sony blu-ray 149.99

khounba

Not to mention the difference in Media size when going from VHS to DVD. DVD was cheaper to produce and package for the masses.

But I have noticed that Blue ray packaging is a little smaller than DVD. Perhaps the same line of thinking.

tima

Very true. However, I've already bought more Blu-Ray prerecorded discs than I ever bought DVDs, which admittedly, was not very many. I know people who bought hundreds of DVDs, but I never thought the quality was good enough to warrant such an expensive collection. Of course, I can't help but laugh when I see BDs of some lame movie priced at $39 at Barnes & Noble. I normally can't bring myself to spend more than $20, and even that's a stretch, so I watch for sales. I did splurge on the "Planet Earth" set, and I even recently bought the new "Rent" BD for $27. The latter is a filmed Broadway show, which is a rare beast indeed, and IME, they don't come down in price much, at least not for a long time. I can't imagine ever buying another DVD, unless that's the only format there is and will ever be for something I really want, maybe like a Larry Carlton instructional guitar DVD or something.

DRC

An absolutely EXCEPTIONAL set of discs which I also splurged on. It really shows off 1080p in all its glory. The Galapagos disc is also good. I usually use one of these to show friends what bluray can really look like when they come over. Its reference quality.

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StaceyO

Yep--it's ENORMOUS, covers the entire wall.

DRC

I have about 300 DVD's of which maybe 10% where bought. Usenet is your friend.

Larry Carlton is a good teacher, again, usenet is your friend.

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LaSalleAve

that will be my first purchase of a blu ray disc or set for sure.

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red55

Mine was How the West was Won. Unless you saw it in three-projector Cinerama in the early 1960's, you haven't seen most of this film until the Blu-Ray version came out. Even the widescreen DVD version cropped out pieces of the old 70mm film format. All of the overlap relicts have been digitally edited out and it not only plays in superwidescreen, but also in a format that simulates the curved Cinerama Theater screen. It seems like the buffalo are actually running around you.

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DRC

Interesting, I didnt know that about the movie. I was just looking over the bluray specs and I see it has two transfers in the box. One is a smiley face transfer and the other is a 2.89:1 flat transfer. That is a mighty small letterbox. How big is your display Red? Does the screen over power the movie being as that aspect ratio is probably only filling up 60% of your viewable TV area.

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red55

It's a 46-inch in a small room and it looks great. When it's in the simulated Cinerama mode it fills more of the screen because the edges widen like a curved Cinerama screen in perspective.

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LesMilesFan

a decent deal

CrunchDeals: A brand new Blu-ray player for $99.99

martin

1. if you are gonna get blu-ray, just get a ps3
2. physical media is dead. just watch hd streaming on your 360 or whatever through netflix. buying those discs just hurt the dadbern environnments.

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LesMilesFan

I agree. And I probably will if they consistently sell for under $300.


i will do this too whenever netflix decides to actually stream new HD movies and not 6 month old movies.

tima

Who here actually has enough bandwidth to stream HD during peak hours? Cox in BR doesn't even come close.

friedriches

DirecTV on demand is now at 1080p for some content.

As someone who installs home theater systems (Bose units, though we do offer JBL Synthesis systems) I can tell you that I never, ever like it when someone defaults on getting a Blu-Ray player after investing in a screen (especially these new Samsung LED Tvs, they are AMAZING) and surround system (even though Bose isn't quite the best out there, they still sound pretty good).

It's true the players are somewhat expensive, and somewhat annoying to deal with (occasionally having to update the firmware of the player via ethernet or USB) but when you compare some of the better disks out there (there are good and bad quality transfers, always check google for reviews of the disks themselves before buying one I always say) with traditional DVD media, it's absolutely silly.

About the PS3: if you already have a 360, I disagree. There are few exclusives for the PS3 that are worth getting that system over a standard Blu-Ray player for. I own both, and after beating Metal Gear Solid 4 and Killzone 2 there is nothing left to do but wait for Little Big Planet to drop in price.

As for my first Blu-Ray? Kingdom of Heaven director's cut (cooincidentally what I just changed my avatar to). But my favorite Blu-Ray is the Band of Brothers box set. If you have to buy a Blu-Ray anything, this is it. Amazing transfer quality, sound, and content. Worth every penny.

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islstl

I haven't gone blu-ray yet. I notice blockbuster has a pretty good selection of them now.

Would you equate it to watching standard def TV to HDTV 1080i? Is it that much of a difference over standard DVD?

What is standard DVD? 500 lines of resolution?

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martin

that sucks. i have time warner cable and it streams netflix in hd through my 360 almost always. i was surprised at the quality. and it pretty much never stops to buffer or whatever.

going forward i gotta believe we will all have the ability to stream hd.

also, in general i do not like to own physical things, media in particular. just clutters up your life. i have a damn closet full of books and cds and crap and i hate it. i dont want to have to own a stupid physical disc to watch a movie.

