Blu Ray?

[Bob Hubbard]

Just upgraded to BluRay, and have around 4,000 titles in the dvd library to consider upgrading to the new tech.

So, what titles rock on Blu Ray, and which ones are to be avoided?

 

[Steve]

Personally, I would recommend that you avoid buying them at all, or if you do purchase one, be sure to buy one that offers a digital copy. I have a blu ray player, but have enjoyed netflix as a service MUCH more. I'm a movie buff and LOVE watching movies, but there are few movies I care to watch over and over. Some, for sure, but not very many. So, I rent them all from netflix now and only ever buy a movie I've seen and am sure I'll watch several times. Netflix has pretty much all of the movies available on blu ray.

I also think that it won't be very long before discs and such will be obsolete. I'd give it 10 years and DVDs will be increasingly rare. You will likely have a blu-ray quality library at home that you've purchased, and thousands more available on demand from a remote server through a service like Netflix. Netflix already offers HD quality movies available instantly on demand.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Dogma on BD was ok. Nice and clear, though didn't seem too much more 'real' than the dvd upscanned.

Watchmen was visually great, but not a "WOW!" IMO.

 

[Carol]

House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower totally rock on Blu-Ray. Director Zhang Yimou makes liberal use of colors and tapestries and the BluRay technology really brings out the beauty

 

[MA-Caver]

I also think that it won't be very long before discs and such will be obsolete. I'd give it 10 years and DVDs will be increasingly rare.

WHAT?? :eye-popping: You mean I'm gonna have to upgrade AGAIN!!...

crap :miffer:

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Just picked up Patton, Phantom of the Opera, 300 and Master & Commander. I'll post my thoughts on those shortly.


Sidenote, I just watched the original Galactica upscanned and I started to drool a bit.....looked decent, wish they'd remaster it for BR, but they never will.

 

[Steve]

WHAT?? :eye-popping: You mean I'm gonna have to upgrade AGAIN!!...

crap :miffer:

That's the beauty of it. You won't have to upgrade anything. You'll have a digital copy of the movies you own, probably 500 movies to one thumb drive. but for most movies, you'll just pull them up from the internet and stream them to your 100" 1080p monitor.

All that said, Iron Man rocks on blu-ray.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Patton was nice and crisp, had a hint of 3d, very vivid color.

300 has some supposed 'film grain' to it, but the colors were as I remembered them from the theater. Same hint of 3d to it.

For comparison I put in a dvd of Ghosts of the Abyss which rocked in upscan mode (Cameron must release an HD version!) and Gettysburg which sadly didn't upscan very well. No BD version of either exists right now.

I'm running a Panasonic DMP-BD60 Bluray player hooked to a 32" Insignia 1080p set with HDMI cables connecting everything. Players net-connectable if I feel like running a lan cable across the house and will connect to youtube, etc.


To be honest, an affordable "on demand" HD service would be nice...save a ton of storage, rebuying a huge library, etc.

 

[jks9199]

Personally, I would recommend that you avoid buying them at all, or if you do purchase one, be sure to buy one that offers a digital copy. I have a blu ray player, but have enjoyed netflix as a service MUCH more. I'm a movie buff and LOVE watching movies, but there are few movies I care to watch over and over. Some, for sure, but not very many. So, I rent them all from netflix now and only ever buy a movie I've seen and am sure I'll watch several times. Netflix has pretty much all of the movies available on blu ray.

I also think that it won't be very long before discs and such will be obsolete. I'd give it 10 years and DVDs will be increasingly rare. You will likely have a blu-ray quality library at home that you've purchased, and thousands more available on demand from a remote server through a service like Netflix. Netflix already offers HD quality movies available instantly on demand.

I don't think DVDs & CDs as storage mediums (for movies or other data) will fade in the next several years. They've reached a balance point, kind of like vinyl albums did, and they offer significant stability.

But I do see movies and more being more available via something like a thumbdrive. Maybe something like you buy a "Digiflix" drive which contains some sort of dongle or other security feature to allow you to download the movies you want and be billed, then take them home and play them.

