Blu Ray success?

Pricey & price premium - always pertinent. Heck, I still rarely will spend $14.95 for a DVD. Criterion is Criterion, nice to be available when one needs a classic - at a price.

Disliking DRMs or not, digital delivery is being forecast. Just when I got used to CDs, they are said to probably be around for limited time. I am not looking forward to unfamiliar digital delivery, especially if coupled with limited fidelity. Record companies may hate Apple, but pretty much for beating them to the punch & thusly, with more market position. True, left to their own desires they would rather shun the Apple model which has proven to sell more volume to compensate for the higher unit prices recording companies would have liked.

Paying for just a period of use, as with leasing autos didn't make outright sales obsolete. Some of my neighbors do nothing but burn movie downloads. They have an imperfect, but usable copy, with space saving bonus of usually to movies per disk.

HDTV to watch upconverted DVDs, of course not, that puts the cart before the horse. HDTV is for HD.

Generation gap: Free samples lead me to buy more product; no so with youth - without a firm sense of right from wrong, students have attempted to download the universe. ipod created an infrastructure that didn't exist. Despite their head start, others are in the music download business - apparently as long as there is an appreciable chunk of money to be made.

As things progress, I will be glad to join in with high def disks. In the meantime, I am not going to chase format at the expense of the modicum of lasting quality of motion picture theater. I have the classics for the sake of the classics.

Well, DRMs are not well liked, but are for the purpose of protecting someone's intellectual rights. Though I have my opinions about the innovative quality of music struggling to rise above the high thresh hold of creativity - musicians will go on & on about the mass of outright theft they have experienced.

their projected business model and/or forecast by the end of this year.

A Bluray player costs $230 right now as brand new.

You would absolutely notice a huge upgrade to your video quality, if not audio quality, by attaching one to your Samsung DLP.

There is a formidable difference b/w a disc that is natively 480i and 1080p. Besides the differences in color palette and richness that is also a significant improvement.

I recently put on some of the best PQ DVDs that I know, since i haven't tried DVDs since last year. Even an avg BD blows em away.

The cost difference between BD and DVD is probably on avg $5, if not less than that.

And you get a whooooooolllleee LOT for that $5 premium.

For anyone who cares at all about PQ, I just can't understand why a few bux is such a big deal from an entirely different cinematic experience.

I mean, we are talk about multi thousand $ Tvs, speakers, receivers, and the like, but remember, the source is everything.

A good classical recording will have greater resolution and dynamic range on a $300 pair of speakers than over compressed pop-rock on $14,000 BWs.

A good bluray recording will have much better PQ, resolution, color, detail on a $800 Panasonic then either an overcompressed Tv signal, or average upconverted DVD on a $5,000 Kuro.

I really don't see $5 per disc difference (if that's accurate) as ALL that much in the BIG SCHEME OF THINGS. For the source is everything. Let's see... so 20 new BD vs 20 new DVDs is a difference of $100. Not chump change, but everyone rents anyways. I believe the avg consumer owns less than 20 DVDs, anyhow.

Our displays have been so far ahead of the sources that we can feed them with. Its nice to finally have something that can advantage of our technology.


Your spiel is based on personal proclivities and fears. It, however, has very little relevance to the actual situation that exists today, whether in terms of value to the consumer, the state of technology today, or in the immediate future, or even the technology that may exist 5 years from now.

There is no other physical format on the horizon, outside of BD.

People don't want to have to think, or be told by someone knowledgeable that there's a better way to do things. Unfortunately, the vast majority of viewers think that by obtaining any 'ol flat panel HDTV, the crappy quality SDTV shows they watch mysteriously look better. There's not enough real understanding of differences in technology yet, nor is there much demand for serious PQ by the masses. Joe six pack still feels the bargain LCD panel from Wally World *must* be a better way to view the wifey poo's favorite sitcom since it's bigger than the old tube tv now relegated to the den <vbg>. The flock simply takes what's easiest to obtain and hookup- anything that does not require much thought or foresight. (It's sort of akin to how people in the U.S. typically vote, eh?)