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StaceyO

Honestly, I can't tell that much of a difference between blu-ray and regular DVD.

martin

well, to tell the difference, you can just compare over the air hd, which should look comparable to blu ray, to standard dvd.

i think 1080p looks a bit better than dvd, but not so much that it really concerns me.

for the most part i just steal hd movies from the internet, put them on a usb drive, and then watch them on my laptop or through my 360 on my plasma.

also i seem to be running out of movies to watch, because i see all the worthy ones in the theater. and i can barely keep up with my dang tivo, with all the episodes of the office and mythbusters and american chopper and the goode family and whale wars and ultimate fighter and dhani tackles the globe and top gear and little people big world and good eats. plus with maybe one video game per month that i want to play (this month it is ghostbusters) i am already backed up like crazy with images to watch, without blurays to deal with.

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friedriches

Standard tube TV resolution is 480i, but some of the newer TVs did 480p (progressive scanning).

Progressive is always, always, always better than interlacing. When John Logie Bard first developed the telescreen, he used interlaced scanning. Now with modern technology we are able to display images in progressive scanning.

(For those that don't know: TV images are designated by either 480, 720, or 1080, each being the number of lines in the image. Scientists have pretty much come to the conclusion that the human eye cannot notice a difference between 1080 and anything higher. The i and p, as stated before, stand for interlaced or progressive scanning. In interlaced scanning, every other line of an image is scanned from top to bottom, and then every line that was missed was scanned from bottom to top. As a result, the image can and often does come out a little less smooth than the image actually is. Progressive scanning does EVERY line from top to bottom then bottom to top, which results in a much smoother image.

The number of times an image is scanned in one second is referred to as hertz (Hz). Most modern TVs have image processors that render "fill-in" images in between the modern US standard of 60 Hz, from 100-300 Hz depending on the TV (saw a Sony in Germany that did 300 Hz... stupid). It says to create a more "realistic" image, tho personally I hate it.)

And to address your image quality question, it all depends, like I said before, on the source material. If your disk has a film that was just ported over from DVD and shown in 1080p (see: the Ocean's movies Blu-Ray set. DO NOT BUY, infamous for terrible Blu-Ray quality) then obviously there will be no difference. But if you watch Band of Brothers, re-captured in high-definition from the original film source and presented in full 16:9 (no black bars!) then you will be awed when compared to the original DVD presentation.

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PURPLE TIGER

I enjoy my Blu-Ray players. The only aggravating thing is what friedriches mentioned..."firmware". The movie companies keep adding additonal features to the DVDs and the players have to be updated to read them.

If you buy a new player, you probably won't experince this. Mine are 1 & 2 years old, respectively, and have both required a firmware update. (You can download it to a CD or have the manufacturer send you one.)

The price for Blu-Ray DVDs was dropping until HD (brown label DVDs) lost out to Blu-Ray. The prices froze for a year or so and are just starting to drop again. I've noticed the width of the Blu-Ray aisle at Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc. continues to expand and old movies are starting to surface.

I don't think Blu-Ray is a big deal for tv show box sets or movies with mostly indoor scenes. It really makes a difference for panoramic scenes, animation, and great outdoor action scenes.

If you don't have a quality tv to support it or don't want to spend the money for HDMI cables, don't bother buying the player. To me, it's a package deal.

I have Samsung 1080p televsions and Samsung Blu-Ray players. I don't spend a lot of money on toys and electronics but these have been great buys for us.

BTW...some movies suck no matter what you have.

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friedriches

Samsung has the best TVs and stand-alone players out there right now (I say stand-alone because it's true that the PS3 is the best player out there. It just costs $400.)

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LSU Rubi

I gotta question. My Panasonic HDTV is about 5 years old and has only one HDMI input. That input is currently being used by my direct tv receiver. The TV does support 1080I. My current DVD player is hooked up through one of the component inputs and I want to get a Blu-Ray or a PS3 (which i just bid on one on ebay). What are my options at getting the best picture out of both my receiver and PS3 (or blu-ray)? I wont be getting a new tv anytime soon and if I have to swap out the HDMI cable, that kind of is not a problem.

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friedriches

HDMI switchers are always an option (albeit pricey for a decent one). Component should be fine for 1080i, to be honest. HDMI is now far and away the best option for video quality as well as uncompressed audio, but I'm not sure that you'll be able to tell a difference.

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LSU Rubi

What is the difference between 1080I and 1080P?

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friedriches

sony blu-ray 149.99

I explained it in the third and fourth paragraphs, starting with "for those that don't know".

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