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BluRay for Dummies...or, what must I know before buying? (1 Viewer)

DaveF

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These cards are cheap, but it's a hidden cost I don't want to forget. My wife and I tend to watch special features on DVDs, so I want to make sure we can access whatever bonus materials are available. Although I don't understand why memory is needed to watch bonus materials. Is this different from the bonus features typically found on a DVD?
 

Ronald Epstein

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Dave,

This answer is based on a "best guess."


Unlike normal DVD content, BD LIVE content
is streamed to your player. Rather than put
the unnecessary demand of playing that content
over and over again (plus searching through it) on
the server, it is stored on the memory card.
 

DaveF

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Thanks!

I'm watching prices. In hindsight, I should have bought the BD80 at $150; but I didn't decide for sure I wanted to get a Blu Ray this year until the sale was over. I'm hoping it will drop again in the next 30 days, though anything under $200 will be fine.

The problem is that getting Blu Ray suggests getting a new receiver and that suggests finally upgrading my speakers. I'm trying not to have my $200 upgrade turn into a $2000 upgrade this year :)

And poke Adam about that NewEgg affililiate link
 

Ronald Epstein

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Hate to tell you this, Dave, but the first thing I
bought after my BD player purchase was a
new receiver to handle the HDMI switiching.

Your thinking ahead quite well.
 

DaveF

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So very tempting. The problem is that the receiver I bought 8 years ago has turned out to be surprisingly future-proof and continues to work flawlessly. And a $500 receiver is really a $1000 expense under the marital rule of "something nice for me, something nice for her". She got her new digital camera in response to my Xbox 360 last year!
 

Scott Merryfield

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Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein

Hate to tell you this, Dave, but the first thing I
bought after my BD player purchase was a
new receiver to handle the HDMI switiching.

Your thinking ahead quite well.
Even though I told myself I wouldn't do it and Dolby Digital & DTS was "good enough", I ended up doing the exact same thing.
 

JediFonger

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hi DaveF,

to address your concerns:
-if you kept waiting for a "prime time" product nowadays in such a fast paced technology driven environment you'll never be able to own any consumer electronics lol =). i don't want to scare you but the people who cooked up blu-rays are thinking about implementing 3-D at home =). they are looking at 2010 or 2011! if you buy a player today, it won't be able to play 3-D content, but only 2-D. that is in the future, you buy a 3-D movie like Ice Age 3 in 3-D (this isn't available on blu-ray right now, only the 2-D version is). you can still play the 2-D version on your current player. they are now trying to make everything backwards compatible. it also means you'll need a 3-D television and (eventually) HDMI 1.4 AV Receivers. scared yet? oh and after that everything will be streaming from the internet (3-D or otherwise) and maybe holographics like star trek TNG ;).

ok, just to re-assure you, always buy what works today and what you like =). so if you want to buy blu-ray player to play movies, go ahead and grab one =). and yesh, profile 2.0 will do the trick!

-re: secondary audio. if i were you and worried about that technical stuff, i would just set the blu-ray player to LPCM output directly to the receiver. that way, EVERYTHING will work, no matter what happens. the actual adjustment takes place in the setup menu of the BD Player and u have to stop the disc or movie (@least on my Panasonic BD35). the easiest way i've seen is only on powerdvd 9 on my HTPC.



Originally Posted by DaveF

Thanks for the tips. Everytime I learn more about Blu Ray, I wish I had remained ignorant :) it's so befuddling to me.

But, OK. Any profile 2.0 BR player and any recent vintage receiver should do everything that BR needs done.

Technical minutiae aside, Blu Ray is ready for prime-time? No reasons to wait any longer for some next, important feature to appear?


P.S.
Is this toggling of audio modes easily done? Can it be done by non-HTF geeks?


Does that also mean you can independently control the volume of the soundtrack and commentary tracks? There are times when I wish I could better hear the actual movie against a commentary.
 

DaveF

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Originally Posted by JediFonger

hi DaveF,

to address your concerns:
-if you kept waiting for a "prime time" product nowadays in such a fast paced technology driven environment you'll never be able to own any consumer electronics lol =).
Thanks, and I can appreciate the reality that specs and features are a moving target. That is relatively new for home audio.

But I'm also anxious about whether stuff simply works. I see a lot of comments about Blu Ray players that can't actually play Blu Ray discs, that have inexplicable pauses, that can't pick up in the middle of a disc after stopping the way a DVD does, and stable HDMI connections. Similar concerns exist for new receivers. I do think it's not unreasonable to expect to buy a device ready for "prime time".

That said, my impression is that stuff works pretty well now. Though if I really wanted bug free, I'd wait another year :)
 

StevieRay

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Unfortunately, Microsoft legitimized "selling a pig in a poke". Now, everyone's doing it. I STOPPED early adoption. If Sony and the rest can't finish a design before they start selling it, then count me out.

I bought a BD player for my computer, so I could check out the technology. I ended up having to get a new video card, which required a bigger power supply.

I won't buy a consumer BD until the technology stabilizes.

By being a early adopter, you may be your own worst enemy. These companies won't change their practices if you keep buying their unfinished products. Would you allow a car company to sell you a car that is an anchor after 2-3 years?
 

TravisR

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Originally Posted by StevieRay

By being a early adopter, you may be your own worst enemy. These companies won't change their practices if you keep buying their unfinished products. Would you allow a car company to sell you a car that is an anchor after 2-3 years?
Blu-ray has been on the market for 3 years. I wouldn't consider anyone getting into it now an early adopter.
 

