Can't Whip up enthusiam for Blu Ray - Page 4

And don't forget the lossless audio.  My favorite part of the HD experience. 

The whole package in the HD presentation is what's exciting.  Even on my budget-constrained system the difference in PQ & SQ is stunning. 

Quote: Judging by your reasons (which are addressed below), it seems as if you're basing Blu-ray on the initial set of devices and titles, because almost all of the problems you specify aren't nearly as widespread as it's being made out to be, or are in fact equally if not more applicable to DVD.
To each his own, but most of us (including you) seem to agree that they are getting better.  I actually think it's the exact opposite, seeing as how there's no real consistency in menu layouts and scheme for DVDs.  Meanwhile, at least some studios like Warner (including HBO and New Line) and Criterion seem to have near-100% similar templates for Blu-ray when it comes to both root and pop-up menus across their respective offerings.  Plus, apart from interactive-intense new release titles like Iron Man, most studios maintain seem to maintain a simpler interface roughly analogous to DVD, especially when it comes to catalog titles.
This is definitely an issue.  However, most releases now include an easy-to-use bookmark function that fulfills a similar purpose, and I can't recall if many DVD players could resume after a complete shutdown 3 years into that format's release either.
Could you elaborate? This may have been a problem for 1st-gen players, but every player and HDMI-compatible receiver released in the last year or two seems to be able to handle the audio just fine, which means it's no more or less complicated than the DVD options of yore.  And apart from BD-Live (which can be easily disabled), special features are rarely treated any different than they were on DVD, apart from sometimes getting an HD upgrade.
Again, I'm not sure what's being referred to here.  I can't think of any of BDs that required returning to the main menu for specific actions during a movie.  Certainly, enabling alternate audio, subtitles, and on-screen special features have always seemed to be available via buttons on the remote, and via pop-up otherwise.  I could be lucky, of course.
As has been pointed out, this isn't an accurate assessment of how the technology has advanced.  I doubt you'd find many people here who would argue that load times haven't improved, for example.  And as it has also been pointed out, players (and supporting tech like receivers and TVs) have been getting better and better quite steadily.  It's hard to forget that the format is only 3.5 years old, sometimes.

In the end, David put it much more eloquently than I did, especially when it comes to the factors and ideas behind DVD's adoption being erroneously compared to that of Blu-ray.

I had to get into this one. I purchased a Blu ray player in November but I cannot afford a flat screen tv (40 inches or more) yet. I have about 200 DVDs and I have been thru it all the letters (BETA, LD, DVD). I know they have outstanding quality, but some studios don't port all of the extras from DVD to BD, which can be pretty extensive. I am glad that the prices on BD discs and players are coming down tho. The DVD2BLU program from Warners is something that every studio should do. HEY WARNERS, MORE TITLES!!!

Gregory:

Welcome to the forum. 

I'm basing this on a new, current model Panasonic BD60, as well as comments from users of other players.

My experience distills to this: I've had Blu Ray discs crash and completely lock up the player, requiring a power off / on cycle. I've never had a DVD crash.

The bookmark function is not universal, making it basically a non feature. You must experiment to determine if it will work. And the discs that do support it make it cumbersome to use, in my experience. The movie doesn't simply resume where you left off. You must re-suffer the previews, start the movie. Then navigate into the bookmark-menu system, find the bookmark, and activate it. Compare that to: press play and DVD player resumes where you left off.

The in-movie menu will offer some options, like commentary, that when selected say you must exit that menu and go to the main menu, dig for it, and turn it on. This in-movie menu is great, except when it isn't.

The audio playback suffers from technical parameters, which boil down to this: the output format during the movie and during special features depends on the setup option.It seems that if you choose one option for best output you can find that features will not have any audio at all. Even after getting feedback here and reading my manual, I still don't fully understand it.

All this is because I care about the user experience. I think things should be well designed and easy to use. If you don't care about that, then Blu Ray will seem just dandy. But based on modest experience and comments from others, it's a mediocre design and implementation. It does not have the refinement that you find in the best consumer products. And, most infuriating, it goes backwards in tossing out at least one strength from DVD.

