Blu Ray players and discs...

[Bicycle Pump]

Over hyped bollocks or important home theater component?

I've never owned a Blu Ray disc and I'm never likely to.

The wasted billions and inter-corporate wars wasted on this unnecessary technology gave me a laugh over the last few years, though!

Perhaps if anyone made movies worth watching I would take an interest. But they don't so what's the point.

I'd rather watch a decent movie on a shit mobile phone than watch a crap movie from a Blu Ray disc.

[Snick]

I got one, the picture is better (if you have a big hi-def TV), but the huge improvement is the sound. You need a 5+1 or 7+1 stereo setup, but if you do the sound is amazing.

As for the movies, some are great and some are no different than the DVD. You have to read reviews/feedback for each movie and see if it really is taking advantage of blu ray or not.

Funny thing is, in USA they now sell Blu-Ray disks for as low as $8, while the pirate price in Bangkok is 450 Baht and the legit price usually 1000 Baht.

You'll also need to keep your DVD player, from what I've seen Blu Ray players do not play pirate movies as well as the cheap DVD players you can get here. Also the option to play movies from a USB drive is only available on the more expensive models (while a 700 Baht DVD player here has that feature).

[Snick]

ps. You should try and get a Blu Ray player that is from the same company as your TV. HDMI isn't always 100% and I've heard of problems between different manufacturers.

[allstar88]

i`ll get one when my beta max conks out

[deepthroat]

I really enjoy mine, I bought a Playstation 3 so I use it both for the occasional video game (one or two per year) but also get the benefit of a full BR player at no extra cost. My only caveat is that some BR discs are crap so don't buy thinking it will be a huge upgrade over standard-def DVD's without researching. For example "Batman The Dark Knight" on blu-ray is stupendous, in particular the scenes shot in native Imax. But last night I watched V For Vendetta and Robocop, both of which were $9 specials from Amazon.com. "V" was good, a slight increase in resolution over DVD, but "Robocop" was crap, and no special features at all other than the original theatrical trailer.

I use this as my standard DVD player now, and haven't noticed the problems Snick mentions, but I would defer to him as I don't have the discriminating taste nor the highly trained eyes and ears that he obviously has. Many of you probably do, so my comments should be taken with a grain of salt.

Watching Robocop was a sad revelation, as I'd not seen it in 25 years since it's theatrical run. Watching it now and seeing all it's shortfalls (horrible direction, low budget effects, bad screenplay) rescinded the fine memories I had of seeing it years ago. It was glaringly obvious how tight the budget was - regular production cars being used as cars of the next century, and shop window display clearly showing vinyl records including the Moody Blues, Thompson Twins, The Cure and Bananarama - how did anyone back then think that this might still be hot 75 years in the future? Sheeesh....

[El_hefe]

It does have better pic & audio quality, but it's one of those good technologies, like satellite radio, that will soon be overtaken by the internet's ablility to digital delivery on demand potential rather than buy a lot of discs.

Of course the major media companies interest is for us to buy all the discs now & then download in another format again in 5 years. It's not there yet, but it's coming soon enough.

[Snick]

PPS. I went thru central yesterday and noticed the Blu Ray player I got is 10,000 Baht, vs $140 I paid for it in USA.
What a ripoff !

[jadeite]

...will soon be overtaken by the internet's ablility to digital delivery on demand potential rather than buy a lot of discs

Except maybe in Thailand that has no prayer of ever offering an even reasonably fast internet connection. Can't imagine how many weeks downloading one blu ray disc would take on most peoples connections. Don't let the advertisements for megabits and more fool you, the ISP's in Thailland do not deliver the goods. Bandwidth shaping, high pings, overloaded shared lines, unreliable connections. I can't think of anything about it that really works and it's not like they haven't had 10 or 20 years to work out the kinks.

[kathylc]

Yep 3 of them. I only have a few Blu Ray discs, mainly some I got on special but if renting its great, but their too dam expensive to buy. It was almost as cheap to buy the Blu Ray players as a DVD player so why go backwards for the sake of a few bucks. 2 Sharps and one SONY

[Ivor Biggun]

(jadeite @ Dec. 27 2009,10:17) ...will soon be overtaken by the internet's ablility to digital delivery on demand potential rather than buy a lot of discs

Except maybe in Thailand that has no prayer of ever offering an even reasonably fast internet connection. Can't imagine how many weeks downloading one blu ray disc would take on most peoples connections. Don't let the advertisements for megabits and more fool you, the ISP's in Thailland do not deliver the goods. Bandwidth shaping, high pings, overloaded shared lines, unreliable connections. I can't think of anything about it that really works and it's not like they haven't had 10 or 20 years to work out the kinks.

I'm pulling DVD quality movies down in Phuket in around 3 hours for a 2 hour movie. www.stagevu.com All sorts and they're free- I've pulled down over 150 movies, tv shows and other documentaries. That's on a wireless computer off a ToT adsl line.

[Bicycle Pump]

Yep - My internet connection is great. No problems streaming or downloading movies and TV shows in double-quick time.

[Tomcat]

It will probably take most Western Countries 5 years or so to catch up with South Korea.

I See last week an article in Sci American Magazine for a hand held remote for the much hyped Internet TV of the future . The problem here is how do you fuck around with one hand trying to download a film on a simple remote control whilst sitting on the sofa with beer in other hand

The remote control had a widget type system with scrolling icons that you hit on , these would represent the Film site and then god knows how you are supposed to find the film you want. Made for idiots down load TV when it comes for the masses will have to made simple. Think Joe Six Pack.

[azza33]

lol .. internet downloads for movies... be a decade before that is reality as the cost to deliver 1080p video and lossless audio is just too much - people are dreamers if they think its a reality now.
If every household in the developed world tried this the net would collapse under the strain.
For gods sake -  the advent of iphone is killing the phone network as it cant cope.

As for me... picked up my 1st blu ray player 2 years ago and just purchased my second one this week for $199 aussie for a panasonic.
I've got nearly 200 HD titles and no way would i go back to DVD .. its simply rubbish relative to what blu ray format can deliver.

And before the laugh at my collection - it was mainly paid for by buying in bulk from the US and reselling to other blu ray users in other parts of the world and keeping the profits as movies i liked.  

If you cant appreciate what blu ray delivers and for that matter the HD DVD format which was equally as good but not supported by the studios, then you might as well watch tv on a 60's black and white set.

[azza33]

For those that do have an interest - check out

http://www.blu-ray.com/ - get the review about the quality of the blu ray title and see if the image & sound quality is worth the $$

http://bluray.liesinc.net/ - it lists the region free status of a blu ray disc to allow cheap importing

[azza33]

Oh for anyone contemplating a blu ray player purchase.

Always google for reviews.

Not all blu ray players are the same - Upscaling DVD to 1080 so you can enjoy your old movie collection requires
a good set of video chips inside the player dedicated to the task. Not all players are created equal for this task - so do your research!!

And use HDMI cables, component cables don't even come close.