Thinking About Buying a Blu-Ray Player?

Now that HD DVD has conceded defeat, are you thinking about buying a Blu-ray player? Gizmodo has some excellent advice: Stop! Why It Still Isn't Safe to Buy Blu-ray.

By now you know waaaaay too much about Toshiba's format-war surrender, the death of HD DVD at the hands of the larger Blu-ray armada. You may even be eying the Blu-ray players mounted proudly in point-of-sale displays at Best Buy or Wal-Mart. Pricing hasn't come down to HD DVD player levels—and with those sinking even further, it's unlikely they ever will—but the need to get in on the action might provoke you to spend some extra dimes. All we're saying is DON'T! Not yet. If you don't know why, let us explain.

In the story, Wilson Rothman gives 3 good reasons why you should wait to boy a Blu-ray player.

Are you going to wait, or is the lure of 1080p high resolution too much to resist?

Comments

[astoworf1]

I'm waiting. Upconverted dvds are fine for me at this time.

[vw]

Done! PS3 for $299

[Rob Cannon]

That article nails it. BluRay is still pricey and it's not done. The consumer lost out on this deal. Maybe by the holiday season the prices will be better.

[Drinkmasta]

I more then happy with HD-DVD player with 40 HD-DVD movies, which can also upconvert my standard DVDs too.

[Michael]

I don't have plans to buy a BluRay player for a while. I expect I will when they get cheap - around $100. Until then, the HD Movie rentals on my Apple TV are giving me my HD movie fix for now.

[NETFLIX MOVIE BURNER]

@ astoworf1

I agree i love my upconverter...

@ vw

sorry man but now that sony's Blu Ray has beaten the HDdvd it isnt good business to drop the price of a next generation systems price tag... What IS good business is to remodel the current one to a smaller more compact version and keep the 500 (maybe 450) price tag on it.

but i do agree PS3 is the BEST choice for Blu Ray

[Steve]

Why wait? Upconvering isn't very good on a large screen. PS3 so far has been the safest route.

[Complication]

@Steve

Actually, up-converting looks great on my 52" at 1080p. I can only tell the difference if I'm looking for it. When I've had friends over and do a blind test they don't notice the difference unless I tell them. It does depend on the DVD source material. Some DVDs were just encoded poorly. For example, the first scene in the "Across the Universe" DVD is annoying because the sand in the background (beach scene) pixelates.

But, then again, maybe my tests are not fair. My upconverter is a PS3. It is entirely possibly that not all upconverters are created equal.

@movie burner

Sometimes the best business practice is to continue the momentum. Sony's biggest problem with Blu-Ray uptake is that DVD quality is good enough for most people (as you have stated repeatedly). Then you have other media center competition from the Apple TV and Microsoft. If Sony could keep up with demand, a $300 price point would sell enough units to make the PS3 the standard device in the living room.

Add online video support to the PS3 for things like Netflix Watch Now and YouTube and you have the best machine out there for media consumption (games, Blu-Ray, DVD, streaming content). People would end up with a DVR for live TV and a PS3 for everything else. I hear there may even be an add-on for the PS3 to allow it to be the DVR (good luck with that and cable/dish DRM).

[Blazie]

I'm interested to see if there will be any backlash against these companies that are manufacturing incompatible players.

[eviltimes]

My A35 upconverts much better than my PS3. And while I only did side by side comparisons with 3 movies, the Toshiba HD A35 beat the BluRay PS3 every time. All on a 42" 1080P LCD.

You can imagine how I feel about being forced to eventually purchase an inferior product.

"My A35 upconverts much better than my PS3. And while I only did side by side comparisons with 3 movies, the Toshiba HD A35 beat the BluRay PS3 every time. All on a 42" 1080P LCD.

You can imagine how I feel about being forced to eventually purchase an inferior product."

You already own a PS3 -- why are you eventually be forced to buy an inferior product? BTW, I own a RCA HD DVD player, so I am not a Blu-Ray fanboy.

I do not think the PS3 is the best choice for Blu-Ray. I am considering buying either the Panasonic DMP-BD50 (coming out April 1st for a MSRP of $600) or the Sony BDP-S550 (coming out in the third quarter for a MSRP of $500).

I am currently using the 5.1 analog audio outputs from my HD DVD player to go to my non-HDMI receiver, so that I can listen to lossless Dolby TrueHD sound on HD DVD's that have it. So I am not in a rush because I might have to buy two component video switches and another set of analog audio cable in order to continue to enjoy my HD DVD set-up as is with the addition of a Blu-Ray player (which I would also have to fit into my set-up, which includes an Oppo DVD player also -- see my notes below on that).

As you can see from the chart at website linked to below, none of the current Blu-Ray players decode DTS-HD MA internally (the Panasonic DMP-BD50 will be the first Blu-Ray player to do this).

I bought a new Yamaha RX-V2500 A/V receiver (for $500) about 15 months ago from Tweeter, so I could have gotten a HDMI receiver. I don't think there were ANY HDMI v1.3 receivers available at the time. I believe the HDMI v1.3 receivers started to become available 6-12 months ago for $1,000+.

I use my Oppo DV-970HD to upconvert over component after I hacked it with an altered firmware that I downloaded from somewhere on the internet.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=980672

[NETFLIX MOVIE BURNER]

@ Complication

i agree with u BUT the thing about youtube.com, netflix suppport is that everyone wants a piece of the pie and in the end they wont see money coming in untill years after and its probably gonna be more expensive to have all that support on one device... as it should be... i remember people where complaining "PS3 600 ???? way too much" and i said ... well not really cuz u get 2 NEW GENERATION products for a low price a Blu Ray player and a gaming console

and another thing that i repeatedly have said is people just dont have the cash OR dont want to pay double for Blu ray movie and 6 times more then a regular dvd player (if the dvd player cost 50 bucks"... the 9-5 guy is thinking "400 bucks ??? plus 40 per movie to watch 1 movie ????" and he's right

About upconverting .... if you watch lets say "dumb and dumber" on the first dvd version that it was released it wont do as good of a job upconverting cuz the transfer was poorly dont... but if u watch it in the recently released version u couldnt tell the difference...

i just watched "who framed roger rabbit" te special edition verison on my upconverter and i was blown away ofcourse the cartoon characters where not TOP of the line but the movie in itself was great on the upconverter....

until Blu Ray drops its price i suggest going out and buying a good Upconverter they rang from 60-200 bucks it just depends what u want it too do ... i got my phillips from circuit city for 60 and it does it all... reads dvds, cds, vcd, WMA, Quicktime,MP4,divx, even a nice usb hub for external purposes and its great.

[CJ]

I've had a PS3 (Blu-ray), a Toshiba A20 (HD-DVD) and a Toshiba SD 5000 DVD upconverter now for over a year. I been using all three for upconverting regular DVDs to 1080p on large screen LCD TVs.

My qualitative analysis is: the PS3 Blu-ray player upconverts to 1080p slightly better than the Toshiba A20 HD-DVD player does; the Toshiba SD 5000 is noticeably in third place; and all three upconvertering players are way better than not using upconverting at all.

I'm giving my Toshiba SD 5000 upconverting player to one of my kids who has a large screen LCD TV with HDMI input, but no upconverting player.

[anahtarci,cilingir]

anahtarci,cilingir