Guess I can't get no respect. Source may be everything, depending on what one regards as source. BD may be enchanting some as to the aspect of novelty of image. A splendid display of high def, but as high art?

Unlike, perhaps own less than twenty DVDs; everyone rents, anyway? Guess I am non-typical; I don't rent. Well, my 1800 or so DVDs are based on a library of classic flics plus, of course, some guilty pleasures as personal cult films.

I have no quarrel with PQ, res, color, detail, etc. My DLP will wait for upgrading, well indefinitely. I hadn't been thinking of my fears? My fears may be in the vague notions of financial stability beyond our momentary over fixating on things political.

The Gillette Blue Blade theory of business often prevails. Gillette had the foresight to use the razor as a giveaway at cost as the nickel & diming of America was to be done selling replacement blades.

Using the Gillette sales strategy hasn't gone away. This is how printer companies kill us. We get a printer free or for $99 when we buy a computer, but the stupid cartridges cost a fortune.

And Pepe7 is correct about people who expect that by simply buying an HDTV, their crummy SD TV signal will miraculously look stunning. That's why in the Costco where I shop, they have a large sign posted for the people that states: "You must subscribe to an HD service to get an HD picture."

with regard to downloads, even if they get us up to 1080p, storage is a big problem as Josten says. Personally, with a half dozen exceptions, I seldom watch a movie more than once. For me, renting and downloading is the way to go. On the other hand, others may watch a movie over and over again. The way kids rewatch movies, downloads could bankrupt you. Right now I think there's plenty of room for both Blu ray and downloads in the market. Heck, I might add a Blu ray for one room and use my Apple TV in the other. Now that home entertainment has crossed over into the computer world, I doubt the storage problems will last 5 years. All business evolves at a snails pace compared to the computer industry. I suspect that the geek nation will solve our problems at lightning speed from now on. For instance, what if Apple offered me an online movie service so that I own my collection and could watch my movies as many times as I wanted but they were stored on their server instead of my hard drive? That would also be great for people who have kids because they wouldn't have to worry about damage to their Blu ray collection due to careless handling. I can't tell you how many game disks and DVD's I've seen destroyed for that reason. The one 720p movie I've watched on Apple TV so far, allowed me to begin viewing the movie after maybe 1-2 minutes so I'm not too worried about download times. I mean, what if a 1080p movie didn't allow me to start viewing for 3 minutes? That wouldn't bother me. I also suspect that if Apple continues to support Apple TV, they'll give me plenty of hard drive storage options in the future. In that case, I would sleep better having a Blu ray disk for backup rather than a second hard drive. However, ss has been pointed out, that creates all kinds of DRM issues. The thing is, I have great confidence in the people who provide me with all this cool stuff because they are way smarter than me. I have no doubt that they can work out the DRM issues if they decide they want to. Maybe they design the Blu ray disk so that if I rip to a hard drive, I have to register it via the internet to allow the download. After that, I could not download to any other drive without re-registering. Ultimately, with downloads, all I'm gaining is convenience. As it stands today, not only am I not getting better quality, I'm sacrificing it. So, I'd say Blu rays would be preferred by those who don't share my desire to be a tree sloth.

I think all of this choice is really cool (and expensive) and makes the whole thing so much fun. So I say, it's not either-or, but both!

Rusty

just as with music DLs and CDs.

If you are watching within one minute of DL startup, I really have to wonder how compressed your video is, let alone audio. You already conceded real loss of PQ, I think. I've already said it here, and elsewhere, I have nothing against DD. As long as I don't have to suffer loss in PQ and SQ. Heck, AFAIK, even sat feeds have tremendous potential for excellent PQ and AQ. They don't, because people don't know, don't care, and will settle for a whole lot less.

So, another thing I've said here before: I'm all about promoting high quality audio and video. Why the heck would I spend so much time here otherwise?

As I already have mentioned, Iron Man BD live users were having a HELLUVA time. Ultra slow. I bring it up again, if you want to watch a movie when its released, how long will you have to wait? How convenient is it really?

