Comments on: Blu-Ray vs. DVD: The New Format War?

By: James Lehan

James Lehan — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 11:16:25 +0000

I’m with a lot of these people. I have an SDTV so, I will probably get a better television when mine dies off or run into an extremely good deal because honestly I’m not that interested in television. I would like to see better content with better picture coming in distant 2nd.

I would like to use hi def discs for storage as one could shrink several seasons of a well liked show into high quality compressed format. That is where I think this should be going more towards the idea of how music was compressed and put into a smaller place to take the whole collection along. I don’t want walls of CDs, DVD’s and certainly not Blu-Ray’s.

I’m dating myself but, at one time I had a car trunk full of audio discs, walls of them! Now all the music I love fits in my pocket. That’s the revolution movies need. I already copy DVD’s into high quality Xvid onto a storage box that sits on my tv and the DVD gets put in it’s own cardboard box and stored in the attic. I have no interest in walls of discs anymore as that time and concept is so old now.

By: JJ

JJ — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:04:06 +0000

I purchased a Sony upconverting DVD player with an HDMI cable for $69.99 at Circuit City and connected it to my 57″ HDTV and it has a big WOW effect over my old (1998) Panasonic DVD player. Going to a blu-ray player will not get you a better picture with regular dvd’s. Unless you have hit the lottery or are a lawyer, dentist or used car salesman don’t bother.

By: josh godwin

josh godwin — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:18:26 +0000

How come Bluray discs cost alot of money ?

By: James Leha

James Leha — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:17:42 +0000

I’m not really caring about Blue Ray. I’m the same as Chris above. Watching television is a bother most of the time since the content is important not the quality of picture. So, we can get better resolution to realize that the Star we thought was hot has a face full of pock marks and big pores (I’d rather not know tee hee).

Plus for all this I don’t see the need for discs anymore since I converted all my dvds to divx, xvid and really I don’t know where those are even at now (perhaps in the attic or basement?) I use a set top box about the size of a book to watch movies on that.

By: John

John — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:17:46 +0000

I recently purchased a Sony DVP-NS700H from Circuit City and they threw in an HDMI cable for a total of $79.00 plus tax. When I looked at this player next to a Blu-Ray I honestly could not tell a difference. Paying $350.00 or more for a dvd player is just insane. And don’t forget you need to purchase Blu-ray dvd’s which also cost more.

By: Rt

Rt — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 08:53:12 +0000

I m fully satisfied with blu-ray product, and i se blu-ray is now big winner almost every studio start production in blu-ray.

By: JB986

JB986 — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:25:51 +0000

If DVD is enough and people are so satisfied with the product, then why are sales declining? Why is BR selling on par with DVD at the same point in its lifecycle? Adoption doesn’t happen overnight period. Deal with it. Get over it. When TVs/discs that support UHD come out, the cycle will restart.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:53:02 +0000

Chris is right on target: so much must be upgraded to benefit. We *just* got surround sound in my house. We have a several year old $250 32″ SDTV which can only handle component video input at 480i. A normal DVD player produces a fine picture for that screen. To bother with Blu-Ray, we’d need an expensive player, expensive discs, and an expensive screen. The picture from such a setup looks great, but there are a great many more things we need to spend money on.

When our TV quits, we’ll necessarily replace it with an HDTV. Then might it be sensible to get a Blu-Ray player, but not before.

By: sebas

sebas — Thu, 15 May 2008 07:52:49 +0000

I think that for the blu-ray format to be installed like DVD’s did, they need to start pushing them towards PC Data storage, IMHO.

I know many will say that Hard drives today are really cheap, but a hard drive is not the best medium for backup.

By: Chris Davis

Chris Davis — Thu, 15 May 2008 03:57:03 +0000

There is no doubt prices have dropped. $500 may be (more) affordable, but good price and good value are two different things. And you’re right, I am happy with my 12 yr old tv - will keep it until it dies. My parents bought an HDTV 4 years ago and paid too much for it. Last week it went out on them and fixing it is now marginally cheaper than buying new. They opted to downgrade by buying a $25 used one as a replacement, and since there is nothing good on TV anymore anyway, (was there ever?) they are probably going to drop their cable too.
To me, quality of DVD vs blu-ray is less important than quality of the content of program I am watching. The story is all too familiar. The more we push the envelope on one front, the more we have to upgrade on all other fronts to maintain the status quo. It reminds me of software bloat. Bigger hard drives, faster processors, higher bandwidth are required to accommodate growing OSes, clunkier software, and bigger files. At the end of the day, are we really any more productive? I resent the fact that the industry changes so quickly and people are more or less forced into a perpetual upgrade cycle.

By: May O'Naiz

May O'Naiz — Thu, 15 May 2008 02:59:53 +0000

BlueRay is the SuperAudio and DVD Audio of the video world. The marginal value improvement will never be there given the costs of having to put up with DRM. My Alpha Geek says “stillborn”.

I have no intention of getting BlueRay, ever, except if they drop *all* of the DRM, especially through out the HDMI chain. Yeah, unlikely, just like me buying into it either. There is no usability advantage at all - it’s actually an extreme drop in customer usability from what is already a pain with DVD region coding.

Firewire originally was the answer to moving video and audio for maximum usability and use options but it was trod under by the MPAA before it had a chance at adoption. It would have allowed full *digital* transfer between *any* device at all. The need has never gone away. We can still dream.

What the MPAA needs to worry about is substitutes. Not substitutes for the technology broken by their DRM but rather entire attention span substitutes like *simply not watching movies*. It’s apparently an unthinkable concept to them.

I’ve substituted *all* broadcast TV and Radio or newspapers here in the states because all are such awful infotainment/propaganda wastelands. I prefer to spend my attention on something more valuable (which is almost anything else). It’s well withing the realm of possibility for many more to embrace this option broadly. Who would thought that newspapers would be doomed as badly as their are back in the 1980s?

By: Kiltak

Kiltak — Thu, 15 May 2008 01:38:33 +0000

I understand your point Chris, but when you can get a 32″ LCD HDTV for around $500, I don’t think we can say that these TVs aren’t affordable.

But if you’re happy with the ones you have, wait until their give their last breath to change