Blu-Ray

Who on her has a Blu-Ray player or is converting ?

I'll probably get one by the end of the year since the format is approaching some level of maturity and the player prices are actually starting to come down. I don't anticipate re-buying most of what I already own on DVD, but I'll likely make exceptions for exceptional films. Mostly I'll Netflix 'em.

Also, I'm preemptively calling bullshit on anybody who says physical formats are dead.

yes blu ray is great and i am in the process of converting my collection to blu ray..so far im 48 of 169 (but it depends also how fast the studio can get more of the boutique/indie films as well transfered).

Well, I have a PS3 and it came with Talladega Nights on blue ray, which, far from being a theatrical masterpiece, looked unbelievably clear and crisp on my 12 year old non-high definition set. MY advice is if you want a blue ray player, buy a PS3. They're the same price as a good Blu-Ray player, but you get a free gaming system to boot! I know a lot of people knock the PS3, but it can actually do tons more than just play games. Got pics, movies and songs that you'd like to play on your TV or through your sound system? The PS3 can do that. They are constantly updating the thing to do more and more.

While the PS3 is certainly a quality Blu-Ray player, your comment about price is a little off. While the MSRP of most players is at the same $399 price point of the PS3, the PS3, like most game consoles, rarely goes on sale. As a practical example, Amazon carries Samsung's well-reviewed BD-P1500 (which is the one I've been eyeing) for just under $300.

EvanX doesn't want to buy anymore movies unless they're on blu-ray. Not sure I'll ever get Season 6 of The Shield.

It looks good and I do have a HDTV..
But I don't see the point. You're watching the same movie on DVD.
Plus the only reason I want a blu ray player is just for The Dark Knight.

I don't think it's really worth it.

Oh believe me, it is worth it. It's the same movie, yes, but it looks a whole hell of a lot better.
Plus they hold more space. So when you have your 5 disk special editions on DVD, it will all fit on one blu-ray.

Unless it's a movie I love I'm not rebuying it on Blu. When they drop to $15-20 a pop I'll rebuy a few more, but for now they are just too expensive. Any new releases I want I'm getting on Blu. It's hard to go back and buy DVDs after seeing so many pretty Blu-rays.

the ps2 was my first dvd player, and the ps3 will probably be my first blu-ray player. but not until that price comes down!

Unless it's a special effect laden movie or a sporting event that filmed in HD, what is the point of spending more money on a blu-ray version than the DVD version? It just seems silly, if not flat out stupid. Sure a TV series can fit on many less discs, but if it still costs more then what is the point?

Why eat prime rib when eating a couple hot dogs will fill you up for less?

One perk of Blu is having 5 to 6 episodes of a show on a disk rather than the 4 on standard, I can only imagine with an older show like CHEERS, you could fit an entire season on one disk. My job is pretty cool as I get to test all the new titles coming out on Blu-ray , Criterion collection has recently gone Blu, something I am excited about. Supposedly Blu will dominate the market by 2012, or at least that is what they are hoping. Each studio likes to add their special take or special features of a movie. For instance "American Gangster" and "The Strangers " have the theatrical and unrated versions on a disk , along with picture in pic featuretes on the making of the movie.Sometimes I think the bonus features are a bit unnecessary, but yes the transfer and audio is great. Supposedly there is a box coming out which will have several thousand films in it, which you can activate whenever you want, thus eliminating disks entirely.Until then everything will be going Blu

Here is an an insider tip ,standard def is going to be gone within the next 10 years.

That's odd. I have the whole series of M*A*S*H, and it averages 10-12 episodes per dvd.

Or are you talking a different sort of tech?

I'm talking about hour long ( or 43 minutes with the commercials ) shows like "LOST " , "Grey's Anatomy" " Desperate housewives" etc...they come 4 episodes per disk on standard , as opposed to Blu-Ray which has 5-6 per disk.

But it WILL NEVER replace DVD. HD is still expensive. If there was a way.
Where people can update to HD. Like the conversion from Antenna to Digital.

Then yes Blu-Ray will replace DVD. But it's not that simple as an antenna conversion box.

