Shoot! I'm sticking with Betamax!
I also watch DVD's on my home LAN, and I can't easily rip Blu-Ray for HD storage as I can a DVD.
I think it will be quite a while before anything other than a good ol' DVD crosses my threshold.
“I think it will be quite a while before anything other than a good ol’ DVD crosses my threshold.”
That may be true, but as the article points out PS3 alone will drive plenty of Blu-ray adoption. Since Blu-ray players also play DVDs there’s no issue with losing access to the old library.
As to ripping Blu-ray discs, I thought software was already out there...
BluRay will slowly filter in as people replace DVD players but only if the costs fall to a level where people decide it’s worth it.
It’s the price. How much easier can you get than that? DVDs didn’t EXPLODE until units hit the magic $100 price point. At this rate, we’ll have to wait two years(excluding inventory clearing black Friday sales) before we get to that point with BluRay.
This isn’t rocket science.
THere is no advantage to Blu-Ray in your van. You need a large screen TV to appreciate it.
It is truly amazing though. HD is fuzzy in comparison.
Blu-ray will take off when there are more titles available.
--chuckle--
Sony is the only company who can lose a one horse format race.
The death of a competing HD format was supposed to be a good thing. I didn’t get it then, and I don’t get it now.
Is that why HD-DVD was killed by the other manufacturers?
They bought their players. It's a capital investment, not a consumable. You buy one, you have it.
Those who didn't buy one probably don't have HDTVs to plug one into, so there's no point in getting one. Authors of such articles seem to forget that the ~$400 players need a ~$1400 monitor to plug it into ... and most people still don't have HDTVs, and most of them aren't in a hurry to get one.
I keep looking at HDTVs, and keep not getting one. The compression wrecks the potentially pristine image, LCD panels have a jitter that bugs me, Plasma panels have a finite (improving, but still finite) lifespan, rear-projection systems are unwatchably bad (move slightly to the side and image rapidly fades), laser systems just aren't here yet, and whichever way I go the entry cost will be realistically upwards of $4000.
I'll stick with my 27" CRT and Netflix DVDs for now, thanks.
I would be in seventh heaven if they ever start remastering some of the old music I like (60's particularly) and putting into one of those HD Audio formats.
It took years (unto decades) for CDs and DVDs to penetrate the market to a degree these people are looking to achieve in months ... and those involved formats that didn’t require a whole new audio/video monitor to achieve any benefit at all.
Bump
I am the first to say that the "new" stuff isn't that much better than the current stuff (Conservative that I am), but I've seen movies on HDTV screens that simply jumped out of the plane, and grabbed me.
There are still some problems with the technology, and the price isn't quite there for me yet, but I plan on upgrading. I DO find standard def TV perfectly adequate for much of my viewing, however.
Anyone wanting a BD player, most will buy the PS3.. its the cheapest one out there, comes with a nice game system as well, and will handle all upgrades to the format.
This “stand alone player” numbers is right out of the old HD-DVD camp trying to spin.
Every PS3 sold is a BD player, and if you are in a store with only a BD player costing 400 or 500 right beside a PS3 that is a BD player with a game system as well for 400.... most will pick up the PS3.
This seperating out the PS3 from dedicated players to prove something about sales is idiotic.
Had Comcast's HD box, but that didn't give me much more than just a full screen. I returned it and went back to the regular digital box and paid $30 less a month.
So IMHO, an HDTV is great, but I don't think one needs all the fandangle stuff to enjoy it.
It's bad enough to have operating systems hobbled, and new technology rendered useless by computer software. Putting up with it, and having to pay a premium for its implementation is adding insult to injury.
Perhaps the death of HDDVD was premature.
The PS3 is also the only player where you knew you’d get the final Blu-Ray spec eventually without paying a penny more. It has the processor power, networking and storage space, so all that was needed was a software update.
A piece of advice if I may offer...
The Black Friday sales are your best bet to find an HDTV at a good price - save your money and wait for the opportune moment.
My wife and I did just that a year and a half ago - we set aside $1000 over the year for an HDTV. We checked online in late November for the Black Friday ads, and then went into the stores the week before to actually check out the models that would be available. We got up early, stood in line for maybe half an hour, got into the store and out in 20 mins, went home and hooked up a 51in rear-projection unit that gets crystal clear pictures. We then went to breakfast - it was still early enough that the restaurant manager was just unlocking the door as we arrived. Total price, tax and breakfast included, was less than $900.
- We paid less for a large screen HDTV than a lot of people are paying for 35in CRTs. I got the PS3 for Blue-Ray and HD audio - looks and sounds great and plays the reg DVDs clearer than my Zenith high scan DVD player ever did.