[Closed] 3D Blu Ray/AV upgrade

You'd have to describe the faults, so that we can point you at kit that avoids those.
You could do a lot worse than a second hand PS3 for BD though.
Up from that, I do a lot of work for OPPO and their BD players seem to be awarded just about every 'best buy' going. To be on budget, you'd have to be looking at second hand again I think. The company is a joy to work for and the dealers seem to find the same.

Then see the other thread for Amps/Receivers.

The reason why I'm not completely up on my BD players is that I've abandoned it as a format. Blockbuster gone, Lovefilm increasingly frustrating, and I feel no need to own films any more when there is so much on-demand available.
My main source is now an Nvidia Shield TV.

The reason why I'm not completely up on my BD players is that I've abandoned it as a format.

You know, I was thinking this the other day.

I have three BD players now. I've got my original Sony which was quite expensive at the time, with all the media header gubbins; a gifted one which is in the bedroom under a largely unused TV; and the Xbox One which has basically replaced the main player now. My discs are half a dozen films (at a generous estimate) and a couple of TV box sets.

LoveFilm was great at the time but I cooled on it when they stopped doing Xbox games and then ditched it completely when the price kept going up. Between that and, as you say, the rise of streaming (Netflix, Chromecast) and suchlike, I'm half inclined just to rip it out and replace it with a Pi or something.

I don't regret it (although I do still have the PS3 which I can use if I like). ymmv

The main problems I have with it is that during fast motion, there is a lot of ghosting like watching the six million dollar man, and sometimes it goes into a weird slow motion while it's switching layers I guess. I'm 99% sure the ghosting is from the bluray player as we don't get it watching HD content from non-disc sources.

Although I do watch a lot of streamed stuff, I'm still not completely sold on it. I like to have the discs, especially as we always get the 3D versions of the blurays.

I understand - definitely investigate the PS3 and OPPO players then.

Could it be the TV settings on the BluRay input? I know I had to set up all my inputs on the TV to get the best out of them, like turning off the cinema bollocks and dynamic crap and smooth motion my arse.

I'd go browse around AVForums.com for advice on this stuff, especially on set up.

Main thing you want with a Blu Ray source is all the digital processing crap turned off or low.

You also want to ensure the player is outputting the best format and the TV can handle it. e.g. 1080p/24fps for any film content.

Streaming, best I've seen is Amazon on their HD sources. Some of the HD films on there is really excellent quality. Their SD stuff can be terrible though. Horibly compressed and worse some old films only in SD look like they've been transferred from VHS!

You also want to ensure the player is outputting the best format and the TV can handle it. e.g. 1080p/24fps for any film content.

I wonder whether that might actually be the problem. 24fps is the [i]only [/i]option at 1080p in 3D, it can't be anything else. Knocking it down to 720p takes it to 50 (or 60) which might solve the OP's ghosting issue on fast action scenes.

Ghosting is your TV. It can't update/refresh the screen quickly enough. The fact you don't get it on other so called HD sources highlights the fact that just because something is labelled HD doesn't mean it is the best quality HD signal - HD only refers to the resolution. The only way to get full progressive scan HD source, i.e. the best possible picture quality, is from a Blu Ray - everything else is a lower quality source even if it is 1080 x 1920 resolution - Sky HD included.

Now we have a purely digital format in HDMI then there is no point in getting an expensive BR player. As far as picture quality is concerned a cheap one will provide an identical picture to an expensive one - more expensive ones might have more features and maybe better build quality maybe longer lasting.

These guys are right, but I'd always opt more for an independent amp and player over an integrated bundle, it will likely just be far better quality. Also, doesn't need to be stupid amounts of money. However, if you have crappy package speakers then a decent amp may start to show them up.

Essentially it's a slippery slope 🙂

wobbliscott - There are lots of things that can go wrong at the Blu-Ray player and at the TV. HDMI being digital doesn't eliminate these.

Your first comment about the ghosting being linked to the HD quality not being high enough doesn't make sense to me. "It can't update/refresh the screen quickly enough" wouldn't be anything to do with the source material.

Again there are lots of things that can go wrong with any video signal along the chain (including at the encoding stage).

To the OP - The above posters are correct in that your problems may not be down to your hardware - it could be settings. Worth spending a bit of time going through them just in case.

I wonder actually whether it might be the cable. BD 3D requires a HDMI 1.4 compatible cable; I'd assumed that if it wasn't compatible then it just wouldn't work at all but I'm not actually sure, maybe it'll try but drop frames. That could explain it.

It's odd as Ghosting was a phenomenon with early Plasma and LCD displays and shouldn't be an issue on modern displays - is it an older display? If so then I'm speculating that the ghosting could be down to the TV not be able to cope with input signal rather than a problem with the source signal. An HD signal from a BR player is progressive scan compared to Interlaced scanning that you get with Sky HD. So the signal from a BR player contains twice the content/information so requires more oomph from the TV to process all that information, which might explain why there in no ghosting affect with other HD sources other than BR.

It's an easy test to see if it is the TV or the BR player - plug a different BR player into the TV set and see if you get the same effect. One other thing to try is to turn off any TV settings that modify or affect the picture, like Noise Reduction, as this is just adding more processing requirements onto the TV.

Obviously if there is a fault in the BR player then that's different and I guess any number of strange affects could be possible, but that should be an easy thing to test and eliminate.

My first thought was the TV, and I have been through all the settings, but none seem to make any difference.

The motion problem isn't just on 3D bluray either - but on all bluray movies - some more noticeable than others - Ant Man for example is pretty bad for it.

I figured a more expensive player would have better image processing hardware/software and thus would be more likely to produce a better output.

I'll do a bit of searching on AVforums.

An HD signal from a BR player is progressive scan compared to Interlaced scanning that you get with Sky HD.

Dunno about 2D BD but that's definitely the case for 3D; there is no interlaced option in the authoring guidelines.

I'll start the suggestions with a Tannoy surround sound speaker package (£200 ish), sony/Yamaha/denon/onkyo/pioneer amp of your choice (£250-300) and a Sony bluray player £70-100).

Or if you can afford it the £350-400 Tannoy speakers (richer sounds prices).

Will blow most one box solutions out of the water.

But do turn off all processing.

The major plus for me with BD is HD sound. You only get Dolby 5.1 with most other sources. The difference is astounding