Actually what will replace DVD is digital. It make take 5 years. Like how DVD took 5 years from 1998 to take over VHS. Honesty I don't think nothing will replace DVD. It's an upgrade from VHS.

I'm tempted to buy Blu Ray.. But even still BR are too expensive. Plus no older movies were converted. Another thing I have a decent collection of DVD.

I think you underestimate:

A) The bandwidth of a semi-truck full of Blu-Ray discs.
B) The vested interest the major ISPs have in not letting you buy video online.
C) The power physical product has over a potential buyer.

I see but I'm just saying we live in digital world.

When you are looking for a quality piece of film then blu ray is the way to go. there is no two bones about it. It really has nothing to do with the discs (it sure is nice though to have a condensed box for heroes and weeds), but more with whats the purpose of buying a nice new hd set and still sticking your eyes on crappy dvd quality. Sure the dvd is the standard, but when you are already invested deep with a ps3/blu ray player and a new HD television you might as well make the switch because it is ultimately worth it for the best of audio and visual quality.

That's very accurate. Right now it is lagging a little behind where DVDs were after first being out this long. As you mentioned, BR isn't a huge jump like VHS to DVD, so it will take a bit longer to catch on. It's still doing very well at this point in it's life, though. Within time everything gets cheaper. DVDs used to go for $30-40.

With HDTV prices/BR players going down, the signal conversion in February of next year, and hopefully BR prices dropping a bit more soon maybe it will gain some more steam. With DVDs being able to be picked up for $5-10 a pop it might take a very long time to phase out DVDs completely. Of course, BR players do upscale DVDs, so a person's collection of DVDs is still useful after switching over to Blu. When I originally moved over to DVD I tossed most of my VHS collection.

And I think that's why people won't invest into blu-ray that much. Because they'll have rebuy movies in Blu-Ray.

I really don't think BR will phase out DVD. Again it's just clearer picture. It probably still comes with the same special features and all that. I don't think people will buy HD sets. Even with the conversion to digital. But what I do think BR will do is just an added cool way to watch a movie. For people that want better experience.

Meh.. digital won't even replace DVD. I was wrong I forgot people like special features and all that other stuff. I was just thinking how iTunes is doing so well. Plus it will take space on your harddrive.

I definitely agree with you on the Blu Ray issue. It seems an awfully lot like when Beta came out. Sure the quality was better and could hold more data etc, but it wasn't a huge enough leap for enough people to justify converting their movie collections and buying a player.

With Blu Ray, you've gotta buy a new player, a new tv and then update your collection. That said, Blu Ray has some potential as hard disk storage, but then again with 8 gig thumbdrives and the increasing affordability of Hard drives, that aspect of their functionality will be obsolete.

And I think you're right about the eventual take over of digital. Memory is getting more and more affordable, computers are being updated with more entertainment oriented hardware, and nothing is gonna stop file sharing, so companies are gonna have to jump on the digital bandwagon eventually.

As for ISP's not letting you buy video online. Doesn't matter when you can just bittorrent HD video files off the internet. So as I said eventually companies are gonna have to start converting to digital in order to stay competitive and to offer a legal option for downloading videos.

I think you're sorely underestimating how much ISPs would much rather sign you up for their TV bundle. Comcast already got caught throttling Bittorrent traffic and is experimenting with bandwidth caps. Right now, those caps are set at a reasonable 250 GB, but I believe Time Warner is experimenting with much smaller caps. I believe that, when it comes to hi-def video distribution over the internet, things are going to get worse before they get better.

and some areas in canada have already been restricted to 60gb caps..imagine comcast pulling something like that. Right now for the foreseeable future ISP's have downloadable content at a standstill and its not going to get better anytime soon. If you wanna probe further into it, how many people do you know with terabyte hard drives? that number is either none or pretty small so thats another issue of introducing the idea of having a small hub to store all your movies in the common household is a hard sell. people still like the physical media and understand putting in a disc starts a movie. They don't want to wait a couple hours for the lastest HD release to finish downloading and making sure they have enough room on their hard drive to watch it. they want something quick and painless. digital distribution has a long way to go and blu ray is definitely going to be around for awhile.