Blu-Ray Anyone?

[Vargas]

Been noticing the price dropping on Blu-Ray player and I will be picking one of these up after Christmas.

Who's got one?

Also, a question, I have a 720P tv, not a full 1080p. Will the Blu-Ray still look better than my "Upconverted" DVD's?

What are your favorite Blu-Ray discs?

 

[DAB]

There is already a thread on this where we've discussed rather Blu Ray will make it or not. Some way it won't, some say it will.

I was an early adopter, payed way too damn much for it, but what is new. I have probably 24 Blu Ray movies and I suspect I'll get several more during the holiday season. LOL

Yes if you have a 720P your Blu Ray player will feed them to your TV at that level and they will look great. My son has a 720P HDTV and he purchased one of those Magnavox Blu Ray players that Walmart was selling. There is ineed a difference in true Blu Ray vs upconversting standard DVD's.

Most recently my favorite was Iron Man! But I also love the nature series that you can get from Discovery HD. There are some breath taking places to see on those videos. I also picked up Blue Planet it is an IMAX film and it too is really something to see in FULL HD.

I think this Christmas season will be very good for Blu Ray player and Disc sales. The market was clearly lagging behind and of course the economy tanking has not helped. But I think this holiday with lower prices this will make a great family gift to go along with those HDTV's that many had already purchased. I know several people that told me they were getting smaller gifts for the individual family members and then buying a Blue Ray player as a family gift that everyone will enjoy! There are those however that continue to say Blu Ray just won't make it long term. I disagree, but we'll leave that conversation in the other thread!

 

[Jgatie]

The Dark Night was awesome on BD. The cityscapes were amazing and the depth of the dark scenes phenomenal.

Even at 720p, Blu-ray is significant upgrade. Maybe not night and day like VHS to DVD, but still worth it.

PS - Don't believe that Sony BS "Full HD" crap. 720p is "full" HD. So is 1080i. Both are HD broadcast standards, indeed over the air HD is only available in 720p or 1980i. Most people cannot tell the difference between 720p and 1080p until they get very close, much closer than your average viewing distance for most TV's (see this chart):

Also, a 1080i signal on a 1080p set will look identical to 1080p due to superior deinterlacers. Frankly, most of the 1080p "superiority" claims are crap.

 

[mrpacs]

I use my PS3 as a BR player.

 

[Vargas]

The Dark Night was awesome on BD. The cityscapes were amazing and the depth of the dark scenes phenomenal.

Even at 720p, Blu-ray is significant upgrade. Maybe not night and day like VHS to DVD, but still worth it.

PS - Don't believe that Sony BS "Full HD" crap. 720p is "full" HD. So is 1080i. Both are HD broadcast standards, indeed over the air HD is only available in 720p or 1980i. Most people cannot tell the difference between 720p and 1080p until they get very close, much closer than your average viewing distance for most TV's (see this chart):

Also, a 1080i signal on a 1080p set will look identical to 1080p due to superior deinterlacers. Frankly, most of the 1080p "superiority" claims are crap.

I hate to be such a fan boy, but I'm seriously considering the Blu-Ray because of THE DARK KNIGHT. Also, because the prices have come down and also because I have the HD TV and also (and probably the most prevelant reason) my annual bonus comes in the mail and my wife has already ordered NEW carpet and DAMMIT---I deserve something cool. So if there is no Blu-Ray player under the tree on the 25th, I will be going on the 26 to pick up a Blu-Ray.

I'm going to be re-doing a room in the house into a bar and I'm thinking I might need a new TV as well. Might really need a new tv..........

 

[J3ff]

picked up a nice sony for 150 bucks love blu ray!!

 

[hexagram]

Still no plans of buying a Blu-Ray... Not even at $100.

Speaking of which, you can now get one of those Toshiba XDE-500 DVD Upconverters for $79 with free shipping. Read the reviews for yourself, it clearly dominates over the other upconverters (even the ones with REON chipsets). It's not high def, but it's the best you can get in a player that upconverts your current DVD library and when viewed at a normal distance it can be near impossible to tell the difference. I've seen these babies in action before, and I have to give them 5 stars.

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-XD-E500-Upconverting-Extended-Detail/dp/B001D9IWIY/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1221643855&sr=8-1[/ame]

 

[Evil_Ernie]

Methinks h3xagram is still a little butt hurt over HD-DVD dying a painful death. :hah:

As for me, I have a PS3 with a few movies and hope to get more for Christmas. I will eventually get a standalone player though as I would rather use the PS3 only as the intended game console, but for now it does the job well.