I tend to agree. Cutting too close to FREE, seems a violation of sorts. To begin with, it sets a bad precedent for consumer expectations; people "want it all", and by the way...they don't want to pay for it. I can't articulate much more without giving it some thought, but it just seems upon initial reflection, to signal less than positive things for the marketplace and the industry. Of course, nobody wants to shell out their hard earned money (me included), but at some point, near-free will spell an erosion in quality on several levels. We have enough of a disposable culture already.  

Edited by DaveF - 2/26/10 at 6:58pm

 Jesse you remind me of Kevin Bacon in Animal House...as everyone is rioting and things are out of control Chip keeps saying "Remain calm. All is well,   ALL IS  WELL!!! ..lol...thing is it's not...it can be much better thats all were saying.

I certainly don't object to paying $5 for a DVD, but the studios are making it difficult for themselves when they charge $5 for something like the Adam West Batman on DVD but $30 for the blu-ray.

Quote:


If you're going to resort to the hyperbole above and in your previous post to describe the situation and then go on to claim I don't think things can be better, of course rebutting it in a measured faction is going to seem weird, especially since I actually, y'know, admitted things can be better.  If you honestly believe that everything is like a riot and out-of-control with the format, as opposed to in need of tweaking, then perhaps you need to step back and review what's actually happening technologically and economically.  This goes double if you're going to make comparisons to DVD that are neither universal nor (as David points out) directly related.  To you, for some reason, the sky is falling, so don't act surprised when people think of Chicken Little.

Quote:
Coincidentally, I bought the Adam West Batman Blu-ray just a few days ago.  It's only $10 on Amazon, not $30.

Yeah, now it is. But it retailed for $39 when it first came out.

I enjoy blu ray. I had have some problems with it. I had some discs not even play or have problems playing them. its a bit weird about that. I still like blu ray.
they do look great in HD. I got a panasonic 80, insignia nsbrdvd3 and the ps3.

Jacob

Frankly, the Adam West Batman didn't cost $5 when it was first released, either. 

But the DVD wasn't $5 when it first came out.  So you're comparing the price of the DVD now, after it's been out for ten years, to the price of the Blu-ray upon its initial release?

I've got an Oppo BDP-83 and a PS3 so thankfully load times have never been an issue for me. I've also never had any issues with those players freezing, crashing, locking up, etc. I think it's mainly because Sony and Oppo are constantly issuing firmware updates and addressing any issues that may occur with certain titles.

It doesn't matter what price the DVD was when it was initially released. Its only competition then was the laserdisc, which was priced higher. The point is that Fox expected people to pay $30-40 dollars for a BD when the same title was available for $5 on DVD.

That would have been like trying to sell the DVD for $200 when the laserdisc was available for $30, and then being surprised that the title didn't meet or exceed sales expectations.

My point was simply that the studios shot themselves in the foot by releasing super-cheap DVDs - it's hard to get people to re-buy discs on a new format when many catalogue titles are priced five times higher on BD than they are on DVD.

I enjoy blu ray. I had have some problems with it. I had some discs not even play or have problems playing them. its a bit weird about that. I still like blu ray.
they do look great in HD. I got a panasonic 80, insignia nsbrdvd3 and the ps3.

you need a firmware update for your Blu-Ray player

I have experienced this problem from time to time (probably on 3 discs in 1 year of Blu player ownership

each time I have plugged my player into the internet, updated the firmware and its been 100% after that ;)

Quote: Unless that was the only way to sell DVDs that have been out for years and can't be sold for $20 any more. :) The problems isn't that DVD is too cheap, but that Blu Ray is too expensive. Moreover,  DVD is still awesome, and on-demand and downloaded content are making inroads -- DVD had no such competition. And a couple years spent fighting a format war followed by a year or two of players lagging evolving specifications further hurt customer confidence and buy-in.

Now that players are ~$150, I think it's a safe recommendation to people. If they need or want a new player, Blu Ray is cheap enough to be bought instead of DVD.

Every time I plug a DVD in and watch it in front projection, all I can think is how I'd like to see whatever I'm watching remastered for Blu. Even upscaled DVD is barely tolerable; although, in reality, I know that a lot of stuff will never see an HD release or wouldn't be improved even if it was released on Blu. I agree that BDs are too expensive. That is why I hve gone back to renting the majority of stuff and then wait for the ones I want to come down to a reasonable price. 

