Go blu or stay with dvd??

20solskjaer

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While out shopping the other night i found a blu ray player (philips bdp2700/05) for £57, anyone know if this is a good deal or just a shit player?

Also, is bluray the future? Is there that much of a jump in quality over dvds? Ive got close to maybe 700 dvds and dont really want to start trying to replace them

Ive noticed that newer releases are pretty much the same price give or take a pound or two, do older releases go for much lower prices like the dvds do?

More info on the player http://http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/b/bdp2700_05/bdp2700_05_pss_eng.pdf
 
I just went blu ray a few months back. I only intend to buy blurays of movies that were shot in HD, or the bluray has special features I really want, or I don't already own the movie and the difference of price between bluray and dvd is not much.
 
Blu Ray is great. Just picked up Alien Anthology last week. Great box set and makes the original Alien look fantastic.

I prefer watching older films on it because the difference is more noticable. For example Blade Runner is stunning on Blu Ray
 
olesmyhero said:
I just went blu ray a few months back. I only intend to buy blurays of movies that were shot in HD, or the bluray has special features I really want, or I don't already own the movie and the difference of price between bluray and dvd is not much.
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Weren't all movies "shot in HD" though technically? BluRay still isn't the best quality you could get.
 
Depends largely on how big your tv is and whether you have a sound system. If your television is only around 32" and you only use the tv speakers, then you won't notice too much of a difference.

However, if you've got a big screen with surround sound, then I'd say it would definitely be worth the upgrade.
 
I have a ton of DVD's and was a bit pissed about the upgrade initially, but really, it's not that much of a hassle, I'm a bit more picky now that I have Sky, I don't have to buy every film thats released or that I want, I do kinda regret buying half my DVDs(not because they are bad, but because I won't rewatch them).

Even if you don't have a Blu player or ps3 yet, buying the Blu-rays with a DVD in is a better option for new films as its only a few quid more, I've known so many people buy new films over the past year on DVD, then get a ps3 and then buy the same blu rays again and they have the DVD in them. That's a good move by the studios I got to say, and I'm glad they are doing it with 3D much sooner this time.

Think I have about 100 blu now, need to get a multi-region player so I can start picking up the American criterion releases.
 
Blu rays will be cheaper than DVDs soon, but by that time the next technology will be getting plugged
 
I remember being slated several years back, by the likes of Weaste and Redlambs for saying I didn't really see blu-ray replacing DVD's, in regards to films. I made the argument that for the majority, the quality of DVD films is more than adequate. Weaste etc argued that the gulf in picture quality was so great that DVD's would be near extinct in a couple of years time, with everyone having HD TV's. Still to this day I don't own a blu-ray player, nor do I have the intention of buying one, despite having only HD cappable televisions in my home. I also do not know a single person who has a stand alone blu-ray player. Personally I still can't justify the extra cost nor see the need to replace my current DVD collection, when the picture quality of DVD's is superb.
 
You need a top end TV to enjoy BR. Only Baraka has blown me away though, I've heard Planet Earth is amazing too....hopefully it'll arrive next week for me to judge for myself.
 
blu ray is the way to go especially for films with great special effects etc... ive rebought quite a few films too on the format
 
It is so much better, but with blu ray discs still being a bit pricey I tend to just get films that will really benefit from the HD goodness, such as action, sci-fi as opposed to something without special effects etc.

I know that sounds very shallow, but something like The Dark Knight, Blade Runner or Casino Royal (or Wall-e, which I got for the missus) is far more worthy of B.R. than something like American Beauty.
 
20solskjaer said:
While out shopping the other night i found a blu ray player (philips bdp2700/05) for £57, anyone know if this is a good deal or just a shit player?

Also, is bluray the future? Is there that much of a jump in quality over dvds? Ive got close to maybe 700 dvds and dont really want to start trying to replace them

Ive noticed that newer releases are pretty much the same price give or take a pound or two, do older releases go for much lower prices like the dvds do?

More info on the player http://http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/b/bdp2700_05/bdp2700_05_pss_eng.pdf
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Blu-ray is backwards compatible to DVD so you don't need to replace them as such. The difference is noticeable as weaste said it's 4x the resolution of DVD however if you only have a HD ready TV (720) you wont get the benefit of it. I would recommend having a a decent TV though as if the TV's shit then again you won't get the full benefit.
 
The thing is, I've never watched a DVD and thought "this is terrible quality". I did when I watched VHS which hence made DVD's a necessary upgrade.
 
redspoony said:
It is so much better, but with blu ray discs still being a bit pricey I tend to just get films that will really benefit from the HD goodness, such as action, sci-fi as opposed to something without special effects etc.

I know that sounds very shallow, but something like The Dark Knight, Blade Runner or Casino Royal (or Wall-e, which I got for the missus) is far more worthy of B.R. than something like American Beauty.
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I do the same. The best movies, and the ones with the best special effects, are the ones I definitely had to have on Blu-ray. I'm hanging out for Inception for example.
 
