I am considering doing away with my DVD player, and using a Playstation 3 as my DVD player. I am wanting a Blue Ray player, but the Blue Ray players do not read SACD. But a PS3 reads all.
Not only that, but a PS3 is hundreds less then a Blue Ray player.
I bought a PS3 for my 13 year old son for Christmas. I am also thinking of buying a separate Blue ray Player. Why? The PS3 is predominately for gaming and even though there are some similar capabilities between both systems, I have to believe that the Blue Ray Player has more bells and whistles and a better ability to play DVDs than a PS3. The Blue ray player has Dolby True Sound, etc which will enhnace the DVD experience where I don't believe you will find all that with the PS3. Maybe I'm wrong. One thing that I find strange though is that the PS3 can play SACDs and the Blue ray player cannot. Also, one other thing, I want the Blue Ray player to be stationary in my system where I am going to have a 'quick release" setup for the PS3 so my son can move the unit to a TV in his bedroom when the family is fighting about who will watch HD TV in the main viewing room.
I bought the PS2 on the first day of launch about 6 years ago. It was a great DVD player for years, until I bought a separate unit. It displayed a great picture and also had the optical output for 5.1 Dolby or DTS audio tracks. Still to this day, only a progressive scanning DVD player can arguably beat the PS2 in movie watching experience. (on my 6 year old TV)
Technology has come a long way and PS3 is at the leading edge of it. Cell based processing technology, BD capability and enough bells and whistles to do the job for the average or above average viewer.
I'd go for the PS3 and use that for 2 years until BD player prices come back to reality. The PS3 has the HDMI output which will display all HD formats and even 1080p. It also has an optical output which will allow 5.1 Dolby and DTS audio playback. (I'm not sure if it can manage DTS-HD, but your amplifier won't decode it unless you just got a new amp that cost over $1000 in the past couple months.)
I'd like to entertain the guru's setup who has a real BD player and Elite Plasma screen, beat the picture and sound quality of a PS3 player... and then tell me where the $1000 difference is.
Just as PS2 kicked off DVD, the PS3 is a great start to HD entertainment, but you do need a good HDTV set, otherwise you can't enjoy the benefits it will bring.
As for SACD, the PS3 does not have the 6 separate multi-channel outputs like most SACD players have, so I'm not sure how it will playback the 5.1 SACD tracks in true form. Maybe the optical output is capable of carrying these 6 signals, but your amp may not process them correctly? I'm not really sure how this works, becuase amplifiers typically need to use the extention in for SACD as the sound quality and bit rate is very high.