Can't Whip up enthusiam for Blu Ray (1 Viewer)

[Alan Tully]

I'm sure Blu-ray is great, three things stop me investing in it. 1/ Like a lot of people, I need to watch what I spend these days, & you can buy some great movies on DVD for pocket money. 2/ I tend to like older movies (like a lot of people on this board), & I feel that the vast majority of the movies I have will never make it to BR. 3/ DVD's look damn good, great in fact. I suppose if I was projecting them big on a wall I'd see a difference, but on a 42" plasma, I'm very happy with the image.

 

[kemcha]

I have to admit, that I've been a little cautious on my spending as well. While I have purchased a Blu-ray player, I'm using mostly my DVD's right now. I would like to upgrade my TV on DVD library to Blu-ray through an exchange program but studios just aren't doing that right now.

 

[Worth]

Given that it's now possible to buy a blu-ray player for the price of a handful of DVDs, and the fact that blu-ray rentals are readily available, I really don't understand why anyone who's a film fan wouldn't be into the format at this point.

The difference in image quality between the blus of The Searchers, North by Northwest, the early Bond pictures and their respective DVDs, should be obvious even on the smallest of screens.

I think I'd have blu-ray now even if I didn't have an HD set yet, just to maximize the picture quality and for the imrpoved compression.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Van594

What were the load times like for HD-DVD players? If they were better than Blu-ray that would be reason enough that that format should have won. I'm so annoyed at waiting and I have a PS3 which is considered fast. In the year 2010 we should not have load times for movies...It seems we go backwards the more we go forward.

My HD-A2 is EXCRUCIATINGLY slow to boot up. It's not *too* bad with disc loading times, but it's still slower than my PS3 (except for some BDs that load a ton of Java stuff up front).

Startup times are annoying, but in the grand scheme of things I don't mind waiting an extra minute or two before a movie starts -- as long as it doesn't involve another FBI warning!

My BD-buying over the past 2-3 years has mostly been done over the holiday season, when there are lots of deals. Then I watch 'em over the course of the year until the next batch of holiday sales. If there's something I *really* want that doesn't get discounted below $15 or so, I buy it used online. There are just too many unwatched discs on my shelves to justify spending much on new ones.

 

[Van594]

Originally Posted by Jesse Blacklow

Quote:

Oh, for f***'s sake...the format war is over. Get over it.

Wow you must be fun at parties thanks for that. Is there a problem being curious about something? I really had no opinion either way on the supposed war but it's obvious Blu has many problems that weren't pointed to when all that was going on...sites like the Bits kept hawking it like they have a stake in it or something. Now that I have it all I'm really not that impressed as I should be and obviously many of the studios don't give a rats ass either since they keep releasing sub par discs(not all but more than there should be for a new format). So my eloquent friend deal with it, Blu has some problems and unless they are fixed it will never fully catch on. Be ignorant if you want.

 

[Van594]

Thanks for the info Aaron thats all I wanted to know...appreciate it. I was just curious if there was any difference. I really do think they need to speed up the next generation of players if they are serious about continuing the format.For all it's faults there is moments of greatness though which makes me want this format to succeed. I watched The Searchers the other day and boy does it look great...I just want that feeling more often thats all.

 

[David Deeb]

Originally Posted by kemcha

Well, it would be nice if Blu-ray players were designed so that you could skip past all of those annoying "must watch" warnings and previews.

Agreed. I work in the DVD & Blu-ray authoring industry, and even I am against them.

They do several things:

• They annoy most everyone.
• They do nothing to prevent piracy. In fact, some argue the barriers to accessing content quickly encourage people to seek alternatives.
• Watching programming "on demand" through the cable company does not include all these "warnings"
• On a "collection" that might be watched over several days, the user has to suffer through this many times. If a TV series set has 25, hour-long episodes & you watch only one at a time, is it necessary to be warned 25 times & to hear that the commentary might not reflect so-and-sos opinion?
• On BD, there is already a long load time. This just adds to the consumers frustration.

I like Warners "auto-play" feature on BD. It just starts the movie. You can access the menu if needed. Even though a few argue against it, it seems to be a very consumer friendly & is widely liked.

 

[Worth]

I used to have a Toshiba DVD player with an "auto-play" feature - when the disc was inserted it would search the contents for the largest file and immediately start playing it.

I'd buy a new blu-ray player in a heartbeat if someone introduced one with that function.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

What were the load times like for HD-DVD players? If they were better than Blu-ray that would be reason enough that that format should have won.

I'll be happy to answer this. I know you are only
being curious.

There were less loading time issues with HD-DVD
players from what I remember.

I could answer the second part of your question, but
really, the winner of the format war was not necessarily
based on which format was better. There were some real
politics behind it and I look forward to the book that one day
gets written on the subject.

In the meantime, we have Blu-ray, and good or bad,
we are coping with its minor flaws.

