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Author
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Topic: Anyone consuming HD or Blu-ray?
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 08-28-2008 01:16 PM
Currently there is about 100 television show titles either released or soon will be on Blu-ray. Many are Discovery Channel documentary shows. There's a growing selection of Japanese animated TV shows, such as Dragonball Z. There's a few TV movies. Mini-series like HBO's Band of Brothers are due for release this fall.
Of major TV network series on Blu-ray, all are recent and originally produced in high definition. Heroes, Lost, Prison Break, The Sopranos, Grey's Anatomy and more are building up the variety.
Lonesome Dove is the only "vintage" TV show (mini-series) re-released onto Blu-ray at this point.
Any TV series originally shot on film could conceivably be remastered to HD and authored onto Blu-ray, provided the show didn't have a lot of SD-quality titles and visual effects. My feeling is it will cost a significant amount of money to take a series like Seinfeld and redo it for high definition. And then you'll have a controversy over whether to leave the show in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio or crop it to 16:9.
quote: Joe Redifer
I imagine this stuff is in HD and looks a little better than the broadcast versions since HDTV broadcast is limited to 960x720 for 720p and 1440x1080 for 1080i whereas Blu-ray is the full 1920x1080, not to mention the lack of compression artifacts that plague DTV broadcasts.
Blu-ray certainly provides a lot more bandwidth than what a network can fit into a 6MHz signal. But it's no guarantee the discs will look great. I've seen some mediocre reviews of the picture quality of Heroes, both Season 1 and 2. Blu-ray.com called it a "mixed bag" and complained about a lot of noise (possibly digital noise, not grain) in the HD transfer.
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David Stambaugh
Film God
Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002
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posted 09-07-2008 10:30 PM
OK, so after much market research and teeth gnashing blah blah, I bought a 52" Samsung 1080p LCD. LN52A650. I love it, best TV I've ever seen. Incredible picture.
Now I'm seriously looking at Blu-ray. Today I compared prices between Wal-Mart and Best Buy for a Panasonic BD player that's Profile 2. I forget the model. Anyway, it's $399 at BB, and $398 at Wal-Mart. Always the lowest price, Always! ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) And BD movies that are like $29.99 at BB are (drum roll) $29.96 at WM. WTF! And who the hell wants "Beerfest" on BD????!!! Jesus H Christ, I think I'd buy a few movies like Blade Runner, T2 and Die Hard on BD and the rest of them are just not worth the price. WTH!?
(Yes, I've been drinking tonight. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) )
BTW, there's a rumor floating around that Sony is dropping their BD player prices by $100 later this month (Sept. '08).
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 09-08-2008 12:01 AM
quote: David Stambaugh
I bought a 52" Samsung 1080p LCD. LN52A650. I love it, best TV I've ever seen. Incredible picture.
My coworker, Scott (who puts together the ad designs for our LED billboards) bought one of those televisions recently. One of my best friends bought the LN52A750. He wanted a 52" Sony Bravia XBR4 like mine, but the price strangely jumped to $3999 (I paid $2999), so he paid $2800 for a TV arguably just as good. It just earned a PC Magazine Editor's Choice award if that means anything.
I'm still recommending the Playstation 3 to people interested in Blu-ray. It still offers the best value for the money. The 40GB version is now selling for $50 less ($349). The PS3 still loads discs faster than any standalone BD player and downloads BD Live content a LOT faster than any standalone BD player.
Standalone fans still mock the PS3, claiming it doesn't deliver as good a 1080p picture as a standalone player. I think that's a huge load of crap. I've tried out leading standalone players, even connected to the same kind of TV I own. Sales clerks at Best Buy, Circuit City and Sears have let me try it and test out different settings (some of this was under the guise of helping a friend buy a new HDTV). I've seen nothing to suggest any standalone BD player trounces the PS3 in video quality.
Ultimately, I think some people just don't like the idea of having something like a mere gaming console functioning as a prominent piece of equipment in their home theater rack. Nevertheless, standalone BD players still have quite a lot of ground to make up against the PS3 (both in terms of performance and price) before I'll start recommending something different.
FWIW, the Criterion Collection folks recently chose the PS3 as their reference BD player for testing out BD titles they're fixing to release. C|Net also uses the PS3 as their reference BD player.
quote: David Stambaugh
BTW, there's a rumor floating around that Sony is dropping their BD player prices by $100 later this month (Sept. '08).
