Questions for people who haven't gone Blu yet... (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Willis]

Originally Posted by Worth
I think the whole DVD upconversion issue has more to do with the quality of specific players - and individual preference - than it does with formats.


I have a PS3, an Oppo DVD player noted for the quality of its upconversion, and a modified Panasonic region-free blu-ray player. When it comes to playing DVDs, I'd rank the scaling on the Oppo as superior to the PS3, but not as good as the Panasonic.


Given how low blu-ray player prices have fallen, I'm surprised that so many film fans haven't yet embraced the format. My main interest is in more obscure catalogue and foreign titles, so I still watch a lot of DVDs, but when there's an option, it's great to be able to watch films in HD that equal, and in some cases surpass, the quality of a 35mm print.

Thanks for the upconversion info. I think the point about why more haven't joined the BR mkt, is that perhaps, like me, most of the films that I have in the collection are the ones that I'd collect. Ie, I have very few films on my list remaining on my "wish" list to collect. Then the question has more to do with the willingness (or affordability) to double-dip to BR.

 

[Tony J Case]

Originally Posted by Adam Gregorich

Are there any of you who haven't added a Blu-ray player to your system yet? If so why not? When it comes to buying discs, with the BD + DVD combo sets sometimes selling for essentially the same price as the DVD only release are you buying them to have a copy of the Blu-ray for when (or if) you get a player?

Why not? Loads of reasons -


* The Discs cost too much. This isn't the era of laserdiscs, where studios could get away with charging 40+ bucks for a new release. 10 or 15 bucks for a movie is just right.

* What I want isn't on Blue Ray. I dont like modern films, all the discs I buy are old school Roger Corman flicks, blaxploitation, kung fu movies and Kaiju - plus my monthly Doctor Who release. None of these are ever released on Blue Ray, so I dont see any need to jump.

* Cant do region free Blue Ray. I refuse to be restrained by some kind of arbitrary border mandated by the studios so they can control what I see. I have a ton of R2 dvds, stull that will never see release stateside, and I've never been able to find a Blue Ray player that plays R2 discs, and I'm not giving up a quarter of my collection because of it.

* There's no increase in picture quality. I've seen the demos of DVD vs Blue at Best Buy, and the difference is infinitesimally small between the two - if there even is any. DVD is good enough, so why bother with Blue?

* I'm not re-purchasing all my DVDs. Even if everything I owned came out on Blue, there's no way in hell I'm dropping a couple grand to buy it all over again. The studios can sit and spin on that idea.

 

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by Tony J Case

* There's no increase in picture quality. I've seen the demos of DVD vs Blue at Best Buy, and the difference is infinitesimally small between the two - if there even is any. DVD is good enough, so why bother with Blue?

That's just incorrect or there was a problem with the TV, the player, the disc or your eyes. I'm not saying that you have to care but just the fact that the image is going from 525 lines of resolution to 1080 lines of resloution means that there's a noticable increase in any normal situation.

 

[JeffMc]

I have a bunch of friends, many of them cinefiles, and not one of them has gone Blu yet. I like the flexibility to watch my movies anywhere - that means at a friend's house, my office, my home, wherever. With Blu discs, you can't do that because there's not a Blu player in every room of everyone's house, and I don't see that ever changing. Blu is never going to reach anywhere near the mainstream saturation level that standard DVD achieved, and now with streaming becoming the new direction, Blu is just going to remain niche. So just that Blu players are coming down in price, it's still not that appealing to upgrade when you will be limited where to watch these discs. And I think a lot of normal people will still buy a $20 DVD player at the grocery store or Target if their old one breaks instead of $100 to go Blu when most people are perfectly happy with standard DVD. I am not slamming Blu (I think it looks fantastic) - it's just not practical for me at all.

