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Marantz UD5007 vs. PS4 first impressions


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I don't see much Marantz stuff, especially not blu ray players, so I figured I'd make a mini review. I've been on the PlayStation bandwagon for nearly 20 years and used to be a big fanboy, so my personal rig until yesterday has been a PS4. I have been increasingly falling out of love with it. The PS3 was praised as a great disc player but the PS4 is disappointing even though lots of people use it. Reasons?

1. The remotes constantly have to be charged. Watch 2-3 movies and you better charge the thing. If you don't, it can literally shut down in the middle of a movie, and I don't mean just the remote either, your movie will stop.

2. By and large all this recharging does is power the lights on the remotes, which can't be shut off. So, you have a purple flashlight while you're watching a movie in your otherwise light controlled room. It makes no sense.

3. You can't just chuck this remote in say an armrest storage, you have to be careful where you place it. Otherwise you can easily compress the triggers on the back at inopportune times, which fast forwards the movie.

4. Up until very recently, there was no media player for it, you couldn't even listen to a CD, or MP3, nothing like that. One just came out but it's buggy from what I hear.

5. It's loud. The disc spinning mechanism is loud and the fans are also loud. It can often easily be heard in quiet scenes.

6. Boot-up and shut down times are pretty slow for a stupid disc player.

7. Comparatively, the loading mechanism is pretty primal, just not very smooth.

8. They don't make a disc specific remote for them anymore.

So, I upgraded to the Marantz. I was skeptical about the actual performance, I figured it's HDMI so it'll be identical right? Ha. No. I watched American Sniper and the Metallica movie last night. First impressions:

1. The unit itself seems solidly built and high end before it was even hooked up to anything. The faceplate's shape matches the receivers which looks sharp when stacked.

2. Loading discs was oh so smooth, like butter. Night and day difference.

3. Surround sound was WAY more obvious. The gunshots and ricochets as well as a concert crowd screaming had much more presence. I don't know if it is decoding or what. As far as that goes, I had to turn my subs down a little due to them doing the same thing, it was like everything except the mains got a big boost even though I did nothing to my receiver.

4. It was much warmer. Never expected this, I figured all the sound processing would be done in the receiver and it would sound identical. Nope. I had gotten to where I only liked listening to Metallica if the highs were severely killed, otherwise the cymbals were painful. Even voices sounded more crisp than I would like otherwise. Maybe this was due to the PS4 though. The Marantz made these aspects sound MUCH more pleasant.

5. Boot-up, loading, shut down, finding the setup menu, I felt was all significantly faster than the PS4.

My only complaint so far is that the remote app that you can use on your phone or tablet apparently only works with receivers, not blu ray players. There is even a disc remote interface built in to the app so this is confusing. Hopefully I am missing something but I talked to tech support and they said it won't work. Pretty disappointed in that, this would have been nice. What's the point of having an app on your tablet if you just have to turn around and use the standard remote for discs? If you link the receiver and disc player together at least you can stick with one IR remote, but apparently this is the best it gets. Adding a tablet just adds another clunky remote at that point.

Will update once I get to test drive some of the other toys, such as the NetFlix app.

Edited by MetropolisLakeOutfitters
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I have been tinkering with a PS4 my uncle gave me. Doesnt pass every spears and munsil test like a Oppo 103D or new $100 Sony, but the one it has issues with probably does not matter.

 

Hate the controller, and as with the PS3 I was able to see a little banding in a blu-ray scene that iI did not in a 103D. All small stuff, and I think it is a pretty good blu-ray player if you already have it, but the DVD PQ is bad. I usually dont complain about DVD, but its bad. It won't be staying in the main HT and will be getting sold most likely since I do not game. My other complaint, and this was the PS3 too, all apps are RGB output (netflix/amazon) and many tv's and AVR's need separate settings for RGB to be displayed properly, or do not handle it well regardless. Roku is the same way and has been. I mean just output ycbcr or offer a choice...

 

I was also amazed how noisy the seek is on the PS4 drive.

Edited by gadgtfreek
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Nice review and I completely concur.  The PS4 is a fine machine for gaming, but it is a disappointing Blu-ray player.  Sony obviously wanted the PS3 to be a "media console", but very clearly decided against the PS4 being the same.  In most respects, the Blu-ray capability is an afterthought on the PS4.  There have been several updates to the PS4 firmware since release, but in over 18 months, there has been next to none that address the Blu-ray piece.  As you said, there isn't even a workable remote for it after a year and a half. 

 

Like you, switching to a standalone player was a very noticeable upgrade and I've not regretted it at all.  In fact, the decision is reinforced every time I watch a Blu-ray or listen to a disc. 

 

Glad I'm not the only one that is less than impressed with the PS4 in the Blu-ray department. 

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The ps4 is still a very new player overall. Don't does 3-4 iterations of each new line so it'll be interesting to see what the next version does in the next few years.

It's disappointing to hear that they seemingly shortcutted things on the 4.