That would be nice, but somehow I have doubts that discount will apply to their newest BD Profile 2.0 ready models (the BDP-S350 and BDP-S530).
Strangely, Sony still has lots of old, Profile 1.0 players still sitting on store shelves -namely the BDP-S300 and BDP-S301. These things can't decode or bit-stream output DTS-HD Master Audio, which might be kind of a problem if you like certain BDs from Fox, New Line and Lionsgate. I saw a huge stack of BDP-S301 players at our local Sam's Club store (with 3 Sony Bravia televisions positioned around it). I was there checking some Blu-ray prices, which was kind of a pain since the store oddly has all their BDs locked in wood cases stuffed under the DVD racks where hardly anyone can see them. Anyway, Sam's had lots of these Profile 1.0 BD players in stock, but their PS3 consoles were sold out.
BTW, I thought the only Profile 2.0 BD player from Panasonic was the DMP-BD50. The lowest price I've seen for that unit is $599.
On movie pricing, I recommend ordering online at Amazon.com or other sites. Sometimes retail stores will have good deals. I picked up The Departed and Crimson Tide at Best Buy for $15 each. Not bad. Currently I have the two volumes of Kill Bill on order from Amazon for $39.99 (free shipping and no sales tax). Sure, you can buy either on DVD for under $10 right now. But they're still just SD. No Toshiba super-resolution phiggidy up-scaling crap is going to change that.
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David Stambaugh
Film God
Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002
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posted 09-08-2008 09:47 AM
The Panasonic was a DMP-BD30. The box says "Final Profile" which to me wrongly implied Profile 2. You're right, it's 1.1. Glad I didn't buy it. Clearly I need further BD education.
HD GURU on impending Sony price cuts The BDP-S350 drops to $299, and the new BDP-S550 will debut in October at $399, $100 less than previously announced.
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According to an industry source citing an unconfirmed report in the trade publication, Consumer Electronics Daily, Sony will be dropping the price of its leader Blu-ray player (BDP-S350) by $100, bringing the retail price to $299 on Sept 28, 2008.
In addition, Sony’s step-up Blu-ray model the BDP-S550, will be delayed in the US till mid Oct. 08 and be introduced at $399, a reduction of $100 from its previously announced price.
The source (citing CE Daily) says another Blu-ray maker, Funai and its labeled brands (which include Philips/Magnavox, Sylvania and Insignia) will drop the retail price of their players $50 to $249 in late Sept. 08 as well.
Since their introduction, Sony has been selling its free-standing Blu-ray players at or above the $399 price of its entry level Blu-ray equipped PS3 gaming system.
EDIT: On the TV, it's my understanding that your Sony and the Samsung 650/750 use the same LCD panel (made by Micom?). Of course that's just one component, and the quality of the displayed image depends greatly on the TV's internal processing etc. Your Sony was on my short list. In the end, price won out. I walked into Circuit City with a printout of amazon.com's price on the Samsung, and CC was willing to meet it. I did have to pay $60 for delivery. I feel I got a great deal on a really good TV.
Interestingly, as I've been playing around with settings on the Samsung, I've found that I prefer the picture quality with some of the "advanced" stuff turned completely off: Dynamic Blacks for example. The 120 Hz processing seems to be a mixed bag, haven't made up my mind on that yet. In any case the TV seems fundamentally capable of putting out a very high quality image. Me happy so far.
[ 09-08-2008, 11:49 AM: Message edited by: David Stambaugh ]
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 09-09-2008 03:10 PM
Anyone buying non Bonus View and non BD-Live players at any price is making a bad decision, IMHO.
Unless they're going for sub-$100 prices, why would anyone invest a large sum of money in a player that can't play what currently out there for content, much less what Disney and others have planned (or will think of) in the future?
BD-Live content so far has been very lackluster, but that doesn't mean it won't get better. To think otherwise is delusion.
By all means, wait for the impending price cut. If it doesn't happen, you'll have waited a few weeks for nothing. But if it does, you'll have saved yourself quite a bit of money!
Buying Blu-ray discs in local stores is like burning money. Virtually all online sellers beat the prices in stores like Best Buy and WalMart any day of the week, even when they are running so-called sales.
With Netflix making it so painless to rent Blu-ray discs (at least in my area, and they haven't instituted the extra fee yet), I don't buy Blu-ray discs unless they are under $20, and usually only when they are under $15.
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