Free Republic

Looking for advice from FReeper A/V gueus on how to approach a player problem. I bought new a Live Good (LG) Blue-Ray/DVD player, model BP350, from Best Buy. It was fairly inexpensive ($79). Really, my first purchase of this sort of device. I'm a newb that way. My collection of video consists solely of DVDs (nearly all bought used) for now. I've been testing it all afternoon on perhaps five movies/shows and noticed something rather aggravating: one DVD (300) freezes midway through and won't play the last half of the movie. Another (A Bridge Too Far) plays most of the...

During the course of a day, I read dozens of news articles about High-Definition TV. But the articles often leave me asking more questions than answering them. Last month, I recorded my concerns in an article entitled, "10 Things That Don't Make Sense."The commentary was well received so I thought I would do another one -- God knows, there are still many unanswered questions out there about high-def. It's not the fault of the writers (well, not always). Usually, it's the TV executives who are quoted in the stories. They purposely leave things vague or sometimes tell outright falsehoods in...

China has unleashed a new “format war” for control of the high-definition DVD market in an audacious attempt to unseat the Blu-ray disc as the sole global standard. The launch of the China Blue High-definition Disc (CBHD) for domestic use is viewed by analysts as a dramatic assertion of the country’s rising technological confidence and they believe that the format could mount a serious challenge to Blu-ray. China’s gambit comes just 18 months after the Blu-ray Disc consortium — a 100-strong group of technology and media companies led by Sony — declared victory over the similarly sized HD-DVD Forum led...

CHOICE IS A BEAUTIFUL thing, whether it's picking stocks, voting for a politician or ordering pizza toppings. However, when it comes to the ongoing battle of the high-definition DVD formats — Blu-ray Disc vs. HD DVD — choice is a burden consumers will have to bear. That is, if they opt to choose at all. The first Blu-ray player in the U.S. is coming from Samsung next week — HD DVD players hit store shelves in the U.S. in mid-April — and I can't help but think that those early adopters who choose wrong will get burned. Recall how Sony...

There are growing signs, though, that the battle for supremacy in this multibillion-dollar market may yield a hollow victory. As electronics makers, technology companies and Hollywood studios haggle over the fine points of their formats, consumers are quickly finding alternatives to buying and renting packaged DVD's, high-definition or otherwise. "While they fight, Rome is burning," said Robert Heiblim, an independent consultant to electronics companies. "High-definition video-on-demand and digital video recorders are compelling, and people will say, 'why do I need it?' " when considering whether to buy a high-definition player.