$150? Hell you can get a full featured blu-ray player for under $100 now.

Doug

I can say that I have almost no delay in loading a Blu-ray or HD DVD using my HTPC. They load just a quickly as my sDVD discs. I am using a Hitachi/LG drive with Total Media Theatre as the media player and never had any issues with discs locking up, etc. unless there was a problem with the disc itself. Also TMT allows me to resume a disc from where I left off when I shut it down instead of having to start over from the beginning. In the beginning with Blu-ray I wasn't that impressed with the overall picture quality. But as new product is coming to the market the difference to my eyes watching on my 50 plasma is night and day over the same movie I have on sDVD. And the audio codecs like DTS MA and Dolby Digital really make the audio portion of my HT shine. The only thing I am missing is a front projection system. And that is due to real estate and not the equipment.

So for me the price I pay for Blu-ray discs is worth the little extra I pay over sDVD. And I am upgrading my sDVDs to Blu-ray when they come available. I did the same thing when going from Beta to LD to DVD and now Blu-ray/HD DVD. And when we get 4K and 8K systems I will be there when I can.

Parker

Quote: Indeed. My point is that someone can go to a retail BestBuy and get e.g. a Sony Blu Ray player for about $150 without watching for coupons or deals or buying what feels like an off-brand. :) That you can get it for $100 (which I did on Black Friday), perhaps with an off-brand makes it all the easier for people to afford.

Vizio's blu-ray player is $99 at Costco when I was there 2 days ago. I don't think that was a sale price. I've seen Panasonic blu-ray players at Walmart for $129.

Doug

Well I've gone to the dark side (Blu, really). I needed new multi-region DVD player so I thought I might as well buy a Blu-ray that could do that. I still think DVD looks great, & I'm still buying them as they're so cheap (I bought Inglourious Basterds for £5 the other day). I'm thinking of buying Blu for old favorite movies, mainly 50's-60's (real keepers), I've bought The Towering Inferno, The Longest Day, & How The West Was Won (for the smilebox). Not a lot around from that era yet, hopefully Warner will release Ben-Hur & the '62 Mutiny On The Bounty soon, & maybe Fox will wake up from its coma before too long!

 It's not the dark side, it's the only side. Welcome to the new century.  :-)

Yeah.  I never thought any format would look better than laserdisc....then dvd arrived...which is outclassed by Blu-Ray.  Pretty sure Blu-Ray will be the last stop for home theater enthusiasts...until 3-D becomes the "norm".

 Bryan,

I'm surprised that there is enough enthusiasm about 3-D, to put so many manufacturers on the fast-track for implementation. Seems as if overnight, several major players were talking bout 3-D hardware and software.

I have trouble being enthusiastic. Even if top-notch display devices are marketed for reasonable prices, it's hard to believe that the effect will be as good as what's seen in a well equipped digital multi-plex. And that's just skirting along the surface of the entire concept of 3-D, which seems to me, little more than a gimmick.

I can't imagine any of the movies that I hold in high regard, being improved by experience in 3-D. In fact, more often than not, the thought of 3-D rendering of those movies is a turn-off that I would probably specifically avoid. 

Every year electronics manufacturers need a new spec-list bullet point to differentiate from last year's models. Honestly, what was left? 3D gives them not just a new feature to tout, but an argument for a person to re-buy their entire system! And 3D, from a consumer electronics standpoint, should be essentially free: it's a bit more bandwidth and a bit more programming in what are essentially computers now.

What's amazing to me is that the industry agreed so quickly on a spec. Perhaps they learned a lesson from the Blu Ray problems.
Edited by DaveF - 3/21/10 at 2:35pm

I tend to agree w/ this also although I also agree w/ David that I don't really see much appeal from 3D in the HT setting.  Might be a nice-to-have for just a handful of fun flicks for the forseeable future, but it'll probably just end up being not much more than a novelty and a passing fad.

And for me, I also really doubt I'll ever need anything better than 1080p for the home since I don't have a FP setup and don't really forsee moving to one (although I've briefly considered it in passing).  Even on a sizeable FP setup, I'd think I could still be very happy w/ 1080p.

_Man_