Your first Blu-ray Purchase? (1 Viewer)

[Mr. Jingles]

When you decided it was finally time to upgrade from DVD and you purchased your very first Blu-ray player, what was the first title that you bought? Can some of you old-times actually remember?

I ask because I assume that a first-title purchase would be a very personal choice.

I bought The Fifth Element. Great choice considering its picture and audio quality.

 

[David Weicker]

Easy.

The Wizard Of Oz and Gone With The Wind

 

[Robert Crawford]

On 06-11-06, I ordered a Samsung BD Player as well as a Toshiba HD DVD player from Circuit City. Both players shipped about four days later. At that time, no BD discs were out yet. However, the last ten days of June, I was able to buy my first 8 BD titles. There were the following:

Hitch
XXX
House of Flying Daggers
The Terminator
Underworld: Evolution
Crash
The Punisher
Terminator 2: Judgment Day

The funny thing is there were several HD DVD titles out in April/May, prior to the first HD DVD player being available to purchase. The first movie I watched in 1080p was Apollo 13 on HD DVD disc. I don't remember the exact date, but it probably was around June 16th or 17th in 2006. I didn't watch my first BD disc until a week later. I believe I watched Hitch first followed by The Terminator.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Wow. You have the exact date. I always thought Blu-ray emerged
in 2007 (10 years post DVD), but doing some Wikipedia research it
does seem that the first discs were released on June 20th 2006.

I am having a brain fart about exactly what I first purchased on Blu-ray.

I do think that my first players were supplied by the Blu-ray Disc Association
and the executives from HD-DVD during our EMA Las Vegas Convention in
July of 2007. It was a wild time with the format war fully in swing and both
groups eager to give away product to entice Internet feedback. Our entire
group of approximately 20+ attendees each got a Panasonic Blu-ray and
Toshiba HD-DVD player, each retailing at about $700-$1k.

That means I waited a year to get into either of the formats.

The first title I purchased? Probably The Fifth Element. I remember it was
the highly heralded demo at the time.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Wow. You have the exact date. I always thought Blu-ray emerged
in 2007 (10 years post DVD), but doing some Wikipedia research it
does seem that the first discs were released on June 20th 2006.

I am having a brain fart about exactly what I first purchased on Blu-ray.

I do think that my first players were supplied by the Blu-ray Disc Association
and the executives from HD-DVD during our EMA Las Vegas Convention in
July of 2007. It was a wild time with the format war fully in swing and both
groups eager to give away product to entice Internet feedback. Our entire
group of approximately 20+ attendees each got a Panasonic Blu-ray and
Toshiba HD-DVD player, each retailing at about $700-$1k.

That means I waited a year to get into either of the formats.

The first title I purchased? Probably The Fifth Element. I remember it was
the highly heralded demo at the time.

Yup, Steven Simon and I became the guinea pigs for HTF with these new formats. I remember rushing down the street, when my players came in at my local CC that is now Cabelas. The desire to be the first one! After the format war, I decided to get smart and not be that again.

Speaking of BD titles, I'm off for the next three hours to watch my Eli Wallach tribute with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly BD.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

The desire to be the first one! After the format war, I decided to get smart and not be that again.

The only thing that wasn't smart about being an early adopter on both fronts....

[color=rgb(40,40,40);font-family:'Merriweather Sans', sans-serif;background-color:rgb(242,242,242);]Blu-ray: The players went through (I believe) two different iterations before they were perfected.[/color]
Really straining to remember here.....but I think the initial players did not have ethernet connectivity
whereas the HD-DVD players did. Then there was a second Blu-ray hardware upgrade that also
occurred. All I remember is that I quickly went through several hardware models in the beginning.

HD-DVD: Well, we all know what happened to that format.

 

[Thomas T]

Shout Factory's Shout At The Devil! I didn't even have a blu player yet but it was a blu/DVD combo.

 

[Robin9]

How The West Was Won. The on-line comments were so enthusiastic - and the old DVD so poor - that I decided to take the plunge, now that the format war was over.

 

[Carl Johnson]

My first blu ray would have been either Avatar or The Social Network. I'm not sure which one was released first.

 

[ROclockCK]

A no brainer for me. In 2008 I specifically purchased a PS3 so I could see Tarsem's The Fall*.

How the West Was Won, Gattaca, and The Fifth Element were my #2, #3 and #4 purchases. Soon after that, I lost count...but there were definitely a lot of Columbia/TriStar/Sony and Fox titles that hadn't been available on HD DVD.

* It had vanished from theatres here within mere days, before I could see it.

 

[Douglas R]

How the West Was Won in Smilebox pushed me into going Blu.

 

[classicmovieguy]

Months before I even bought a player, I started picking up titles. Amongst the first were "Gigi" and the Platinum Edition of "Sleeping Beauty".

 

[phillyrobt]

Looney Tunes Platinum but because of the accessories not available with the DVD..was ignorant of HD then!

 

[ahollis]

My first Blu-ray purchase was the title that made me realize what the format could offer, HOW THE WEST WAS WAS WON. My second was CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE 3RD KIND.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Two very defining moments for the format.

How The West Was Won was a miraculous effort by Warner. I was
amazed by the way they were able to pretty much eliminate the seams
and bring a beautiful smilebox transfer to Blu-ray. Probably one of the
all-time best Blu-ray releases to date.

Close Encounters absolutely defined what this format could do. The
ability to branch the different versions of the film is something we rarely
see done anymore -- and it is one of the things Blu-ray has the capability
of doing better than any other format.

 

[Persianimmortal]

I got into Blu-ray much later than most of you guys: late 2009. I definitely didn't want to commit to the format until the format wars had well and truly ended, the dust had settled, and Blu-ray players had both matured in features and dropped in price.The day I bought my Panasonic DMP-BD80, I also bought my first two BDs - North by Northwest and Iron Man. North by Northwest absolutely blew me away, I never expected a classic film of its age could look as good as it did, and I was hooked.

 

[Matt Hough]

My first Blu-ray player was the PS3 which I got right before Christmas of 2006. I was and am not a gamer. I bought the machine specifically for its Blu-ray capabilities. This was also the reason I figured from the start that Blu-ray would triumph over HD-DVD. This machine could play games (the original model of the PS3 was also backward compatible with the PS2) AND play DVDs and Blu-rays. It just HAD to be the lynchpin of the format winning the war. I also figured that with Disney exclusively aboard the Blu-ray train, it would also tip the scales.

The first Blu-ray I bought and watched was The Searchers. Even though it's been widely criticized for its color timing, I knew looking at the sharpness of the credits what a big leap forward this was going to be from DVD.

The first Blu-ray I ever reviewed for HTF was '300.'

 

[Richard V]

I don't even remember what I purchased first. Perhaps I can do some carbon dating on my collection and come up with an answer.

 

[GlennF]

Pretty sure my first ones were Gigi, An American in Paris, Quo Vadis, and The Searchers, followed shortly by How The West Was Won. The colour in the first three impressed me compared to the DVDs The sharpness of the vistas in The Searchers really made me go "wow", but How The West Was Won blew me away with both the sharpness and the fact they were able to eliminate the seams between the three images. That was amazing!
And my bank account has been paying ever since.....

 

[jcroy]

- Avatar
- Blade Runner
- Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus