Blu-Ray Ownership Poll (Please Vote and Post)

Which option best describes your current status with the Blu-Ray format?

  • I am already an owner of a Blu-ray device.

    Votes: 220 45.2%
  • I do not own a Blu-Ray Player, but I may buy one in the next 3 months.

    Votes: 22 4.5%
  • I do not own a Blu-Ray DVD Player, but it is very likely that I will, someday.

    Votes: 141 29.0%
  • I do not own a Blu-Ray DVD Player and I do not intend to purchase one.

    Votes: 97 19.9%
  • Something else. Please tell us.

    Votes: 7 1.4%

  • Total voters
    487
  • Poll closed .
That's what I thought, too. But you have to figure that when you play a DVD, where virtually all Zone 1 disks are formatted to display a picture at 480 lines of resolution, you're relying on a chip to interpolate what information should be displayed on the other 600 lines of your 1080 (p or i) display. Some DVD players do this better than others (my little Oppo DV-980H does a much better job of upscaling video to 1080p than my Panasonic BluRay player (mine's a pretty low-end BDP).
Going from DVD (upscaled or not) to Blu-Ray I liken to putting on glasses. Of course, I didn't think there was as big of a difference until I was prescribed glasses for the first time. Then wow!
Upscaled DVD images can be as smooth, but never as detailed, as Blu-Ray, because the detail isn't actually there.
 
As a new BD player owner (inexpensive Samsung with upscaling) and LED TV owner, the difference between DVD and BD is huge. And of course, even HDTV looks better than DVD (720p vs 480p).

That said, at a normal 8ft viewing distance, DVD on my 40in TV isn't that bad. It's far better than anything ever was to my 32" tube TV w/ RCA cables.
 
It would appear that I'm a bit late to the poll. Oh well. :D

I was given two Blu-Ray players several months ago by my boss. I have no idea why, but the first was...well...a "some assembly required" model from Sony. I think it is/was a BDP-S300.

The second one came a few months later. This time around I was given a complete and functional BDP-S300 machine, because it needed a firmware update. :scratch2: Yes, I took that one apart and yes I compared it to the parts machine...there are differences in the power supply and audio boards. Maybe the first one isn't a BDP-S300 at all. I have no way to know now.

I don't own any Blu-Ray titles or a high definition capable TV, but I have used the complete unit as a DVD and CD audio player a very few times. It's very slow to process anything.
 
I urge anyone seeking to update the firmware on a blu ray player to take the step of making an upgrade CD on their PC, and using that. This eliminates the possibility that a network glitch will disrupt your update and leave you with a non-functional player.

Why manufacturers don't make their update routines robust enough to avoid these failures I don't know. Maybe they hope that people will just do like your boss and buy new machines a lot.
 
I have ZERO interest in 3D. And I wish that they would stop creating movies with extended gimmicky scenes designed to be 3D candy but dont move the story forward. Really annoying.

Good DVD transfers on a 40 to 50 inch LCD or Plasma screen are a joy, not just "not that bad."
 
Good DVD transfers on a 40 to 50 inch LCD or Plasma screen are a joy, not just "not that bad."

Blu-ray is even better. But better is the enemy of good enough, as they saying goes. If you've got joy, there may well be better uses for your entertainment equipment/media dollars....

Still, the players aren't really expensive, and my main source of disks is Netflix (cheap, one-at-a-time plan).
 
Blu-ray is even better. But better is the enemy of good enough, as they saying goes. If you've got joy, there may well be better uses for your entertainment equipment/media dollars....

Still, the players aren't really expensive, and my main source of disks is Netflix (cheap, one-at-a-time plan).

Content is King.

But Im not really poo pooing BD. Certainly its better. But then again, CD is good enough, but some prefer SACD or DVD-A, and then again MP3 is very popular, even lower quality than the standard of quality for 30 years.
 
I have ZERO interest in 3D.

Good DVD transfers on a 40 to 50 inch LCD or Plasma screen are a joy, not just "not that bad."

Ditto on the 3D. It is a fad and will go away.

My only problem with DVD on the 1080p screen is that I can tell that it's digital. They are perfectly watchable. What's so great about Blu-ray is that it is PERFECT. There is no artifacting and everything is tack sharp.
 
BD is just as digital as DVD.

No doubt 1080 is better resolution than 480. And clean 1 to 1 reproduction is preferable to scaling.