That said,I do like the idea of the combo packs (which I know a lot of people hate, but I see it as the best solution) - where you can have both discs, a Blu if you have a player, or the standard for when you watch it elsewhere. I had no problem paying under $20 for the VAMPIRE CIRCUS combo-pack which is a great release, but I've found I'm avoiding studios who release separate discs for the standard and Blu and charging $20 or more for each separate version - I just end up buying neither, which is probably not what the studios want to hear. And if I ever did upgrade to Blu, I would never sell off my standard versions of those films for the reasons I already mentioned. I already have thousands of DVD's and space issues are already a problem, so the idea of going Blu and then having two separate copies of a bunch of movies in my library is just too much to handle. It all just leaves a sour taste and I just end up not caring about ever going Blu at all. The introduction of Blu actually took the wind out of the sails in my DVD collecting. Just re-releasing a ton of movies I already own. Boring. I'm almost only buying MOD from Warner Archives these days and am quite happy there.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

It's up to each person to see if they want to make the upgrade Blu. I'm not trying to twist anyones arm. If you don't want to do it thats fine, but I think there are some things that may have been true a year or two ago that aren't any longer. I'd hate for someone not to upgrade for something like that.

Originally Posted by Tony J Case .

* Cant do region free Blue Ray. I refuse to be restrained by some kind of arbitrary border mandated by the studios so they can control what I see. I have a ton of R2 dvds, stull that will never see release stateside, and I've never been able to find a Blue Ray player that plays R2 discs, and I'm not giving up a quarter of my collection because of it.

All three Oppo players (not counting the SE versions as different models) have inexpensive, easy to install HW mods that allow them to be region free for both DVD and Blu-ray.

* There's no increase in picture quality. I've seen the demos of DVD vs Blue at Best Buy, and the difference is infinitesimally small between the two - if there even is any. DVD is good enough, so why bother with Blue?

I'm not going to disagree that you didn't see a difference at Best Buy, but I can tell you that there IS a noticable difference. I don't know if they had the player set up correctly, if they were using correct cables, if the display was set up correctly, etc, etc. There are some situations where even if you have everything hooked up correctly its possible that you may not see a difference, say watching a blu-ray on a 32" TV from 15 feet away, but unless you have a setup like that at home, most people will see a difference.

* I'm not re-purchasing all my DVDs. Even if everything I owned came out on Blue, there's no way in hell I'm dropping a couple grand to buy it all over again. The studios can sit and spin on that idea.

Thats the beauty--you don't have to. There may be some you want to, and others you don't, but you don't have to.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

Originally Posted by JeffMc

I have a bunch of friends, many of them cinefiles, and not one of them has gone Blu yet. I like the flexibility to watch my movies anywhere - that means at a friend's house, my office, my home, wherever. With Blu discs, you can't do that because there's not a Blu player in every room of everyone's house, and I don't see that ever changing. Blu is never going to reach anywhere near the mainstream saturation level that standard DVD achieved, and now with streaming becoming the new direction, Blu is just going to remain niche. So just that Blu players are coming down in price, it's still not that appealing to upgrade when you will be limited where to watch these discs. And I think a lot of normal people will still buy a $20 DVD player at the grocery store or Target if their old one breaks instead of $100 to go Blu when most people are perfectly happy with standard DVD. I am not slamming Blu (I think it looks fantastic) - it's just not practical for me at all.

That said,I do like the idea of the combo packs (which I know a lot of people hate, but I see it as the best solution) - where you can have both discs, a Blu if you have a player, or the standard for when you watch it elsewhere. I had no problem paying under $20 for the VAMPIRE CIRCUS combo-pack which is a great release, but I've found I'm avoiding studios who release separate discs for the standard and Blu and charging $20 or more for each separate version - I just end up buying neither, which is probably not what the studios want to hear. And if I ever did upgrade to Blu, I would never sell off my standard versions of those films for the reasons I already mentioned. I already have thousands of DVD's and space issues are already a problem, so the idea of going Blu and then having two separate copies of a bunch of movies in my library is just too much to handle. It all just leaves a sour taste and I just end up not caring about ever going Blu at all. The introduction of Blu actually took the wind out of the sails in my DVD collecting. Just re-releasing a ton of movies I already own. Boring. I'm almost only buying MOD from Warner Archives these days and am quite happy there.

