DVD vs Blu-ray, is it worth the switch ?

[Sith-Lord]

Is it worth the switch ?

I'm going to date myself a bit, but here I go. I remember when there was the Beta / VHS war.

I waited for a winner, and then bought a top loading VHS player. It was a great JVC player.

Then some time passed, and DVD came out. Then it was the war of DVD / VHS.

DVD won the war. I wasn't to happy buying copies of my VHS movies, now on DVD. But there was a plus though. Most DVDs came with bonus features, that's what really won me over.

Now I feel that it's the Blu-ray / DVD war.

I'm not in video games, or I'd already have a PS3.

Is Blu-ray really that good ? Or is just a scam by the movie people, to keep you buying copies of their movies ?

 

[not2old]

I think it was around 1984 that I paid $1100 for my VHS machine (in 1984 dollars). Not a great investment.

The fight has been "won" by Blueray. It is the next "standard". I am still going to hold off for a year untill the players hit the $100 mark. Nice thing this time around is that a new Blueray player will still play your DVD's (but not the VHS or Beta tapes).

 

[chatter]

Blu-Ray is better.

There is a huge difference in the quality of MOST rented or purchased Blu-Ray discs over the same DVD version.

The picture resolution is much better, but you MUST have a TV or projector that will take advantage of the upgrade. Your picture quality is always at the mercy of the weakest link in your system.

The audio is FAR superior to the DVD.

When I go to rent a movie, I go to the BR section first!
Rogers video has a pretty good selection of BR's now, and it will only continue to get better.

C

 

[smackyo]

It's worth getting a blu-ray player to watch your old dvds on if you have a high-def tv.

Apparently the player upgrades the old dvd somehow so it actually displays at a higher resolution that it does on a regular dvd player.

xoxo
Nina

spot on. bluray players up convert standard dvd to near high def quality. not to mention superior sound quality.

its a no brainer.

 

[liveforthefunk]

there is no war, blu-ray is the superior technology. Blu-ray players are dirt cheap these days anyway. You can pick up a pretty good one for $300. Just make sure you get an HDMI cable. If you dont want to pay $80 on a cable for a $300 machine, visit www.monoprice.com. You can get what you need for under $20 shipped.

 

[sevenofnine]

i have watched high def, but don't see the big deal

 

[Johnny_C]

Is it worth the switch ?

I'm going to date myself a bit, but here I go. I remember when there was the Beta / VHS war.

I waited for a winner, and then bought a top loading VHS player. It was a great JVC player.

Then some time passed, and DVD came out. Then it was the war of DVD / VHS.

DVD won the war. I wasn't to happy buying copies of my VHS movies, now on DVD. But there was a plus though. Most DVDs came with bonus features, that's what really won me over.

Now I feel that it's the Blu-ray / DVD war.

I'm not in video games, or I'd already have a PS3.

Is Blu-ray really that good ? Or is just a scam by the movie people, to keep you buying copies of their movies ?

Just remember that a Blu-ray player puts out a 1080p source. So for the best possible video, go for a 1080p tv. Though, if your not picky a 720p will be fine.

It's worth getting a blu-ray player to watch your old dvds on if you have a high-def tv.

Apparently the player upgrades the old dvd somehow so it actually displays at a higher resolution that it does on a regular dvd player.

xoxo
Nina

spot on. bluray players up convert standard dvd to near high def quality. not to mention superior sound quality.

its a no brainer.

I couldn't fine any information on this and just want to clarify that the following is only my personal opinion, remember that a standard dvd is 4.5 GB compared to a Blu-ray dvd which is 25 GB. So there is only so much a Blu-ray player can do with a standard dvd.

 

[GeorgeCurious]

huge difference if you have the proper set up.
like many said, if you have a HD tv/pa system the blu ray is far better then standard dvd.
if you are waiting for the media wars to end, they have ended
it was between BR and HD DVD, and for once sony came out on the winning side
I picked up a pretty decent blu ray (samsung bd1500) player for under 200 a few days ago
it can be ugraded via internet or usb

the difference in movies is unreal, the picture is so much clearer make out the smallest details, the sound is great and you get alot more bonus features given the disc size

blu ray players do upscale standard dvds, but its heavily based on the dvd itself
if it supports the upscaling, dvds are just as much as blu ray discs now
save some money if you get one, buy buying cheap hdmi cords, they can run up to 400 for 10ft.
after doing some research (google), there is no difference in signal/to the eye bt cords under 25ft

 

[Mr Blonde]

i really dig blu ray. i picked up a PS3 last year and i havent looked back.

check out The Shining on blu ray. it will convince you.

if you're going to pick one up make sure it its able to connect to blu-ray live. some of the newer blu rays ive been picking up, wall-e and the dark knight, actually have load times and need to install stuff (i have no idea why)

give it a year or so and youre going to see xbox live, and playstation network offer ALOT of content for download right through your console.

like some other poster said make sure you're using the HDMI input.

you can get REALLY cheap cables at NCIX stores. they're on kingsway and burnaby and broadway in vancouver. i picked up a 10 foot HDMI cable there the other day for 22 bucks. best buy and future shop sell Monster brand cables and charge 5 times the price and they're the same quality.

www.ncix.com

 

[rossedm34]

most Blu-Ray players up convert a standard DVD to the 1080 resolution. It has nothing to do with disc size. The DVDs don't look as good as the proper Blu ray discs (because of the limits, and sometimes the up converting looks worse then the regular disc do to bad transfer mastering...), but they do tend to look a bit better then they do on a standard player.