But I don't buy a lot of movies, either. I'm more likely to catch them on a cable channel and end up rarely watching the ones I've bought.

 

[Carol]

But I do see movies and more being more available via something like a thumbdrive. Maybe something like you buy a "Digiflix" drive which contains some sort of dongle or other security feature to allow you to download the movies you want and be billed, then take them home and play them.

That's what Netflix is doing already only without the part about taking them home. The movies are delivered directly to an appliance that is already your home, such as Playstation 3 or other form of Blu-Ray player. No dongle to be lost/stolen, no need to go out to a retailer.

 

[Steve]

Patton was nice and crisp, had a hint of 3d, very vivid color.

300 has some supposed 'film grain' to it, but the colors were as I remembered them from the theater. Same hint of 3d to it.

For comparison I put in a dvd of Ghosts of the Abyss which rocked in upscan mode (Cameron must release an HD version!) and Gettysburg which sadly didn't upscan very well. No BD version of either exists right now.

I'm running a Panasonic DMP-BD60 Bluray player hooked to a 32" Insignia 1080p set with HDMI cables connecting everything. Players net-connectable if I feel like running a lan cable across the house and will connect to youtube, etc.


To be honest, an affordable "on demand" HD service would be nice...save a ton of storage, rebuying a huge library, etc.

May be worth your while to hook your blu ray up to the internet so that you can make sure your firmware is up to date. Good idea to do this periodically, but particularly if you ever have a problem viewing a disc. Should be information in your users guide about it.

Carol, that's exactly what I think. I don't know... CDs are... who buys those anymore? I said 10 years, but I did that trying to be overly optimistic. I don't see DVDs and CDs as being more than a niche market in 5 years, much as vinyl is now. An oddity that a few people insist upon.

More and more, people are becoming comfortable with the idea of buying something made up only of 1's and 0's. That's the real shift. Just a few years ago, people insisted that owning the actual Disc was important. Now, not so much... at least for most. Downloading music and movies from itunes, streaming tv from hulu, movies and tv on demand through netflix and youtube. Streaming hosts like livewire and akimai have networks of literally 10's of thousands of servers streaming multiple bitrate video so that you or your connection dictates the quality of your stream. Akimai has top level government clearance and they're the de facto security standard for the government. They handle itunes and netflix streaming. Livewire is pretty much entertainment. CBS, ABS, NBC... streaming a tv show? Probably hosted by them.

If you have the bandwidth, you can often watch something in true 1080p (well, technically compressed h.264, but most people don't know the difference).

I actually watched the abu dabhi grappling championships streamed to my TV. It was great.

Bob, have you seen the new LED tvs? Man oh man, do those look nice.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

We've been checking out the new sets....hopefully once we've bought the house and moved next year we'll budget for one of those.

 

[Steve]

Before you do, look seriously at projectors. In the right room, a projector will give you a theater quality picture as BIG as you can handle.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Cool! Will check those out.


Have found Zulu doesn't upscan for beans. Gabriel Iglesias does, and is big as life.

 

[Cryozombie]

I wont buy Blue Ray at all yet... It needs a few years to see if it can overcome the Sony Proprietary mess.

Anyone remember Sony's "High Quality" VTR's, the Betamax?

Yeah, didnt think so.

If you do, and would like a library of Beta tapes, let me know. Fool me once, shame on you, Fool me twice...

 

[Cryozombie]

Before you do, look seriously at projectors. In the right room, a projector will give you a theater quality picture as BIG as you can handle.

I like the IDEA of the projectors. I do some of the setup and configuration of the Presentation PCs we have here at work, and they have projectors... it is cool being able to blow your picture way up...

A few words of caution on them: 1, you need a fairly dark room to get a quality picture out of them, 2, Walls dont make extermely suitable surfaces for projection, however you can get special paint to make them better and save money over buying a screen, and 3, Bulbs, tho the life is getting longer on them are rather expensive, to the point you could almost buy a 30" TV for the cost every time they burn out. Typical lamp life is about 2000 hours, which is about 83 days of continuous use 24 x7, so the average user who watches TV, Uses it as a Computer Monitor, and/or games on it, can expect to replace a bulb a year. Do you wanna Spend on a new TV every year?

