Is Blu-Ray really needed right now?
General Discussion

I was ranting a little bit in the "HD Movies" Thread (http://www.cubed3.com/topic/34492) about how I see Blu-Ray as more limiting and more of a pain than anything. The idea being, are we ready for Blu-Ray?

Naturally, there are a few people, likely a few of you, who have several HD sets and Blu-Ray players, but how many people do? Think about whats needed:

Expensive TV
Expensive Player
And then movies that you might already own.


And then you can only play these discs in that Blu-ray player. You can't play them elsewhere. Not at your neighbor's unless he has the right setup. Not on the airplane with your portable DVD player or laptop. Not in your bedroom on your old CRT screen. I just feel that unless you're absolutely loaded there isn't the infrastructure to really support Blu-Ray yet in our current world.

It works out okay for gaming, because chances are you only play your games in one spot anyway. But for movies, I think we could have waited another five to ten years or atleast until HD TV's became the norm and not a luxury. As it is, there's a lot of kit that needs to be bought to play that movie, and then your boxed in. Its too cost prohibitive to 'blu-ray up' your place with a new computer drive for your laptop, HD TV's in every room etc.

I'm sure a good few of you are happy and are enjoying the HD revolution. It just seems a bit premature to me. DVD's were different in that you didn't have to upgrade every TV along with adding an expensive player, decent color TV's were already the norm.

Not that I particularly care - I'll upgrade when everything's "matured".


Discuss.

Blu ray players will finally start getting cheap.
As in <£100 this year which isn't that bad, and practically all new TVs are HD now (and you can get awesome 42" ones for £500 now ) so I guess anyone who buys a new TV now will want a blu ray player to show off their new TV as opposed to a lame DVD player :3


and all technology needs to be released early to allow its price to drop I think, 5-10 years down the line would be too late - people would've most likely opted for HD download services which are starting to appear rather than disks...

tl;dr All new TVs are HD, Blu ray is a nice optional add on to show off your TV's quality.

( Edited 06.01.2009 18:56 by Simon_ )

I have a new TV, but a blue ray player dosent interst me in the slightest. I suppose its only really useful for people with TV's bigger than £42 inches and sit about a meter away from it.

Though the majority of current TVs sold might be HD ready, I'd say the great percentage of TVs in use are not HD, limiting Blu-Rays usefulness pretty dramatically.

I don't think Blu-Ray would have been replaced by download services. Discs can go places. Downloading a movie to your XBox presents the same "boxed-in" problem that annoys me about Blu-Ray. The difference is eventually Blu-Ray will grow out of that, whereas downloads aren't going to be able to for a while (again, until the right infrastructure is in place).

( Edited 06.01.2009 19:01 by Jacob4000 )

Only if you've got a TV 40"+.

As a sub-discussion, has anyone seen Sony's new 200hz TV? It looked very good. A little bit weird actually, the motion was smoother than anything I've seen before, almost like real-life. Definitely worth checking out if you've got a Sony Centre near you. They're sure to be showing Wall-E on it.

well alot of ppl have HD TV why will you not want to have HD movies to see the movie in the best way?

it not like your cant enjoy the old dvds they still work on blue-rays players

maybe dvds some out to fast it did feel like it was over night everyone was geting dvd's

i think they be a point where everyone with a HD tv will move over to blue-ray at some point

for me it was easy i have a HD tv and a ps3 it's 1+1 to get blue-ray

i dont think HDDVD VS Blue-Ray help alot for ppl to move over but Blue-Ray won and HDDVD be droped by just about every one

i see you point about cant play them anywhere but on a blueray player but i dont one dont see movie's part from at home and the big screen you can all way get a psp ^^; you can use that to remoteplay?

I have to buy more crap now! A PS3 for the Blu-Ray and a PSP so that I can watch it on the go (only around an internet connection?). Not exactly my ideal solution.

hmmm Blu ray is not for existing TV owners, but for all new TV buyers; nearly all new TVs are HD, so some people would want to use it's HD capabilities, so they can with Blu Ray.

You don't need to buy a really expensive TV to use Blu-Ray, but if you happen to have a decent TV then you can get a Blu-ray player for it if you want.

They are also starting to release Blu-Ray/DVD combo discs which will play a HD movie in a Blu-Ray drive and an SD version in a DVD-Drive.