I have both, but since I have a smaller 36" tv, there isn't a huge difference to me in quality. When you get a larger display in the 45" plus, the difference is way more noticeable. I wouldn't really recommend getting one just for the sake of getting one (not until blu-ray discs come down in price anyways). If you were looking to replace your current player/home theater, then yeah, Blu is the way to go. Regardless of if you play games or not, the PS3 is still considered the best option since it gets way more firmware updates then the standard blu Ray players if you hook it up to the internet. There's talk of a price drop in the PS3 next month.

My 2 cents

 

[Validator]

Why are the load times so long on blu ray players? From what I can get, it seems the ps3 is actually one of the better blu ray players on the market (not even talkin about the gaming aspect).

The whole change in format will keep on going. Once we update our library with blu ray, there will be something better. Same with our tvs. Same with our backup media (tapes, cd-r, dvd, etc)..the technology will progress faster than we will be able to feasibly keep up with (once cost, usability, standard hit to a point the majority of us can use it).

Maybe just best to keep things in digital format-like a itunes format so we can watch as we please without having to worry about the media type its on.

 

[rossedm34]

I have no idea why the load times are so brutal with blu ray, it must be all the info on the disc. When I first got it, I thought it was busted. I also notice that on SD discs, the layer change is ridiculous on the blu ray players.

 

[Krustee]

It's worth getting a blu-ray player to watch your old dvds on if you have a high-def tv.

Apparently the player upgrades the old dvd somehow so it actually displays at a higher resolution that it does on a regular dvd player.

xoxo
Nina

spot on. bluray players up convert standard dvd to near high def quality. not to mention superior sound quality.

its a no brainer.

Just remember that a Blu-ray player puts out a 1080p source. So for the best possible video, go for a 1080p tv. Though, if your not picky a 720p will be fine.


I couldn't fine any information on this and just want to clarify that the following is only my personal opinion, remember that a standard dvd is 4.5 GB compared to a Blu-ray dvd which is 25 GB. So there is only so much a Blu-ray player can do with a standard dvd.

OK, I'm home bound tonite as it's snowing cats & rats outside & I just don't feel like battling the brainless masses of drivers out there who've never driven in the snow, don't know how or think they know how but in reality are a public menace once the thermometer drops below 0 & nature throws a white blanket out.

So on this Blu-ray up-converting regular DVD to equal resolution to a Blu-ray disc resolution thing...
HOGWASH!
You can buy several DVD players which up-convert that are not Blu-ray.

The older early DVD players only output a 720p signal so getting a 1080p up-converting player just means it will put out a higher bandwidth signal or higher resolution data stream & display it at the full resolution of the source disc
if source is 720 you still get 720 at the TV.

A Blu-ray disc is the same as a regular DVD disc except it uses a better laser for encoding more image data than a regular DVD, hence they are able to get up to 25GB vs 4.7GB on a single disc.

Today's conventional DVDs can hold 4.7GB of information, but many want a higher-capacity successor to accommodate the larger data demands of high-definition video. HD DVD and Blu-ray both use blue lasers to read and write data; because blue has a shorter wavelength than the red used in DVD and CD lasers, information can be packed more densely on a disc and a single disc can hold more. Both HD DVD and Blu-ray drives are able to read current-generation DVDs.

The Blu-ray player is capable of reading this encoded data & send it to the TV monitor.

Regular DVD
Video Resolution: 720×480 (NTSC),

Frame Rates: 50/60i

Maximum Vid. bitrate: 9.8 Mbit/s

Video codecs: MPEG-1 / MPEG-2

Blu-ray
Video Resolution: 1920×1080

Frame Rates: 24p, 50/60i

Maximum Vid. bitrate: 40.0 Mbit/s

Video codecs: H.264/MPEG-4 AVC / VC-1 / MPEG-2

The choice of video compression technology (codec) complicates any comparison of the formats. Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD both support the same three video compression standards: MPEG-2, VC-1 and AVC, each of which exhibits different bitrate/noise-ratio curves, visual impairments/artifacts, and encoder maturity. Initial Blu-ray Disc titles often used MPEG-2 video, which requires the highest average bitrate and thus the most space, to match the picture quality of the other two video codecs. As of July 2008 over 70% of Blu-ray Disc titles have been authored with the newer compression standards: AVC and VC-1.[4] HD DVD titles have used VC-1 and AVC almost exclusively since the format's introduction. Warner Bros., which used to release movies in both formats prior to June 1, 2007, often used the same encode (with VC-1 codec) for both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD, with identical results. In contrast, Paramount used different encodings: initially MPEG-2 for early Blu-ray Disc releases, VC-1 for early HD DVD releases, and eventually AVC for both formats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_high_definition_optical_disc_formats