BUT... if you have the space... it beats the cost of a 100" TV.

 

[Steve]

I wont buy Blue Ray at all yet... It needs a few years to see if it can overcome the Sony Proprietary mess.

Anyone remember Sony's "High Quality" VTR's, the Betamax?

Yeah, didnt think so.

If you do, and would like a library of Beta tapes, let me know. Fool me once, shame on you, Fool me twice...

Betamax... awesome! But the standards war has already been fought. HD-DVD lost and Blu Ray won. Microsoft is the new Sony in proprietary losers. But I'm with you. My entire point is that I think by the time you buy in, the entire DVD market will have become functionally obsolete.

Regarding bulb life, very good point, although the same is true for rear projection LCD or DLP tvs. It's a built in expense.

That said, the bulbs aren't typically expensive enough to buy a new TV, although they'll easily run you a couple hundred bucks. Also, the way you say it, 2000 hours doesn't sound like much time... 83 days if you run your TV 24 hours per day. For a more realistic comparison, consider that a full time job is 2080 hours per year at 8 hours per day, and most people watch TV a couple hours per day, the average user can expect their bulb to last 3 to 5 years.

For placement, a room that is dark or can be made dark is the best, but what that really means is a screen area that is dark. The room can be brighter, but where the screen is... THAT should be dark. What I'm driving at is some houses have recessed areas that can be shielded from a lot of ambient light, which is perfect for front projection.

You'll also want to get a projector with good contrast ratio (although I'd beware of claims up over 8000:1) and a high lumens rating.

 

[Cryozombie]

That said, the bulbs aren't typically expensive enough to buy a new TV, although they'll easily run you a couple hundred bucks. Also, the way you say it, 2000 hours doesn't sound like much time... 83 days if you run your TV 24 hours per day. For a more realistic comparison, consider that a full time job is 2080 hours per year at 8 hours per day, and most people watch TV a couple hours per day, the average user can expect their bulb to last 3 to 5 years.

Well, I was thinking about a Family with kids who will game on it, Dad's a geek and will run his PC on the 100" screen, and the family will watch TV too. But you are absolutely correct, if you only watch it a couple hours a day, it will last a long time. Like so much else Mileage will vary depending on use. The projectors we use at work need new bulbs about every quarter... but they are basically run 12 hours a day for 6 days a week depending on meeting schedules... Given that that is only around 1000 hours of bulb life, I would assume the constant nature of their use is partially to blame. *I* would probably have similar results because I would definatley use mine on my PC... which is on FAR more often than my TV. Id say... 10 hours a day at least. (well, the PC is on 24x7, but the monitor isn't.) At the time I considered one, the Bulbs averaged about 300 bucks, and I was able to pick up a 37" Vizio for 439 on sale at TigerDirect which seemed like more bang for my buck.

Of course, I sold that TV soon after because I decided I'd rather replace my Motorcycle, so I has a little 15" Tv now... Oh well.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Harry Potter, Half Blood Prince looked really good, but Transformers 2 rocked!

 

[Andrew Green]

Betamax... awesome! But the standards war has already been fought. HD-DVD lost and Blu Ray won. Microsoft is the new Sony in proprietary losers. But I'm with you. My entire point is that I think by the time you buy in, the entire DVD market will have become functionally obsolete.

I think it is still being fought, the industry has calling it blue ray vs hd-dvd, but that leaves out digital. Which, IMO, will take the win in the end.

Physical discs are likely to end up suffering the same fate as CD's. They might still be around, but digital copies will make up the majority of what people actually use.

The missing piece is a iPod like piece of hardware. A box that connects to your tv with a hd connection, with huge storage and the ability to handle all the current formats (and update for new ones)

A box could hold 1000's of movies, tv shows, etc. And do so without having to change discs, keep everything sorted, searches, filters, parental controls, etc.

But a good box and a easy to use online store that connects directly too it would likely kill discs IMO, technologically there is nothing stopping it, just licensing issues. Which means piracy leads to a 'better' product then legal means, and that didn't work out well for the music industry, in the end the industry will have to open up to it.