 

[IronJabroni]

Methinks h3xagram is still a little butt hurt over HD-DVD dying a painful death. :hah:

As for me, I have a PS3 with a few movies and hope to get more for Christmas. I will eventually get a standalone player though as I would rather use the PS3 only as the intended game console, but for now it does the job well.

just wondering...is the ps3 loud (cooling fan?) when playing dvd's?

 

[DAB]

Still no plans of buying a Blu-Ray... Not even at $100.

Speaking of which, you can now get one of those Toshiba XDE-500 DVD Upconverters for $79 with free shipping.

Might as well take that $80 and apply it towards a Blu Ray player because I am sure the upconversion that most of them do would be just as good as that Toshiba.

 

[hexagram]

Methinks h3xagram is still a little butt hurt over HD-DVD dying a painful death. :hah:

Hmm... Transformers HD DVD for $3.99 or Transformers Blu-Ray for $19.99... Decisions, decisions...

Transformers (Two-Disc Special Edition) (HD DVD) (DVD NEW): N01-0117297 iNetVideo.com - Movies, Games, Music

P.S. I don't really care for Transformers (in fact I've never seen the movie), but I'm just giving an example.

 

[pattere14]

ps3 BD

The PS3 plays BDs well and is very quiet. I have the 40GB model and there is no way it will be louder than the movie or game. I have only seen Spiderman 3 on BD since prices are still high and we rent more than buy. No place near to rent BD.

 

[Vargas]

Circuit City has a nice Samsung player on sale for $199.99.

Check it out here:

Buy the Samsung BDP-1500 BD-Live Ready Blu-ray Disc Player and other Blu-ray Disc players at circuitcity.com

also, does anyone that HAS a player use the BLU-Ray Live? Is this just for more webbased content? I couldn't care less about this.

 

[Jgatie]

Circuit City has a nice Samsung player on sale for $199.99.

Check it out here:

Buy the Samsung BDP-1500 BD-Live Ready Blu-ray Disc Player and other Blu-ray Disc players at circuitcity.com

also, does anyone that HAS a player use the BLU-Ray Live? Is this just for more webbased content? I couldn't care less about this.

The BD-Live is crap, but the U-Control on the WB movies is great. You can be watching a film, and the U-Control content comes on screen and fills in production notes, PiP content, trivia about the scene, and can even jump to a particular extra feature. I used the U-Control on the Bourne films for HD DVD and it was really cool. I need a 2.0 Blu-ray player to use it now, because I bought my Blu-ray before this content was possible on Blu.

 

[Vargas]

The BD-Live is crap, but the U-Control on the WB movies is great. You can be watching a film, and the U-Control content comes on screen and fills in production notes, PiP content, trivia about the scene, and can even jump to a particular extra feature. I used the U-Control on the Bourne films for HD DVD and it was really cool. I need a 2.0 Blu-ray player to use it now, because I bought my Blu-ray before this content was possible on Blu.

Cool.

Thanks. When DVD's first came out I would always buy the "collectors edition" for all the special features. About a year later I realized I have never watched any of the special features so I just started buy the normal versions. However, if you could have the special features integrated with the movie, then that is perfect.

 

[Vargas]

Just an update if anyone cares...

Bought the Samsung BD-P1500 yesterday at Circuit City for $199.99 along with The Dark Knight.

Looks great on my TV despite it only being a 720P but I'm just not satisfied so after Christmas I will be buying a 47in Samsung with 1080P. CC has one now on sale for $1044.00 and I have a 10% coupon plus a $100 gift card to burn through.

I was totally content with my TV until buying the Blu-Ray. Damnit, it always happens this way.

 

[DAB]

Just an update if anyone cares...

Bought the Samsung BD-P1500 yesterday at Circuit City for $199.99 along with The Dark Knight.

Looks great on my TV despite it only being a 720P but I'm just not satisfied so after Christmas I will be buying a 47in Samsung with 1080P. CC has one now on sale for $1044.00 and I have a 10% coupon plus a $100 gift card to burn through.

I was totally content with my TV until buying the Blu-Ray. Damnit, it always happens this way.

