Blu Ray - Is it essential?
 

I've got SKY HD for watching television, plus an Xbox 360 for HD gaming, which use both of the HDMI inputs on my LCD tv that is situated in my lounge.

I however don't have a Blu-Ray player, and if I watch DVDs, I do so through my 360.

How long will it be until DVD is obsolete and I will require a Blu-Ray player? How much do Blu Ray players cost these days for a reasonable model?

I'm aware that PS3s have built in Blu-Ray, but I'm happy with my Xbox 360 for gaming. If I did plump for a Blu-Ray or PS3 it'd end up in my bedroom as that is the only tv with a spare HDMI input, plus my home cinema is already connected to the SKY HD box and 360.

How long until Blu Ray is replaced by a superior format?

Any advice?

They reckon all of these disc formats will be obselete in less than 5 years and everything ,including Bluray movies, will be downloaded. I'm not sure thats likely as a lot of the UK still only has a 1Mb connection and can't go faster because of line length (like me).

A Bluray disc is something like 50Gb of data or something similar so I can't see people waiting around for hours while a movie, either rented or purchased, is downloaded. I think Jason Bradbury from The Gadget Show did this earlier this year and it took hours to download "I am Legend" in Bluray format, something like 4hrs.

My advice.....get a PS3! :D

LOL I was just gonna say...bin the xbox and get a PS3, jobs a good 'un :)

or just wait until Micro$haft bring out the Bluray drive for the 360...... That's what I'm going to do :)

It's going to happen as this was the advantage of a separate drive box for the HD-DVD ;)
In the meantime, I've got a decent progressive scan DVD player - the quality in soo much better than the regular SCART output. Some newer DVDs also have a HDMI out for the same purpose :)

Nothing majorly confirmed though about the Xbox, watch this space :)

Dan

Blue Ray is the future! I have it on the ps3 and it's awesome IMHO and they say within the next 7 years before normal dvd's go bye bye which i am really gutted about as i have over 2000dvds and alot of collector box sets!

I asked the question on another forum and was also told that blueray will not last more than 5 years or so. Will try and dig out the info and post it here.

I use a a Samsung up scaling DVD plaer that outputs via HDMi at 1080P which is connected to my Samsung 1080P LCD TV.

Watching normal DVD's upscaled to 1080P is amazing :thumb:

Went round to my bro-in-laws to watch one of hos bluray films via his plastation 3 connected via HDMi to his Pioneer LCD TV.
Now I should point out his TV is only 720P . . .

Watching his bluray film, well quite frankly it was rubbish, no where near as good as my upscaled dvd's.

Most probably because his TV is only 720P I'm guessing.

So unless you have a higher spec TV, there's no point getting a bluray machine.
I've yet to watch a bluray via a 1080P TV.

should all be downloaded within 5 years, despite what people will tell you (ie: i gotz the ps3 FTW`nz !! 11!)

to be honest, i would suggest not bothering with bluray and simply up scaling your normal DVD`s IMHO

i good quality upscaled dvd is very impressive for the cost IMO
75% of the market dont even care about better quality as they are a bit thick, the masses simply dont care at the moment, maybe they will in another 2/3 years, but buy then the download media thing will be starting up, so they will hang back......

You did not mention how big your TV is or your viewing distance. BR really comes into its own when using large screens or short viewing distances. The best example is using a projector with huge image when there is a big difference.

Also, the new HD sound formats onn BR need to be considered. Believe me they are fantastic. But you need to have an amp that can decode HD sound and a 5.1 system.

If none of the above scenarios apply to you then no point getting a BR, a good upscaling DVD is fine.

Whether it will be obsolete in 5 years or so is neither here or there. You can get a BR player for £180, so if you chuck it in thhe bin in 5 years time who cares?

I have both Xbox 360 & PS3.

Use 360 for gaming. Use PS3 as a DVD player only.

Richer Sounds are doing the Sony Blue Ray players for £150, or £200 for the newer model that allows you download firmware updates. These will also upscale your exsisting DVD`s to 1080i, never seen one that upscales to 1080p yet.
Blue ray may be obsolete in around 5 years time, it may not, either way if you like your movies etc, its not a massive outlay for 5 years use.
AS regards to lack of HDMI inputs I am in a similar situation, 3 devices with HDMI output and only 2 inputs on the TV, I am going to purchase a new AV Decoder that runs 6.1 surround system and can accept 3 HDMI`s to output just one. Think you can get these starting from around £200 too. :)

I still have loads of DVD's to watch, not spending £150 just yet, knowing they will plummet in price in the next 12 months, then I will replace DVD's with Blu Ray players, and probably only if they break.

I enjoyed films in Black and white, I enjoyed them in colour a bit more, on VHS it was the same thing but more convenient, DVD was a bit clearer, Blue Ray is a bit clearer still, I will still enjoy a film if its any good, regardless of what it is played on, once you have analysed how much clearer it is, you dont really notice and just get on with watching it, if you are normal that is, otherwise you sit there analysing it and then register on AVforums and argue about signal to noise ratios, contrast ratios yadda yadda yadda, and never actually watch it for the simple joy of watching a film.

So, no it isnt essential.

I cant see the point of buying a PS3 instead of a blu-ray player if you wont use it for gaming. Its an ugly hulk of a thing to sit about the place.

I got a blu ray player a couple of weeks ago and bought a mix of blu-ray 80s films and recent ones. One thing was obvious straight away, the 80s films aren't much better in blu-ray than upscaled.