Happy to hear you found a good bluray plaayer though

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The ps4 is still a very new player overall. Don't does 3-4 iterations of each new line so it'll be interesting to see what the next version does in the next few years.

It's disappointing to hear that they seemingly shortcutted things on the 4.

The PS3 was pretty good, they could have improved on it but didn't. That thing came out 9 years ago. Plenty of time to get it right. They just don't want it to be a good disc player.

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Oh, and as an update, I figured out how to make the remote app work. Basically you have to enable HDMI communications through both the receiver and disc player, then I guess rebooting both is necessary. After that, you can control the disc player on your phone, which is hella nice. I can be slouched down on the other side of my room as the equipment which is facing the wrong way, and pause, fast forward, tweak the volume levels, etc., without even attempting to point a remote in the right direction, plus that's two less remotes I have to keep up with. Second level Marantz tech support didn't even know this.

Edited by MetropolisLakeOutfitters
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The PS3 was pretty good, they could have improved on it but didn't. That thing came out 9 years ago. Plenty of time to get it right. They just don't want it to be a good disc player.

 

They made the decision to move away from the media center idea of the PS3 toward a more gaming specific platform.  I read somewhere that for much, if not all, of the time the PS3 was their flagship that Sony lost money on every unit due to the cost of the hardware (of course making up the money in accessories and first party games).  I haven't seen anything about the PS4 on it's profitability yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if they've either closed the gap or are making money on the units. 

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I read somewhere that for much, if not all, of the time the PS3 was their flagship that Sony lost money on every unit due to the cost of the hardware (of course making up the money in accessories and first party games).  I haven't seen anything about the PS4 on it's profitability yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if they've either closed the gap or are making money on the units.

It would actually cost less to take the light out of the remotes, and a whole bunch of people would be happy. You can already dim it via software. The media player is all software based, all the hardware was already there. The disc remote is purchased separately and wouldn't lose any money by including ones that weren't used. They could have fixed many of these issues with no extra hardware costs.

My theory is that they wanted to sell other stuff. Wanted to sell Sony blu ray players. Wanted you to buy the Sony streaming music subscription service. I think they purposely dumbed it down.

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It would actually cost less to take the light out of the remotes, and a whole bunch of people would be happy. You can already dim it via software. The media player is all software based, all the hardware was already there. The disc remote is purchased separately and wouldn't lose any money by including ones that weren't used. They could have fixed many of these issues with no extra hardware costs.

My theory is that they wanted to sell other stuff. Wanted to sell Sony blu ray players. Wanted you to buy the Sony streaming music subscription service. I think they purposely dumbed it down.

 

Agree...what I was getting at was that they are likely focusing resources on the gaming/streaming side versus supporting and updating software for the Blu-ray/media center side.  More a shift of resources and priorities than a true hardware downgrade.  The hardware is likely there for a Blu-ray that is better than the PS3, but they're saving money by dedicating no resources to software support/upgrades/etc.  So they're shipping units that are less costly from a software side...and, as you pointed out, no longer competing with themselves on the Blu-ray player side.

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  • 3 months later...

As a follow-up, I have a few new complaints about the 5007 compared to the PS4 if anybody is interested.

1. boot-up time. When you turn on the Marantz, it just sits there. Hit the power button, it literally does nothing for like 15 seconds, then it thinks about booting up. Makes it feel like it is broken. Then suddenly it wakes up and everything is good. Just kind of annoying. PS4 is nearly instant, like maybe a few seconds comparatively.

2. If you leave a disc in the player when you turn it off, it tries to instantly auto load that disc when you turn it back on. Not a huge deal I guess, but it slows down the load process because it then wants to be stubborn about stopping the load, then you have to wait for it to stop then load another disc.

3. The remote for the Marantz disc player is way too similar to the receivers. With most things it doesn't matter, but if you want to change something in the setup on the receiver, which you can do in stride, but accidentally grab the disc player remote and hit the setup button, the disc stops playing and the disc player loads its setup. This takes a very long time to get out of and get going again. I've accidentally done this multiple times.

Edited by MetropolisLakeOutfitters
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  • 2 months later...

6 month follow-up:

Finally figured out the biggest weakness of the Marantz. It does NOT like scratches whatsoever. With multiple other players, it will fast forward until it is clear from the scratch. The Marantz, not so much, the thing will literally lock up. I have had to take panels off my rack and unplug the power cord on several occasions. That's the only way it will recover, otherwise it will sit there with a frozen picture indefinitely. Pretty aggravating. If I rent a movie that is the least bit scratched up, especially an older DVD, I have to use the PS4, otherwise its a huge deal. It only likes new blu rays that are in pristine condition.

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It only likes new blu rays that are in pristine condition

That's kind of a big bummer. If you frequent Redbox, that can be especially annoying. Could the laser inside just be dirty, or maybe malfunctioning in a different way?

Edited by Shodrewken
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