 

[Bryan^H]

Originally Posted by Brent M

I always said I'd never become an "HD snob" meaning I wouldn't be one of those people who found DVD inferior just because there was a better format out there, but I'll be damned if I haven't become exactly that. Anytime I try to watch one of my old DVDs now I just get depressed at how bad they look compared to movies on Blu-Ray. I've become completely spoiled by the PQ(and lossless sound) of Blu and as a result I've sold off almost all of my DVD collection. I have maybe 50 standard def titles left and when those films become available on Blu-Ray they'll be gone as well.

Haha....same here. I've already aced over 70 s-dvd titles in favor of Blu. S-dvd on an LCD set(even upconverted) isn't a pretty thing most times.

 

[cineMANIAC]

I'm almost on the dividing line (on the DVD side) between being an "HD-Snob" and a fervent believer/supporter of DVD...granted it IS tough to watch 480 resolution when your eyes have been treated to hi-def eye candy, this coming from someone who is relatively new to the format. Its funny how 480p today seems prehistoric, kind of like when DVD first arrived and was a vast improvement over VHS' 240 lines. Blu-ray is a whole different story, with more than TWICE as much resolution as regular DVDs and better audio and interactivity. I don't want to go down that road where a vast library becomes obsolete to the point where I don't want to watch anything. I take comfort in the fact that a good number of those DVDs will never make the leap to hi-def

 

[dana martin]

Originally Posted by Brandon Conway

My DVD/BD collection is really my only significant hobby, so I'm thoroughly on board.

sort of the same situation here as well, i will say with the love/hate issue that i really wish that Wal-Mart had a bigger selection, i know a lot of the 8-10 $ blu's are not high art, but why is it that Lionsgate sells for this at Wal-mart buy best buy wants damn near list price, i think the biggest hate part of all of this is that i miss the competitive pricing that BB had to do when Circuit City was around.

 

[Van594]

Thanks for the info all.

I have 26 Blu-ray titles now and would say with half of them I really see a huge difference the other half I think is more the studio not putting much effort into it. I would like to see that corrected but part of me thinks they did it on purpose to push streaming and downloads etc. and have no real interest in Blu. We shall see but I bought into it so like it or not I'm sticking with it until something happens to change my mind.

 

[PaulDA]

Just a note about HD DVD vs BD loading times (I have an HD A2 that I still use regularly for SD DVD and the 160+ HD DVDs in my collection and a PS3). The PS3 is faster than my A2 (I've timed it with a stop watch) BUT the A2 is faster than many first and second generation BD players (again, timed with a stop watch). I suspect (and hope) that the average load time on the most recent batch of BD players is faster than my A2, but, apart from the PS3, based on my comparisons (for what they may be worth), the A2 more than held its own with its contemporaries and even many more recent BD machines. Not an attempt to restart a format war--just my personal observations with a stopwatch.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Yeah, as I stated, I don't ever remember there
being load issues with HD-DVD.

I just hope that future generation standalones
will be able to make the overall process much
faster.

 

[Bryan^H]

Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein

Yeah, as I stated, I don't ever remember there
being load issues with HD-DVD.

I just hope that future generation standalones
will be able to make the overall process much
faster.

A friend of mine got a first generation Sony Blu-Ray player a couple years ago. Some of the Disney films took 7-8 minutes to load. When he noticed My PS3 had practically no loading time(less than a minute) he was furious.
He finally upgraded to a standalone Samsung a few months ago. And the loading time on those very discs is about 90 seconds. Quite an improvement.

 

[hampsteadbandit]

I could answer the second part of your question, but
really, the winner of the format war was not necessarily
based on which format was better. There were some real
politics behind it and I look forward to the book that one day
gets written on the subject.

very true - technical superiority is often second to marketing, financial muscle or just luck...

witness the VHS vs. Betamax "format war"...

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

My non-technical 'solution' to the BD loading issue is simply to pre-load the disc, but not change the input on my receiver from the cable station I'm watching (or surfing) for a couple minutes. By the time I switch to DVD input, the menu's on. One must ... adapt.

I have an LG-390, which is faster than my previous Panasonic BD. Also, players like this update firmware automatically through wireless wi-fi, so to my experience, it seems like it's gotten faster as it adapts and upgrades.

Maybe HD-DVD never had time-loading issues come up since it wasn't around long enough to face any significant software updates.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

Originally Posted by Bryan^H



Haha....same here. I've already aced over 70 s-dvd titles in favor of Blu. S-dvd on an LCD set(even upconverted) isn't a pretty thing most times.

Maybe not with old S-DVDs from 1997 or 1998, but most of the DVDs once we get into the 2000s look great upconverted on my 46" LCD. I have had a different experience ... first I figured I would "ace" all of my DVDs once I started getting my Blu-ray player (and about 35 BDs) , but I have simply found that so many SDs look so good that I don't see the need to go Blu for many of them.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Originally Posted by Joe Karlosi

On a 46" LCD (from say a tad over 9ft away), I too wouldn't feel BD to be a substantial upgrade either.

Now, I'm not saying most DVDs are unwatchable or anything like that. But the diff is quite apparent in most cases. There really aren't that many DVDs that come close to a quality BD. OTOH, I'm not suggesting every DVD needs to be upgraded either...

_Man_