Good point about not having a BD player everywhere. I don't know anyone who hates a two disc combo pack. I am a huge fan of the combo releases and would love to see even more of them.
There were a limited number of single disc combo releases (BD on one side DVD on the other side) that people didn't seem to care for.

 

[Bob Cashill]

I sit just a few feet away from my 32" HDTV (that's the "hi-def experience" for you in a Brooklyn condo) and the difference between SD and BD is huge. Just a richer, more immersive image.

 

[Bob_S.]

I'm actually enjoying this thread. Alot of useful info here. I WANT to upgrade but right now a few things are hindering that.


1. I still have a 36 inch tube that works fine. I've thought about getting a br player but my coworkers tell me why buy a br player if you don't have a hi-def tv? Personally I want one now because some movies have extra content on the br that isn't on the std. I bought a br 2-pack of X-men 1 and 2 for 15 bucks at walmart. I just couldn't pass that up so here it sits collecting dust until I buy a br player. Should I still buy a br player even if I only have an analog tv?


2. Most of my collection is from the 1930's, 40's and 50's and about 97% of my tv collection doesn't go past 1980. Now some people have said that the pq of a std dvd on a 1080p tv isn't as good as watching it on a 480p tv. Now my question is when I do buy a hi def tv, should it be a 780p or 1080p? Will I still be "wowed" watching a br on 780p instead of 1080p or will I be missing out on better pq?


3. Good point about viewing limitations. I watch movies in various rooms in the house. With br, I would be limited to my living room. By the way I do like the combo pack idea, I bought the Toy Story 3 combo pack.


4. 3D looks pretty cool (saw a demo in Sam's Club), now I have to wait for 3D tv prices to drop and 3D br player prices to drop.

 

[marcco00]

hi bob-


i agree that this has been a fun thread to follow this past week!


just as your post shows, there are soo many options for you to consider when going HD.


my advice would be to do a lot of research, and see with your own eyes what you like or not. if you have a favorite dvd (whose images you are quite familiar with from your crt tv), and any friends who have a hdtv/ blu set-up, have them play your dvd upconverted & check out the picture. see if it is acceptable to you.


it seems, if you already have some blu discs, that to see them at their most spectacular you would need/want a 1080p set.


i personally can vouch for 720p tvs for playing SDVD's. i bought a 42" panny in 2009, then a 50" last april-- both plasmas.


with my upconverting dvd players (an onkyo, a pioneer all-region, and a samsung) & HDMI cable connection, the images are SPECTACULAR- flawless, crisp & colorful.


but i have no plans to go blu.... so you see, you yourself will have to make a conscious decision on what you like & what you plan to do in the future, then buy your tv accordingly.

 

[Jeff Willis]

Marc,


Good points and that's really the bottom line for most of us. Let the eyes tell you.


I can only give my input as mainly a TV/DVD collector of older shows, viewing all on a 50" Panny 1080p Plasma in OAR:


I'd never go back to a CRT TV, and I had a fairly good one before the Plasma, the Sony 36" Wega.


Just the larger screen size adds a lot to the viewing pleasure for me.


The big point that I was concerned about, before entering the home HD scene in Aug '08 with the Plasma TV, was that I had concerns about a HD display "magnifying" the inherant imperfections in my older TV/DVD series discs as well as the older films, the Weissmuller Tarzan's, etc.


I found that this wasn't a problem after viewing my own DVD's at a local store, from the same viewing distance (~8 ft) from my TV at home.

 

[marcco00]

hi jeff, and thanx...i have enjoyed reading your posts on this thread.


the variations on (just) these HDTV's can be head-spinning---- plasma, lcd, led, 720p, 1080p, 3D tv, on and on!


it has been very interesting to read how the members on this thread have each adapted their set-up, in his/her own way.


one really has to take a close look @ everything that's out there, very carefully, and choose the set-up what will work best for your home entertainment needs.