However at 40 inches the benefits of increased resolution are greatly diminished. At 120" front projection, the benefits are much more noticeable....even on a 1080p projector with upscaling...but still a DVD upscaled to 1080 on a 1080 projector are very nice.
 
I urge anyone seeking to update the firmware on a blu ray player to take the step of making an upgrade CD on their PC, and using that. This eliminates the possibility that a network glitch will disrupt your update and leave you with a non-functional player.
Seconded. Do everything you can to avoid bricking the player...including "not updating the firmware if it won't fix an issue you don't have".

Why manufacturers don't make their update routines robust enough to avoid these failures I don't know. Maybe they hope that people will just do like your boss and buy new machines a lot.
In the case of the two players I have, it looks to be a matter of there being no other place to store the old firmware code while the new program is written into ROM.

Still, if the player and chipset designers used some sense when they designed the finished product, there should be a recovery mode or a "boot block" that is capable enough to detect a bad firmware flash and try to recover from it.
 
BD is just as digital as DVD.

However at 40 inches the benefits of increased resolution are greatly diminished.

Yes, but BD has almost 6x more pixels per frame. 0.35 MP vs. 2 MP. To get the same resolution on a DVD, my TV would have to be a 15".

True, but I can tell quite easily.
 
I find it a much bigger jump from DVD to Blu-ray than from CD to high-res audio. Ironically, HD video is already very commoditized, unlike high-res audio which is rather boutique, with constant technology infusions (even ones with marginal at best impact like 240Hz) into bread-and-butter product lines. Your average joe has access to and benefits from HD video much more readily than high-end audio- just visit BestBuy. You have to dig around nowadays to find a non-HD TV set.
 
I think most of the complaints about artifacting on DVD are actually complaints about the transfers themselves, not the inherent properties of DVD....as long as you have good video processing. A superbit transfer of The Fifth Element will really wow you. The excessive edge enhancement of 20" CRT era DVDs, not so much.

And I advocate getting a 1080p set over a 720p set even at 40", because most people will be close enough to appreciate the difference in their normal viewing. That being said, a 720p projector at 92" is a joy (I even had a 480p Widescreen projector at 92" and it was enjoyable but the Screen Door Effect is bothersome.
 
I don't have a Blue Ray player. When my DVD players give up the ghost I will get a Blue Ray player. I won't be buying any Blue Ray discs though, I'm sticking with the DVD format because nothing I watch is available on BR. I'm not crazy about the picture quality of BR either. The sound quality however, is another story.
 
Yep, got one about 6 months ago...then my Pioneer Elite crapped out, now have a Samsung DLP 60" 1080i and am upfixing a Sony 60" SXRD with an optical block problem. Looking forward to seeing how the Sony looks.

I've had some problems with the Audio from the BD player...some discs play 5:1 fine and others not. In fact playing Tempest (helen mirren) the audio is fine in the previews but as soon as Tempest comes on it reverts to 2 channel yet the audio on Contagion plays 5:1 fine. Whas up with that?
 
I find it a much bigger jump from DVD to Blu-ray than from CD to high-res audio. Ironically, HD video is already very commoditized, unlike high-res audio which is rather boutique, with constant technology infusions (even ones with marginal at best impact like 240Hz) into bread-and-butter product lines. Your average joe has access to and benefits from HD video much more readily than high-end audio- just visit BestBuy. You have to dig around nowadays to find a non-HD TV set.

I think it is more the changes with time? I remember, after your car, your stereo was the next pride possession, now I cannot say this about HT, yet it surly trumps stereo today; many will spend far more on the big screen, than their AV receiver, leaving audiophiles alone with their passions. yes, most persons are not audiophiles, and many today know far more technical information about computers than persons in the 1970s actually knew about their stereos.

We have so much more now, computer, gaming, the net, bit stream movies, DVDs, HDTV; no wonder pure stereo is becoming a small minority interest.
 
Ditto on the 3D. It is a fad and will go away.

My only problem with DVD on the 1080p screen is that I can tell that it's digital. They are perfectly watchable. What's so great about Blu-ray is that it is PERFECT. There is no artifacting and everything is tack sharp.

3D is FAR from a fad, and not going anywhere. Fads don't last as long as 3D currently has, and the number of 3D releases is increasing year over year. Also, sales of combo packs that include 3D are also increasing in sales quarter after quarter.

3D is slowly but steadily gaining support, and the sales figures proves this.
 
I expierienced blu-ray at my neighbors house. I immediately went and got my wife to check it out. We bought one that day. I love the picture.
 
Back
Top Bottom