I recently came into some money via birthday and a good trip to Las Vegas and was thinking about buying a PS3 (and 'nip/tuck season 4') officially making the jump into the HD realm. The only thing that is holding me back is a) how good of a blu-ray player is the PS3 and b) what is the possibility of Warner Brother's loosing blu-ray support? I took notice that almost all my favorite DVDs (especially TV) are Disney, Fox, and Warner Brothers and the only reason I'm jumping-in before the end of the war is that the three of them support the same system...

The PS3 is one of the best Blu-Ray players on the market. And I don't see Warner going exclusive.

a. Far & away the best player to date on either format IMO.
b. No way of telling, anything's possible right now.

I will agree the PS3 is the best HD player I have owned easily outclassing the Toshiba A1 and A2 I have used. Fast loading discs and no errors yet. Guess it takes a 7 core processor to get decent playback.

I don't see Warner leaving Blu-ray. They are now the only company supporting both, but they seem dedicated to this stance and will have the bragging rights of the highest sales of any studio.

Another agree. For BD, go with the PS3, it's a quality machine (gaming and media center are a good side bonus).

Studio options are always a in a new market format.

If you can afford it in either HD format, make the jump, you won't be disappointed.

Adding one more "ditto" to this.

Another thumbs up for the PS3. Just don't expect to play any games on it yet. Hopefully, Stranglehold will be good.

Don't go too crazy on that. He can play most all prev gen games on it. Resistance is awesome. MGS4 is looking to be good. The new gen games are coming, the playable demos are worth it for the game side.

Yeah, I noticed that I wasn't interested in any of the games already released. But "Guitar Hero 3," "The Simpsons," "Resident Evil," "Final Fantasy," and "Grand Theft Auto 4" will be purchased when they are eventually released =)

If you are going to go BD, PS3 is by far the best choice right now - especially with deal at amazon. As for WB, they are neutral right now, but Paramount was a couple weeks ago. Your guess is as good as mine. There are already several titles WB has on HD DVD though that are yet to make it to BD. Also, I think there was a time before either shipped that WB was an HD DVD exclusive - so - I would wager if they did go exclusive - although it does not appear they would - I would guess they follow Paramount's lead. (I own both - an A1 and a PS3 - so I am just saying what I have rolling around in my head - what companies are on which side is not a huge concern to me)

If you can afford it, I would do the Toshiba deal and the PS3 deal at amazon and end up with 16 movies and two players for like $700 - That is less than I paid for my PS3 system and remote when it was brand new.

seen like this, it does look like one hell of a bargain

The only disadvantage to the PS3 is that it doesn't have analog 5.1 audio outputs. So you will need a receiver with HDMI in order to get lossless/uncompressed audio.

The PS3 is a great machine. I don't honestly know how any other BD machines are sold when this is twice the machine as the others and less money. I'd be uber pissed if I were a company other than Sony making machines and saw that they were taking a loss to get PS3s in homes, all the while I couldn't sell mine when people compared it to the PS3.

The control that comes with it is a decent remote, but I still bought the accessory remote. If I were you, I wouldn't buy the accessory until I played with the controller for a week. It works better than you might expect.

In light of Amazon's sale on PS3's I made the jump this afternoon! Thanks for all the input!

Congrats on joing the HD game. You should enjoy the PS3 - it is a very good machine. Now, how long can you resist adding a second system. It took me about 3 months before I broke down and bought BD after having experienced the hi def goodness of HD DVD.

Considering "Transformers" and "Heroes" are the only titles I'm really interested in on HD, I might just be able to resist...

I thought the same thing when the only BD I wanted was Casino Royale. Good luck.

I'm weak, though.

PS3 is a good blu ray player but not great... it cant do DTS HD-Master Audio

i own the ps3... its good but not great... if you want gaming, then get the ps3. if you want just blu ray, get a stand alone player....

Well, you're on a DVD site so it means you're a movie fan. I can't imagine anyone being satisfied with the choices that one format allows over the other, considering you only get about 50% of movies with either one.

That said, it's beginning to be a good time to go dual format. The best BD player, and one that will be updated once BD-J is finalized, is the PS3, and that's $499 (or less). And HD DVD players are about $230.

Just made the jump myself. In the past 4 days I picked up a 50" HDTV and the panny blu-ray with the five discs included. The movies look incredible but there's nothing like watching a Red Sox game in HD!!

The BD players are still too rich for my blood so I jumped on the HD-DVD bandwagon and am currently loving it. (Doesn't hurt that Shaun of the Dead is one of my favorite movies.)

And yeah, sports look amazing in HD, I got to watch my college lose (we looked pitiful) last night on our 122" screen, it's glorious... shame we suck ass.