So, in a nutshell - Blu-ray sends more data to the TV, up to 4x the bitrate, for each image displayed allowing a higher resolution & more detail to be displayed.
When I say it can send "up to 4x the bitrate" that is IF the source image has 4x more than the standard DVD image data which in most cases is not the case.

In the future we will see more films recorded in HD that will take advantage of this new technology.

The question is for most video out there, can us humans with our limited vision actually notice the difference?

For most people with a quality TV & DVD player utilizing 1080p signal & quality cables, you will find it challenging to notice a significant difference in most scenes of the movie when compared to Blu-ray.

The source has to be a high quality, Hi-Def image to display that way.

I would not rush out to buy one but if you must have the best image on your boob tube then knock yer socks off!


________________________
This post is NOT courtesy of your friendly neighbourhood Sperminator.

 

[slacker]

One thing you should really watch out for is the price of the media itself. Sure Blu-ray players are getting cheaper these days, but what about the blu-ray movies? It seems the average blu-ray movie retails for about $30. Not an amount I would ever pay to keep a movie. There are some discounted titles but not anything close to the selection of discounted DVD titles nor close to their prices. Discounted blu-rays will be no cheaper than $10. You can get some decent DVD titles for as cheap as $3.

This always kind of bugs me as the cost to produce the discs shouldn't be too much higher, it's really just a case of trying to jack media prices back up on consumers with the introduction of a new format. Similar to how VHS was dirty cheap when DVDs were expensive - I'm pretty sure its cheaper to press a DVD than produce a VHS.

Anyway enough ranting about that.

The whole upconverting of DVDs I think is a bit over-rated too. You can't really make something out of information that isn't there. The interpolation might yield a smoother image, which may be more pleasing to the eye, but it won't be more detailed. Any LCD/Plasma TV will upconvert whatever source you give it (e.g. old DVD player) anyway since it has to work at its native resolution (e.g. 1080p). The main thing about an upconverting player is that it can do the upconversion on a purely digital signal instead of the typical analog signal that the TV otherwise accepts that may have some interference or imperfections in it.

 

[rossedm34]

Hey Bobbi, if you buy a blu ray, your standard DVDs will look about the same as they currently do on your player as they upconvert the same way (provided your using HDMI cables on your current player). To my eyes anyways since I have both.

 

[gymguy]

Ps3

Everything I have read says the PS3 is one of the best rated Blu-ray players AND you can upgrade via the internet. I can't find anything that a blu-ray DVD player would give that the PS3 wouldn't but would like an opinion.

 

[rossedm34]

As far as I know, there is no better player then the PS3, and it is due to the constant firmware updates via the internet. You have to wait for the individual players to get the updates. PS3 is one of the few players that allows you to play divx files as well (with an update). I plan on getting one in the coming months when the predicted price drop of the 80gig model goes to $250.

 

[schizo_man]

yep the ps3 is the best out there. The ps3 hard drive can also be upgraded easily beyond the 80gb. I'd buy a 30gb one and just upgrade the memory. be cheaper in the long run

 

[Krustee]

What if you already have a top of line TV and DVD player (cost me about 180.00 2 months ago for the DVD Player)

Will a bluray still be able to top my top-of-the-line DVD player...? My player upconverts, has great sound, etc, but I too am leaning towards a bluray!

Any info would be great!

Kisses

Bobbi

All you have to do is read Bobbi:

So, in a nutshell - Blu-ray sends more data to the TV, up to 4x the bitrate, for each image displayed allowing a higher resolution & more detail to be displayed.
When I say it can send "up to 4x the bitrate" that is IF the source image has 4x more than the standard DVD image data which in most cases is not the case.

In the future we will see more films recorded in HD that will take advantage of this new technology.

The question is for most video out there, can us humans with our limited vision actually notice the difference?

For most people with a quality TV & DVD player utilizing 1080p signal & quality cables, you will find it challenging to notice a significant difference in most scenes of the movie when compared to Blu-ray.

The source has to be a high quality, Hi-Def image to display that way.

I would not rush out to buy one but if you must have the best image on your boob tube then knock yer socks off!

 

[Krustee]

Wow, thanks for the rolleyes...

Sorry, I am a Law student, not a Electronic smart savy tech....!

Oops!

I wasn't wearing my glasses.



Correct me if I'm wrong here but isn't there quite a lot of reading & comprehension required in the legal profession?