 

[Thomas Newton]

Originally Posted by Adam Gregorich

I am a BD adopter and if a new title I want is available in both BD or DVD, I buy the BD. Having said that I am shocked at how quickly the music market died. Its been years since I bought a CD or LP. I buy songs and albums on Amazon.

The music industry did everything possible to drive consumers away … for instance:


1. Getting their buddies in Congress to carve out an exemption to the First Sale Doctrine. A video store can rent videos without special permission, but a record store can't rent LPs or CDs that it owns without permission. If cars followed this model, and Avis bought a fleet of Fords, they couldn't rent you any of the Fords they owned without special permission from Ford.


2. The anti-DAT campaign, which led to the AHRA: recorder tax, media tax, and copy protection (SCMS) on all standalone consumer digital audio recorders.


3. The attempt to outlaw a MP3 player (the Diamond Rio) by bringing a lawsuit under the same law (AHRA) that was supposed to put an end to lawsuits. The judge ruled against the RIAA and also explicitly stated that space-shifting was legal Fair Use.


4. The attempt to shove SDMI DRM into all portable players in SPITE of the court loss in #3. (To this day, most portable players support some form of DRM, even if it is not SDMI.)


5. The attempt to replace CD (which is pretty much DRM-free, except in the context of #2) with Super Audio CD and DVD-Audio, both of which were DRM delivery mechanisms.


6. The refusal to sell DRM-free downloads, indeed, to sell even DRM-encumbered downloads. This greatly aided the rise of illegal file-sharing. Apple had to drag the record companies kicking and screaming into the realization that if you made it easy to buy downloadable music, people would buy it.


7. The inclusion of a root kit on certain Sony "CDs". (Many of the "CDs" had oddly-appropriate titles like "The Invisible Invasion", "Suspicious Activity", and "Get Right With The Man".)

8. The statement by a certain executive that if necessary, they would firewall people at the network connection to their houses (as if the record companies had any right to do that).


There are also a few other factors:


9. In the early days of CD, there were lots of sales driven by "forklift upgrades" of LP collections. Now people have upgraded most of their LPs, so one might expect that their CD buying rate would decline a bit.


10. Around the time CD sales started a slight decline, DVD sales were increasing. Maybe people were shifting money from building CD collections to building DVD ones.


11. It is possible – just faintly possible – that people might cut back on CD purchases during times of recession and layoff.

 

[Sumnernor]

I will add a few things to my post 33. I did buy the Fantasia/Fantasia 2000 with 4 discs (BLU & reguler). It was not a question of $$ (or Eros) but because the Blu Ray has "Destino" not the SD! If the SD had "Destino", I would not have bought the BR.


I have a small apartment. My tube TV ("Loewe") is good quality and is 26" x 14.5" Diag 29.75". From what various people write, you need a (much) bigger screen. For my situation 30" is big-enough.

 

[Towergrove]

Originally Posted by JeffMc

I have a bunch of friends, many of them cinefiles, and not one of them has gone Blu yet. I like the flexibility to watch my movies anywhere - that means at a friend's house, my office, my home, wherever. With Blu discs, you can't do that because there's not a Blu player in every room of everyone's house, and I don't see that ever changing. Blu is never going to reach anywhere near the mainstream saturation level that standard DVD achieved, and now with streaming becoming the new direction, Blu is just going to remain niche. So just that Blu players are coming down in price, it's still not that appealing to upgrade when you will be limited where to watch these discs. And I think a lot of normal people will still buy a $20 DVD player at the grocery store or Target if their old one breaks instead of $100 to go Blu when most people are perfectly happy with standard DVD. I am not slamming Blu (I think it looks fantastic) - it's just not practical for me at all.

