take off as bona fide formats, so unless you're an early adopter or an HD junkie, take a wait-and-see attitude.

Who wants Blu-ray now?

Related links:

Xbox 360's HD-DVD Versus PlayStation 3's Blu-ray

Blu-ray and HD-DVD: What You Need to Know

Hands-on with the Xbox 360 HD-DVD Drive

For Dummies: Understanding HDTV Buying Options