1871_Biscuit said:
I remember being slated several years back, by the likes of Weaste and Redlambs for saying I didn't really see blu-ray replacing DVD's, in regards to films. I made the argument that for the majority, the quality of DVD films is more than adequate. Weaste etc argued that the gulf in picture quality was so great that DVD's would be near extinct in a couple of years time, with everyone having HD TV's. Still to this day I don't own a blu-ray player, nor do I have the intention of buying one, despite having only HD cappable televisions in my home. I also do not know a single person who has a stand alone blu-ray player. Personally I still can't justify the extra cost nor see the need to replace my current DVD collection, when the picture quality of DVD's is superb.
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It took DVD in the USA 6 years before it started to outsell VHS. Blu-ray is approaching around the 30% threshold now, four years after launch.
 
WeasteDevil said:
It took DVD in the USA 6 years before it started to outsell VHS. Blu-ray is approaching around the 30% threshold now, four years after launch.
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The problem is that unless people have the HD tv to justify it, there is no point.

Until they come down in price and are in more homes, blu ray won't become as dominant.
 
WeasteDevil said:
So why do you have a camera in your phone higher than 0.4mp?
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Because I've taken photos on sub 3.2mp phone cameras, uploaded them to my computer and found the picture quality to be shit. I know phone companies use the mp as a selling gimmick and in reality lens size is far more important, but in general, there is a correlation between the number of mp stated and quality of picture produced.
 
WeasteDevil said:
It took DVD in the USA 6 years before it started to outsell VHS. Blu-ray is approaching around the 30% threshold now, four years after launch.
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I would argue that this had something to do with the affordability of the players. Blu-ray players are already cheap and widely available, and the PS3 has been affordable since shortly after its release and is now in a large number of homes. It's a very different example as the way media is consumed is very different now. It's not necessary to have physical copies of HD movies any more.
 
Most blu-rays I've bought have looked fantastic, a monster step up over the DVD. But some, you can't ask them clean up because the grain on the film is natural, some of the releases they have attempted to 'clean' up have just looked stupid, in Patton, the character all look plastic.

Buy the DVDs of Kill Bill, then buy the blu-rays, it's a insane difference. Obviously I'm picking one of the better examples here, but I'd say like 70% are pretty noticeably far superior. Just keep an eye on Blu-ray, Blu-ray Movies, Blu-ray Players, Blu-ray Reviews if you aren't sure.
 
WeasteDevil said:
It is if you collect movies, and some people have hundreds of them. A 1TB drive will store you 20 full BD discs. Good luck with your massive RAID array.
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Well considering you can get blu-ray movies to around 20gb (a lot are less than that) that's not strictly true. You can also get 1TB HDD's for £60, which is roughly the price of a couple Blu-rays.
 
1871_Biscuit said:
The thing is, I've never watched a DVD and thought "this is terrible quality". I did when I watched VHS which hence made DVD's a necessary upgrade.
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I have, especially since the advent of Blu-Ray. Look at any of the big new releases - they take up about 40-60% of the available space on the disk because they are encoded at low bitrates. That shows in the quality of the picture - boxy, compression artifacts all over the place. DVDs are capable of producing a decent picture that are of a better quality than broadcast SD stuff and definately better and more convenient than their VHS predecessor, but Blu-Rays are a vast improvement on DVDs. Not that I have a Blu-Ray player of my own or intend to get one. I've not got a DVD player either (other than the drive in my PC that I never use. All my videos are ripped onto my hard drive.
 
I watched the Wizard of Oz recently on Blu Ray and it was a revelation, the image clarity and tightness of colour was far beyond anything I had seen on VHS or DVD. Blu ray is brilliant and is as much as you'll probably ever need (for now at least). A 4k or lossless format seems rather superfluous at this moment given the average size of living rooms. The real quality issues lie with the condition of the original material and transfer of it.

Many films are now being released in a better condition than anyone has ever seen them in before. That is Blu ray (and DVD's) greatest legacy. Film preservation has come on leaps since the DVD and HD commercial market has taken off. For instance the recent restorations of the likes of Metropolis, The Red Shoes, Seven samurai etc. are funded largely by ditributiuon rights of the restored images on Blu Ray.

One other thing worth considering is that most older films on blu ray are being freshly transferred. The digital clean up and compression technology has improved massively since many films were first issued on DVD.

Many films are still worth watching on 480i (and below): video, 8/16mm and documentaries for instance but any film I really love, or any great spectacle, I will always try and watch in 1080p.
 
1871_Biscuit said:
Well considering you can get blu-ray movies to around 20gb (a lot are less than that) that's not strictly true. You can also get 1TB HDD's for £60, which is roughly the price of a couple Blu-rays.
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You can get 2TB drives for £70 nowadays. That would hold 50-60 full Blu Ray discs.

I must mention though, a decent MKV rip of a Blu-Ray looks far better than the DVD of the same film and is often not much larger than the DVD one. You could get 200 MKVs on a 2TB drive.
 
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