Embracing blu-ray

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Soldato
Joined
10 May 2004
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Sunny Stafford
How many of you have now embraced the new video format? Who have stayed with the DVD?

A friend and I had an interesting debate in our local coffee shop yesterday. He has normal vision and he thinks that the definition in DVD vs blu-ray are very close together but DVD and VHS are far apart. I only have effective 10% eyesight and 1 eye only and I'm the opposite. I think that VHS/DVD are closer and that blu-ray was more of a leap in technology. For example, pause a blu-ray film and you've effectively got a desktop wallpaper. Pause a DVD film and you've only got a quarter of the screen. I find the real difference when watching CGI films. My eyesight is still clear at close range and I can definitely appreciate blu-ray more than I did with DVD over VHS.

The other thing - is blu-ray kicking off? I hope it is because I'm fond of the format and I don't want it to end up with the same fate that the minidisc format met.
 
DVD was by far a bigger leap in technology as it introduced new features such as menus, scene selection, controllable rewind/fast forward, surround sound etc. Blu ray doesn't really have any new features of the same magnitude, it just improves on most of the features the DVD offers.

Blu-ray will definitely end up as the main format sooner or later, it will take a lot longer than DVD did though as most people won't see the benefits of the blu-ray as worth it until the price comes down on all the equipment and media.
 
I've been using blu-ray for nearly 2-3 years now and in my eyes it's when dvd died. Not really sure why people still buy dvds apart from the old stuff that won't get released. Blu ray players aren't that expensive any more, everyone has flat screen tvs and the films are now only slightly more expensive.

MW
 
Personally I would say that the wallpaper example in the OP, whilst technically correct, does not really reflect the perceived increase in quality from VHS to DVD. I would say that from VHS -> DVD was a bigger improvement than DVD -> BD despite what the raw numbers might say.

I do still buy DVDs despite having a BD player, (normally for things which are not currently available on BD). I think that, in general, BD's need to drop a bit more in price, (e.g. ~£15 for new releases instead of ~£20 on the high street).
 
The films are still considerably more expensive! I tend to buy at local shops unless I preplan a purchase.
Its usually around 5-6 quid more expensive (And no, I don't care about getting a DVD copy and digital copy (Which requires programs, unlocking etc)) which is a lot.
Unless the prices come down faster, it is going to be a long road!
 
weringo said:
Well that's not surprising considering blu-rays have been around for almost 4 years in the UK and DVDs were brand new technology in 1998.
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DVDs in 2002 probably still cost more so I don't understand why people are moaning about the price.

MW
 
All new films I buy now are on Blu-Ray. Full 1080p HD is definitely better than SD as long as the film was originally mastered and transferred well. Some transfers look like they they were mastered as SD then upressed.

Blu-Rays won't be around forever mind. They will be superseded by something else furhter down the road just like VHS, Laserdisks, DVDs etc. But I think they will stick around for long enough for me to invest in a decent amount of films.
 
Thanks for the answers for & against.

Some interesting input about prices too. I remember buying my first DVD in 2004, West Side Story, and paying £19 for it O.o Sure, I paid £19 for Disney's Fantasia on blu-ray but all of my other blu-rays have been around the £13 region.
 
Mr-White said:
DVDs in 2002 probably still cost more so I don't understand why people are moaning about the price.

MW
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Because a DVD (with slightly worse quality) is available for less. There isn;t a massive difference between the formats that warrants the massive price difference. It is a premium product.
I bought Lord of the rings on BluRay and wish I hadn't the quality was shockingly bad for a BR.
 
I've skipped it entirely, it's an interim solution that IMO has a short lifespan whilst home broadband becomes fast enough to do away with physical media entirely.

A 6-10GB file is almost as good quality (just needs some extra computation to decompress into 1080p), and these days if you have decent Internet you can download at 2Mb/s - so that's about a 50-80 minute download for a 90 minute+ movie.
 
I don't buy many films, but when i do they're on Blu Ray, although i still buy allot of stuff on dvd as it just isn't being released on Blu Ray. I also think that the prices are still a tad expensive. £15-18 for 1-2 hours of film content is a bit much (Behind the scenes/extra stuff doesn't really factor into my decision). Although i will say that i only buy stuff on Blu Ray that i know will take advantage of it.

Blu Ray is definitely hitting off for big film and tv releases, but it's not so widespread that you could pick up many niche shows and films on it yet. The home media market is still saturated with dvd's, but blu ray is still trickling in.
 
I've stuck with DVD, principally because my TV, despite being 42" and 16:9 physically, only has a resolution of 1024x768, thus making 1080p pointless. Plus my DVD player upscales DVDs very nicely. When I bought all my a/v gear four years ago BD players were still rather expensive, and I already had a decent (100+) DVD collection. Easy decision for me.

With the way internets are going, and the fact BD's nowhere near the quantum leap over DVD that DVD was over VHS*, I don't think BD will ever achieve the saturation DVD has.

*In terms of featureset and functionality. Being able to skip, not having to rewind, more stable physical media, interactive options, surround sound etc. I think in terms of IQ then BD probably is a bigger leap over DVD than that was over VHS.
 
Tetsujin said:
I've stuck with DVD, principally because my TV, despite being 42" and 16:9 physically, only has a resolution of 1024x768, thus making 1080p pointless. Plus my DVD player upscales DVDs very nicely. When I bought all my a/v gear four years ago BD players were still rather expensive, and I already had a decent (100+) DVD collection. Easy decision for me.
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Mine's the same resolution albeit 37" and claiming 720p. The scalar in it is decent enough, and I can certainly tell the difference between downsampled 1080p and upsampled 576p.

Mostly I transcode 1080p to 720p.
 
PhillyDee said:
Because a DVD (with slightly worse quality) is available for less. There isn;t a massive difference between the formats that warrants the massive price difference. It is a premium product.
I bought Lord of the rings on BluRay and wish I hadn't the quality was shockingly bad for a BR.
Click to expand...

The quality difference is more than a little, if you have a bigger tv. Also they upscale old films and put them on blu-ray so don't expect all films to be true HD. only new films are worth buying on blu-ray.

MW
 
Mr-White said:
I've been using blu-ray for nearly 2-3 years now and in my eyes it's when dvd died. Not really sure why people still buy dvds apart from the old stuff that won't get released. Blu ray players aren't that expensive any more, everyone has flat screen tvs and the films are now only slightly more expensive.

MW
Click to expand...

Wrong? My main TV is one of the last decent CRTs, i hadn't seen anything that came even remotely close to it in terms of image quality and colour reproduction until HD TVs, and even then it's nowhere near enough to make the switch. I will when it breaks, but considering how we've already spent money on that and a pretty decent DVD player/recorder (not more than a couple of years ago) that all work perfectly fine there's really no point in changing, especially not until they can compete price wise.
 
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