Scott Merryfield

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I entered the BD market about a year ago, and personally have found the technology quite stable. There are a couple of things that annoy me (slower load times for discs, inconsistent ability to save my viewing place on a disc, etc.), but overall the transition has been smooth and the upgrade in video/audio quality has been worth the cost and effort. Maybe I have been lucky, but I do not consider my situation that unique.
 

JediFonger

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i don't get into early adoption cause i can't afford it to begin w/... but BD is the DREAM home video format that i've been waiting for since early 90s =).

i now have 4 BD players & 300+ titles =). my experience is that standalone

DaveF,
if you are buying new hardware today, it'll work. most of the HDCP handshake issues have been resolved afaik. the issues you read about are just a handful of peepz. my experiences have been pretty bug free even since the format's inception.



Originally Posted by DaveF
Thanks, and I can appreciate the reality that specs and features are a moving target. That is relatively new for home audio.

But I'm also anxious about whether stuff simply works. I see a lot of comments about Blu Ray players that can't actually play Blu Ray discs, that have inexplicable pauses, that can't pick up in the middle of a disc after stopping the way a DVD does, and stable HDMI connections. Similar concerns exist for new receivers. I do think it's not unreasonable to expect to buy a device ready for "prime time".

That said, my impression is that stuff works pretty well now. Though if I really wanted bug free, I'd wait another year :)
 

DaveF

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I've been fixated on getting a Blu Ray with 5.1 analog output. But can I use a Blu Ray player with coax digital out into an older receiver that does Dolby Digital and DTS?
 

gene c

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Unfortunately, Microsoft legitimized "selling a pig in a poke". Now, everyone's doing it. I STOPPED early adoption. If Sony and the rest can't finish a design before they start selling it, then count me out.
Companies have been releasing products too early for years. I never did early adoption. Not just because I was afraid things wouldn't work right but because I wanted to wait for the price to come down. That's why I hope there are many others who do want to buy things when they first come out. I'll let them be the ones to deal with what doesn't work at first, and pay the price. But BR, and hdmi, are still evolving and probably will for quite a while. And a lot of the problems have to do with the software not the hardware. But at this point I think BR is a safe bet. Maybe everything won't work as advertised but enough of it will, and work very well, that it's worth the risk.



Would you allow a car company to sell you a car that is an anchor after 2-3 years?
We did. Several times. Remember the Edsel and the Vega and the Yugo and the (stay tuned ).


But I'm also anxious about whether stuff simply works. I see a lot of comments about Blu Ray players that can't actually play Blu Ray discs, that have inexplicable pauses, that can't pick up in the middle of a disc after stopping the way a DVD does, and stable HDMI connections. Similar concerns exist for new receivers. I do think it's not unreasonable to expect to buy a device ready for "prime time".
I've had 3 BR players so far. A Samsung 1400, a Pioneer 51 and the OPPO 83. The 1400 had problems playing a couple of discs like Iron Man but a firmware solved the problem. I sold it to get the Pioneer. The Pioneer and OPPO have been trouble free so far.

The main issue now seems to be streaming video, like Netflix. Apparently sometimes the player can't keep up and has to pause for a moment. And the video quality isn't always up to par, or so I've read.
 

gene c

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I've been fixated on getting a Blu Ray with 5.1 analog output. But can I use a Blu Ray player with coax digital out into an older receiver that does Dolby Digital and DTS?

Yes you can. In fact, I have both my BR players connected with 7.1 analog and Toslink/Coax. I use the analogs for Hi-Res BR and the Toslink/Coax for everything else.
 

DaveF

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Thanks. Do all the special features, commentaries, etc. play through coax/Toslink digital?

I'd prefer the Panny BD80, as my best balance in cost, performance, features. But if its price doesn't get to where I want it, I can go with the BD60, LG370, or similar entry model.

If I were to look at the value of my time, I should have just bought the BD80 and been done with it...but where's the fun in that? :)
 

DaveF

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Originally Posted by TravisR

They always have for me.
Good to hear. I'd hoped so, but given previous explanations on how Blu Ray audio works, I wasn't sure.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Gatie

On Blu-ray, a commentary or special feature track is a single stream. It's not mixed in with the movie sounds, it is meant to be mixed in at play time. So in order to fold in secondary audio, the player has to decode the movie DTS/DD (or DTS-HD, TrueHD, etc.) soundtrack, fold in the commentary, and then output the mixed streams to the receiver. It can only do this in the LPCM (multi-channel PCM) realm. A player doesn't have the power to decode DTS/DD/etc., fold in the commentary, and re-encode to DTS/DD/etc. So, in order to hear secondary audio mixed in with the movie, you have to turn off bitstreaming and let the player decode.
 

DaveF

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Thanks all for comments and insights. I just ordered the Panasonic BD80 for a reasonable price. My wife informed me that we'll be getting Blu-Ray discs for Xmas so, no, it wouldn't be a bad idea to buy a player

Well, maybe not... I discovered this morning that it's out of stock and won't ship for a month. Not sure if I want to cancel the order or wait it out. :(
 

JediFonger

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congrats DaveF!!! that is an awesome player. i'm biased of course, lulz. i have the older BD35K. i have to tell you that panasonic has issued only 1 firmware update since i bought it in december of 2008. as far as i know there wasn't another firwmware before that nor since the 1 update. that 1 update is to fix a PiP issue, not even to fix any BD disc compatibility issues (or it might but i dunno about it). either way, Panasonic has been a SOLID A+ player!!!

it has also scored 'near-perfect' on DVD upconversion i think, just like the oppo 83 upscaling. so it's definitely one of the best upconverts ever made.

BD80 has analog outputs, you'll luv it =).
 

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