Var, you remind me of myself so much! But when I went TV shopping I purchased my Blu Ray player at the same time. I initially went with an LCD I think I got a 42" when watching football or anything with a lot of action the picture was terrible even on hi-def channels. Returned it and got a different brand LCD, but this one was 46". The results were the same at the time I didn't realize this was a limitation in LCD HDTV's. Though some people seem to notice the motion blur more than others. So, again I returned the 46" LCD and purchased a 52" Pansonic Plasma. Well I loved it from the moment I turned it on, found tweaks on some forums to ajust the color etc. It was a lot of money though and well I was having a hard time swalling the price. So, packed it up returned it and got a 52" Sony Projection TV, initially I liked it, I especially liked the price. But after using it for almost 3 weeks I begin to notice this haze on the display and it was just irritating. Everyone that came to my house noticed it too. So, yep I packed it up and returned it. They guys at Sam's Club knew me well now. Well I was looking and discovered that they still had that Panasonic 52" that I liked so well, but the price had been dropped by $800 bucks. Needless to say that is what I got and I've had it for 10 months. Blu Ray and my Hi-Def cable look GREAT on it. I couldn't be happier with it. Now I am considering getting a smaller one for my bedroom. I am in no hurry. I figure after the holidays and sales sort of go flat there will be some really good deals, so I'll just bide my time. My son just got a Visio 32" Plasma for his bedroom at Sam's for $399 and it too looks great, but it is 720P like yours. He says it looks fine to him but he is only watching hi-def cable.

What is funny in my story is and you probably noticed this is that each time I returned one, I got a bigger one. LOL All of them were 1080P though I knew if I was getting one I was going to get the higher resolution. Even now if I purchased an LCD, I'd get the 120ghz because from what I understand this has resolved the motion blur issue.

 

[HomieG]

just wondering...is the ps3 loud (cooling fan?) when playing dvd's?

Not if you allow it to vent properly (heat exhaust is on the right side (looking at the front, with the PS3 horizontal).

 

[Vargas]

Var, you remind me of myself so much! But when I went TV shopping I purchased my Blu Ray player at the same time. I initially went with an LCD I think I got a 42" when watching football or anything with a lot of action the picture was terrible even on hi-def channels. Returned it and got a different brand LCD, but this one was 46". The results were the same at the time I didn't realize this was a limitation in LCD HDTV's. Though some people seem to notice the motion blur more than others. So, again I returned the 46" LCD and purchased a 52" Pansonic Plasma. Well I loved it from the moment I turned it on, found tweaks on some forums to ajust the color etc. It was a lot of money though and well I was having a hard time swalling the price. So, packed it up returned it and got a 52" Sony Projection TV, initially I liked it, I especially liked the price. But after using it for almost 3 weeks I begin to notice this haze on the display and it was just irritating. Everyone that came to my house noticed it too. So, yep I packed it up and returned it. They guys at Sam's Club knew me well now. Well I was looking and discovered that they still had that Panasonic 52" that I liked so well, but the price had been dropped by $800 bucks. Needless to say that is what I got and I've had it for 10 months. Blu Ray and my Hi-Def cable look GREAT on it. I couldn't be happier with it. Now I am considering getting a smaller one for my bedroom. I am in no hurry. I figure after the holidays and sales sort of go flat there will be some really good deals, so I'll just bide my time. My son just got a Visio 32" Plasma for his bedroom at Sam's for $399 and it too looks great, but it is 720P like yours. He says it looks fine to him but he is only watching hi-def cable.

What is funny in my story is and you probably noticed this is that each time I returned one, I got a bigger one. LOL All of them were 1080P though I knew if I was getting one I was going to get the higher resolution. Even now if I purchased an LCD, I'd get the 120ghz because from what I understand this has resolved the motion blur issue.

I don't know how long ago you went through all of your TV swapping but I've had my 42 in Samsung for almost a year now and I've never had a problem with the motion blurring during any sports. I've heard people say this about LCD's but I haven't noticed it on mine. I may or may not get the 120hz on the TV because this adds a lot of cost and I just haven't noticed it. I honestly don't remember if the TV I was looking at had it. I don't think it did.

The Blu-Ray, even in 720 is fantastic. I can't wait for 1080p. I should have just gone this way last year but, like an idiot I did not.

 

[DAB]

I've heard people say this about LCD's but I haven't noticed it on mine. I may or may not get the 120hz on the TV because this adds a lot of cost and I just haven't noticed it. I honestly don't remember if the TV I was looking at had it. I don't think it did.

Yeah, it was very evident to me, yet other folks that view it didn't seem to notice it as much as I did. It seems that for some reason some notice it worse than others. But you can bet it is doing it I've yet to see a 60hz model that doesn't do it on any show room I've ever been too. There are many, many articles on the motion blur that I read when I was going through all this stuff. These articles state why these TV have motion blur and why some see it more obviously than others.

I will likely get an LCD this time around for my bedroom rather than Plasma because of less power consumption and heat. But you can bet I won't even consider one without the 120hz after my last experience. I have viewed several of the 120hz ones and I do not see the motion blur on those at all.