That said,I do like the idea of the combo packs (which I know a lot of people hate, but I see it as the best solution) - where you can have both discs, a Blu if you have a player, or the standard for when you watch it elsewhere. I had no problem paying under $20 for the VAMPIRE CIRCUS combo-pack which is a great release, but I've found I'm avoiding studios who release separate discs for the standard and Blu and charging $20 or more for each separate version - I just end up buying neither, which is probably not what the studios want to hear. And if I ever did upgrade to Blu, I would never sell off my standard versions of those films for the reasons I already mentioned. I already have thousands of DVD's and space issues are already a problem, so the idea of going Blu and then having two separate copies of a bunch of movies in my library is just too much to handle. It all just leaves a sour taste and I just end up not caring about ever going Blu at all. The introduction of Blu actually took the wind out of the sails in my DVD collecting. Just re-releasing a ton of movies I already own. Boring. I'm almost only buying MOD from Warner Archives these days and am quite happy there.

Now with some titles being released having sales of 65% marketshare for a single title selling on BD instead of DVD, Blu-ray is well beyond Niche status. That said I think Ultraviolet and BD will compliment each other for many years.

 

[mdnitoil]

Originally Posted by Towergrove
Now with some titles being released having sales of 65% marketshare for a single title selling on BD instead of DVD, Blu-ray is well beyond Niche status. That said I think Ultraviolet and BD will compliment each other for many years.

I think when people say niche at this point, they mean in comparison to SD. I, for example, am really not interested in re-buying anything. Given that, it's going to take exclusive titles to really get me to take a hard look at blu. Is there anybody out there who honestly expects blu to even come close to the sheer breadth of titles available on SD, let alone exclusive ones? Understand, when I say this I'm speaking from a classic film catalog perspective. So, if The Magnificent Ambersons comes out blu only, I'll have to give that some serious thought. Does anybody really think that's going to happen? I think in the old controlled home delivery model, it would have been inevitable. Now that we have discs competing with streaming and downloads I think we still have to wait and see who comes out on top. Frankly, with folks clamoring for content on their portable devices, I suspect the writing is already on the wall. We are already seeing exclusive streaming content that has never been released to disc, blu or SD.

 

[ahollis]

I am a Blu-ray adapter and went Blu-ray when HOW THE WEST WAS WON was released in Blu-ray. It is a stunning picture and the Smilebox, which was exclusive on the Blu-ray was a great addition and I only view the film in that format now. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND was my second purchase, then came the Dirty Harry collection. If a film is released in Blu-ray and standard DVD, I almost always go with the Blu-ray. An example of that is THE AFRICAN QUEEN. I have doubled dipped and have replaced some of my favorite titles such as THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, SOUTH PACIFIC, JFK, DR. STRANGELOVE, KING KONG, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY and others. However, I do not see replacing the American Pie series or even a Harry Potter film.

I love the look of Blu-ray and usually the sound is spectacular. I know that streaming will be, if not now a major way to view films at home, and presently I am not ready for it, but I know that I will change my mind over time and embrace it.

 

[Thomas T]

"Now with some titles being released having sales of 65% marketshare for a single title selling on BD instead of DVD, Blu-ray is well beyond Niche status."


[COLOR= #ff0000]Some [/COLOR]titles being the point. Titles like INCEPTION, AVATAR, TOY STORY 3 and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 17 (or whatever episode they're up to now).


What is the reality of seeing Lang's WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS, Ray's THEY LIVE BY NIGHT, Sirk's TARNISHED ANGELS, Clair's LE MILLION, Antonioni's IL GRIDO, Fuller's FORTY GUNS or even early Doris Day vehicles like ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS, TEA FOR TWO, BY THE LIGHT OF THE SILVERY MOON or APRIL IN PARIS on blu? Highly unlikely.


Right now, my main focus of interest is not getting into a new format but buying non region 1 DVDs of titles available in other countries never deemed "worthy" of a U.S. DVD release. If studios didn't think them worthy of DVD release in their own country, what chance of blu?

 

[Thomas Newton]

Originally Posted by JeffMc

I have a bunch of friends, many of them cinefiles, and not one of them has gone Blu yet. I like the flexibility to watch my movies anywhere - that means at a friend's house, my office, my home, wherever. With Blu discs, you can't do that because there's not a Blu player in every room of everyone's house, and I don't see that ever changing. Blu is never going to reach anywhere near the mainstream saturation level that standard DVD achieved, and now with streaming becoming the new direction, Blu is just going to remain niche.

Although I haven't bought into Blu-Ray, there are definite signs of Blu-Ray gaining traction:


1. Stores that sell a lot of discs (e.g., Best Buy) are devoting increasing shelf space to Blu-Ray (and decreasing shelf space to DVD). While DVD still has more shelf space total, the higher prices of Blu-Ray discs mean that they do not need to sell in the same volume as DVDs to encourage continued shelf space reallocation. Much the same dynamic played out in video stores during the VHS-to-DVD transition.


2. There are racks of Blu-Ray discs in many supermarkets and drugstores. Those places tend not to stock anything in volume until it is at least somewhat mainstream.

 

[Towergrove]

Originally Posted by mdnitoil
Now with some titles being released having sales of 65% marketshare for a single title selling on BD instead of DVD, Blu-ray is well beyond Niche status. That said I think Ultraviolet and BD will compliment each other for many years.

[/QUOTE]

I think when people say niche at this point, they mean in comparison to SD. I, for example, am really not interested in re-buying anything. Given that, it's going to take exclusive titles to really get me to take a hard look at blu. Is there anybody out there who honestly expects blu to even come close to the sheer breadth of titles available on SD, let alone exclusive ones? Understand, when I say this I'm speaking from a classic film catalog perspective. So, if The Magnificent Ambersons comes out blu only, I'll have to give that some serious thought. Does anybody really think that's going to happen? I think in the old controlled home delivery model, it would have been inevitable. Now that we have discs competing with streaming and downloads I think we still have to wait and see who comes out on top. Frankly, with folks clamoring for content on their portable devices, I suspect the writing is already on the wall. We are already seeing exclusive streaming content that has never been released to disc, blu or SD.



Have you actually seen people watching Classic films on portable devices? According to Netflix the largest streamer people are not interest all that much in watching long form video on portable devices:


Netflix CEO says consumers just aren't interested in long-form video on portable devices:

According to CEO Reed Hastings -- who spoke on the subject during a Web 2.0 Summit panel discussion -- that move has actually had little impact on the company's business. In his mind, these results indicate that consumers just aren't interested in streaming long-form video on mobile devices and instead prefer the experience on bigger screens. To support his conclusion, Hastings cited how Netflix integration on the Xbox 360, PS3, and Mac significantly grew its subscriber base. While we personally disagree with his judgment on mobile and grant him honorary captain obvious credentials for his bigger screen preference remarks, we'll still entertain the possibility that Hastings may know somethings we don't. That's not to say the phrase correlation does not imply causation isn't tickling the back our throat though. But what about you, reader? Are you taking advantage of the little red app on your Apple portable devices or even on your new Windows Phone 7 handset?

http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/18/netflix-ceo-says-consumers-just-arent-interested-in-long-form-v/



Lets also not forget that with tethered streaming like those on Netflix some of the programs that you see are not always going to be there for repeat viewings. Many have expiration dates.

 

[mdnitoil]

Yes, I perfectly understand the limitations of program availability via streaming. I would hardly expect my comments to get any traction on a website called Home Theater Forum, however there's an entire generation of 20-somethings who seem to think they can do any and everything with their phone. Heck, it's not a future I'm particularly excited about either, but only a fool would look at the market as it currently stands and not recognize that home entertainment is becoming fragmented with regards to media format. The days of buying the only standard available, taking it home and plugging it into your shelf-bound machine are over. That kind of format fragmentation will not bode well for the least flexible format with regards to title diversity. It's not rocket science, it's just basic business. Perhaps the ultaviolet concept will be able to mitigate some of this.