I wont be replacing any of my DVD collection for Blu-Ray and will probably continue to buy older films in normal DVD, but I will buy newer films that were shot with the blu-ray format in mind.

i have one of these

Panasonic TH37PX80BA - £559

and the dvd player is one of these


SumVision Phoenix HD Upscaling DVD Player with HDMI 1080p - PHOENIX - www.microdirect.co.uk

i can say my dvd's are crystal clear

i wont be spending thousands because i have one of these.

http://www.photoforum.ru/f/photo.th/...6439_85.th.jpg

and as most of you know they break things



seriusly though mine works great and is very clear,

I has

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41JW6hMsv6L.jpg

http://download-blog.chip.eu/wp-cont...ystation_3.jpg

http://www.classic-hi-fi.co.uk/acata...n-avr355_m.jpg

http://www.superfi.co.uk/images/main...d-1400x911.jpg

My little one can't reach the PS3 or amp. The Wii she can reach but who gives a carp about the Wii :D

Who is talking about spending thousands££???? As mentioned twice above a good BR player can be had for £150-£180. Lets keep things in perspective, this is not some kind of rich mans folly, its mass produced entertainment

Panny 42" plasma, PS3 and planet earth on bluray is just amazing - you can sit 2 feet from the screen and it looks perfect. HD downloads/streaming is years away. People who wait for the next big thing will never buy anything.

2 VHS players and some smoking hot CRTS in my skip!

I think that the fanciful notion of 'downloaded digital content' belongs with paper clothes and cars like they had in The Jetsons.

I'm too tight to buy a blu-ray player:D I've got Sky HD, I almost never buy DVD's, and don't download music as I'd rather buy the CD. I don't see myself downloading movies to rent or buy for the foreseeable future.

Rent Rip Return :) well not blu-rays...

I'm very impressed with up-scaled DVD via a Blu-Ray player !
imho

DunxC

Firstly, apologies, I was posted the original message from my brother's laptop/SN account.

The television that I use in the lounge is a Panasonic 32 inch HD-ready LCD. The Sky Box and Xbox 360 both connect to the Pioneer Home Theatre via optical audio input.

In my bedroom, is a Samsung 19" HD ready TV which has the only remaining HDMI inputs in the house.

I do have a spare Panasonic Home Theatre (5.1) system that I could use in the bedroom if necessarry.

I'm not at all bothered about the PS3, I'd rather just have a good quality player if it's cheaper as he only things that will get played on it are films.

Download speeds are getting quicker, plus blueray films can be shrank a little but I think even now I could get a 50gig blueray film in about 5 hours ?? So in a few years if your getting say 100mb it will be a matter of an hour :D

When dvd's were finally released into the mass market it only took a few years before high def was being marketed so it stands to reason that blueray will be superceded :D

Sort of thread hijack but would welcome opinions of the Sky TV HD services - I'm on Virgin Media at the moment and they won't be feeding HD until end of 2009 apparently so thinking of going to Sky (have the HD tele etc)

So, is the change worthwhile for the picture quality and how is their customer service etc?

Cheers.

So many peeps only appear to have 2 HDMi inputs on their tv's so thought I'd have a look at mine. I've got 3 on the back on 1 on the side so 4 in total, which should be plenty for me.

I've got an HD DVD Player I use for DVD's and a few HD DVD's (Planet Earth - previously mentioned) looks fooking ace on a 100" 1080p PJ :cool: :thumb:

The PS3 I use for BD and this again is absolutely awesome and no idea really why you'd buy a more expensive standalone BD player than get a PS3.

Xbox never really gets turned on anymore, I suppose coz its a launch system and sooooooooooooooo noisy where the PS3 is quiet so I normally buy games for that now - nice to have the 360 in the wings though for single format games ;) :)

In essence - go for it! :D

IMO, unless you have 20-20 vision and a large screen, you won't see the difference. It's a similar argument in the DSLR space, full-frame or crop sensors? 12Mp or 21Mp?

It really doesn't matter 95% of the time.

First of all the Blu-Ray will only last 5 years came about by one insiders comment that was headlined on AVForums News page.

The UK does not have the infrastructure to allow multiple households in the same street across a town or city to stream or download HD video and audio.
BT have already said this will cost £100's of Millions and there is currently no finance in place to do the upgrades required.

Sony along with the film companies have stated even more advanced countries like the US and Japan are 7 to 10 years away from normal Joe Public being able to stream HD content onto their system in real time across the board. Remember we are talking massive bandwith for 1080P video with 5.1/7.1 lossless audio multiplied by the number of housholds watching DVD/Blu-Ray.
Yes it's available now but on limited download, limited content and it's slow and unstreamable for the majority of people who have an ADSL connection.

As for Blu-Ray, with the right equipment it's a massive step up from upscaled DVD. A large high quality 1080P display viewed at a close viewing distance gives the best results and a good sound system playing Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio blows the socks off compressed DD 5.1.
Saying that a older HD-Ready 720P smaller display with an small 5.1 setup may not be able to show up how good Blu-Ray can be when compared to DVD.
Just depends on your system.

For me the small outlay for Blu-Ray player and an extra £5 a movie is well worth it.
Word on the street is for sub-£100 players in the middle of next year with discs coming in closer to £10. Sony predict Blu-Ray to outsell DVD by 2012.

All hype and we'll all have to wait and see.

Cheers
Lee

think streaming hd content will be years away but downloading wont. IC21N or whatever it is called will give mega fast broadband to most people in the uk (fibre optic cable to the roadside cabinets) so the bottleneck is only going to be from the cabinet to your home.
With the downloading, a lot of the blueray content is in the extras so the films themselves once you have cut out the fancy menus etc wont be mega big. You can see blueray films on bit torrent sites and they are only just over 7gb. I have never downloaded one though so cant comment on the quality