I just typed in "hard drives" at Frys site. First thing I see is seagate 250 GB drive for $80. I think I can fit, maybe, 6 movies on there. Remember, over half the BDs out there are on 50 GB discs, and if one's collection is mostly of the blockbuster type, you can safely predict the proportion will be even higher. The trend towards the larger discs has been consistent and continual ever since last year. I've been paying attn, because I was curious how they were even going to fit in lossless audio on the 25 GB discs.

In all honesty, I've probably have had as many hard drives go bad as I've had movie discs. All one has to do is put it back in the case, and not have it lying around, or stacked on top of another.

I'd much rather be able to use a BR disk for backup than a hard drive but todays Frys ad here has a three terrabyte (3 connected one terrabyte hard drives in one case) for 799.00. Way two pricey for me even if I was Ok with hard drive storage. Haven't looked into compatibility but if I have to use the Apple external hard drive option, same Fry's ad has that for 499.00 for one terrabyte. Even at those prices, i can't believe how far prices have dropped and storage has increased the last few years. Don't know if it exists already and haven't heard about one in development but I'd think movie services similiar to what sqeezebox makes available for music would be the best option.

On PQ, I really like what I get from Apple but I've only done one direct comparison to standard DVD. While it was like night and day superior, I don't yet feel qualified to say it's always that superior based on one test. Sound was much improved too but I don't know if it was just better than the one DVD or always better. The reason I said inferior PQ in the previous post was because it's only 720p. Without doing a side by side, I couldn't say for sure I could tell the difference between a download and a blu ray disk but I assume I could. If the next few movies I watch are as good as the first one, I would say it's "high quality audio and video" even though it might not be as high quality as blu ray. The movie I watched was also higher quality than when I've seen the same movie at 1080i from "On Demand". I have the 160GB version and haven't put a dent in it's storage capacity yet. All I've got on it so far is the equivalant of maybe 20 CD's in WAV files and the first two seasons of "The Brotherhood" (maybe 24 hours). "The Brotherhood is standard def and looks no better or worse than it would on a standard def cable station. I don't think I've even used 10% of my capacity so far.

The download time is that fast because you can start the movie long before the DL is finished. Once it's far enough ahead of the viewing time, it gives you a message saying it's ready for viewing. Can't remember how long it took to download the whole movie but it was, of course, much longer. Viewing didn't overtake the DL or anything. Didn't know I could download "Iron Man" but I want to see it. Maybe tomorrow I'll give it a try if I Tunes has it.

Who know, maybe after I see what OPPO produces, I'll get a blu ray and can do a comparison to that also.

See ya man

I just read that they might have it fixed. Your 160 GB drive probably couldn't even hold my Godfather collection. The three movies avg a litle over 48 GBs each, and that doesn't include the extras disc. The case that holds my GF collection is about the size/volume of a DVD case, if not slightly smaller.

How's Germany?

Unless the Oppo blows everything out of the water, it seems the Pana BD-35 and BD-55 are going to be excellent values.

The BD-50 player was the only player to pass all tests that I linked earlier here. Even the PS3, s350, and Pioneer players didn't do that.

assuming the extras disc is as big (since its 291 minutes on its own), hard drives are really going to have to drop in price to make "owning" high quality recordings economical. Beating a dead horse. Just a matter of time I suppose. But it won't be tomorrow. Or this year. Or next year. Or the year after that. Or...

due to sheer number of words. But at least those words provide salient and enlightening argument.

Yours?

Pure blather.

that I will never follow any advice you ever might have regarding video. That was many months ago.

I could leave it at that.

But once you start misinforming consumers here, sorry man, I can't let it pass.

Has it ever occurred to you how high the proportion is among the regulars here who DO own BDP's? Aren't you and Rusty the only ones who don't? There might be a couple others...

AFAIK, if Im not mistaken:
lets see ben (of old), givemeaname, dan filice, newcomers such as jonnyb88, among others, even stewie, bearvp, jcrobso, kcfvegas, chesschess, minimalist, jonnybones... the list goes on... oh ya, myself as well.

besides the point.

your thread is misleading, misinformed, and useless.