Who's down with the Blu-ray?

[BDBohnzie]

To those who have been using Blu-Ray...is your A-B comparison using a regular DVD player or an upconverting DVD player?

[mredskins]

Originally Posted by BDBohnzie

To those who have been using Blu-Ray...is your A-B comparison using a regular DVD player or an upconverting DVD player?

My dad has a blu ray and I brought over my up convert player. To be honest not a huge step IMO, considering the price. I feel like the future of DVD is going to go the way of CD's. There is going to be some type of "iPod" that will download movies for you and you will watch them on your TV.

It just makes sense people want instant and it would elimante overhead for hollywood. Shipping DVDs, making the dvd, marketing the DVD, etc...

The blu-rays will be kicked to the curb soon.

[onlydarksets]

Upconverting DVD players are hype. You can't "create" information that doesn't exist - you are still getting DVD-resolution. Granted, many upconverting DVD players have a better scaler than some TV sets, but there is simply no way DVD can approach Blu-ray, because Blu-ray has 6x the resolution of DVD.

Of course, there is a limit to the resolution the eye can perceive. Still, on a sub-65" set, that limit is around 720p, not 480p.

[dmek25]

im a gadget type, but i say no to blue ray

[onlydarksets]

Originally Posted by mredskins

It just makes sense people want instant and it would elimante overhead for hollywood. Shipping DVDs, making the dvd, marketing the DVD, etc...

I agree - digital downloads are the future for HD+ quality.

Originally Posted by mredskins

The blu-rays will be kicked to the curb soon.

At their current pace, I agree. However, if the players drop in price (~$100-$150) and the discs drop as well (~$15-$20), then I think it will supplant DVDs and stick around as an "ownership" medium. There are a lot of folks out there who like to own their movies and not deal with DRM.

[mredskins]

Originally Posted by onlydarksets

Upconverting DVD players are hype. You can't "create" information that doesn't exist - you are still getting DVD-resolution. Granted, many upconverting DVD players have a better scaler than some TV sets, but there is simply no way DVD can approach Blu-ray, because Blu-ray has 6x the resolution of DVD.

Of course, there is a limit to the resolution the eye can perceive. Still, on a sub-65" set, that limit is around 720p, not 480p.

To each is own. I agree the BR is better picture but not enough better to justify the extra dollars.

[firstdown]

Is this much of an upgrade over my VCR? I was thinking about upgrading that to a DVD player sense its hard to rent VCR tapes. I can find them by the box at garage sales but how many times can you watch Jaws.

[onlydarksets]

lol, nah, it's all hype. I hope your VCR is a Beta, though - I hear VHS is dead.

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by onlydarksets

lol, nah, it's all hype. I hope your VCR is a Beta, though - I hear VHS is dead.

No never could afford the Betta so I stuck with VHS.

[mredskins]

In the day a Beta machine was like a couple hundred bucks, I feel bad for the people who jumped on that wagon.

[onlydarksets]

My step-dad still has one...

[ArtMonkDrillz]

Nothing beats the awesome inconvience of an oversized Laserdisc. I can still remember staring at them in awe at the old Erol's video.

[onlydarksets]

My step-dad had that, too, along with about 200 laserdiscs. And we had Erol's around the corner. Red box meant VHS, black meant Beta.

[saden1]

With respect to Blu-Ray longevity, it's gonna be here for at least 10 years. Honestly, people shouldn't be discouraged by whether it has staying power, it actually beat out HD-DVD and the people advicing the studio executives aren't smart enough yet to figure out what the public really wants yet. They're simply too scared to take the streaming movies over the internet pludge without making the whole process painful and a turn off. I ****ing hate DRM but maybe most people don't care enough to care either way. Me? I like owning physical things and I loath iTunes and Zune...renting music my ass.

As for laserdiscs, GMU library had a large collection of laserdisc movies when I went to school there...I wonder if they still have them...I watched all the classic movies on them.

[BDBohnzie]

I remember trips to Erol's to rent videos. Before Erol's, there was a small chain (I know of stores in Bethesda and Gaithersburg) called The Video Place that we went to. And we also had a Beta machine, that had a wired remote that essentially had 2 functions on it: Play and Pause.