Now THAT is great. If that becomes widespread I won't have anything to complain about. Will work fine in my current setup, and when BluRay actually becomes viable, my movies will be ready. I haven't seen these in any stores though..

I'm not bothered about blu-ray for now. As Jacob says, having DVDs which are far more convenient due to compatibility is better for now, imo. We have an upscaling DVD player with the 42" downstairs, looks fine. DVDs also look great played through the 360. So I don't see any need to bother with blu-ray, for a barely noticeable increase in quality and hardly being able to play it on anything.



Ooh, yes, that does sound good.

I never watch films anyway.

( Edited 06.01.2009 19:24 by Ikana )

Barely noticeable ??????????????
DVD Upscaler vs BLU RAY?
Compressed vs Uncompressed?
dolby digital vs dolby true HD 5/7.1?
Scratchable vs scratch resistant
480p vs 1080p?

I went into HMV and tons of people (including me) were buying the Blu's.

Throw around P's and 1080's all you want, the fact of the matter is that mean very little to some people when placed against the price and convenience of DVD. Besides, its not like DVD is black and white with mono sound.

The most Blu-ray has done is extend the time 'till we move to film downloads a few more years.

True that. But there are people out there who want to make use of the capabilities of the shiny new HDTV's and DVD just doesn't cut it. Nor does freeview. Luckily I can afford to shell out the extra cash. You probably could if you wanted to. But you chose not to ugrade, whilst I did -it was my choice- in the end. Whilst there are HDTV's on the market at a growing rate, blu-ray is becoming more and more necessary. Especially in the Movie, Game and Porn (believe) industries. But if you are still good with DVD then good on you. But blu-ray is the for those -like me- who want to watch films in HD.

/rant......sorry for longevity

No, fuck it. Fuck Blu-ray. Fuck paying for films that I've already payed to watch at the cinema and then payed again to buy on DVD.

I don't even have a TV at Uni, and my mum has just got a new TV that's not HD. (She got it free from a friend who just bought a HDTV and was going to 'chuck out' the old one.) So yeh, we've only just got widescreen, let alone HD!

DVD's haven't been around for 10 years yet, and we're expected to replace them already, only to most likely replace Blu-Ray with something else in another 8 years or so? I won't be switching until films stop coming out on DVD's, they get the job done just fine (apart from unskippable adverts, grrr!).

Blu Ray is a choice, there's not some guy that breaks down your door, shoots your DVD player and says "upgrade" just before he leaves. You get it or don't nuff said

I remember when DVD's was a choice. You can switch to DVD, or stick to VHS. Then they phased out VHS until there was no choice at all.

Luckily I suspect it will take longer for DVD's to be phased out, so the ability to choose will continue for years to come!

I suspect also because I remember with VHS you had to wait nearly a year for a film to come out on video. With DVD and blu-ray it's just a few months wait.

I love films, but I've only sparked a great intrerest in them in the last 2/3 years, in which I've bought many a DVD. I've rarely spent over ?16 on any DVD, most of my favourite I'vr gotten for about ?6. I'm just not prepared to splash out ?20-?40 on a better quality picture. I don't own one BD despite owning both a PS3 and HDTV. For the best quality experience, go to the cinema. I'll wait 'till the prices drop before buying BD's.


EDIT: Just a little annecdote. The other day, I saw Kung Fu Hustle in HMV. ?3 on DVD or ?25 on BD. Would you rather pay the ~800% increase for the BD?

( Edited 06.01.2009 22:07 by Angus )

Well it's all optional so if someone wants to pay more for a premium option, then why not.

And if they do ever phase out DVDs for blu rays, then by then blu ray players + disks will be a lot cheaper so price won't be a problem.

Yeah go cinema with those loud ass "rudeboys". SpiderMan 3 got ruined twice that night. Not to mention those smelly nacho eaters.

Don't get twisted I would buy the 3 quid hustle. I still want some Disney movies on blu-ray, Wall-E or Aladdin for definate.

I know what you're talking about. It's some sort of motion capturing device they've been putting in new TVs. It makes it look super clear. They best way I can describe it is that it looks like you're there on the set, but yet there's still all of the movie edits. It's hard to explain, but trust me, it looks nice.


As for BluRay, I love it. My movies never looked better. Mine is hooked up to an HD projector, so I've got about 107"+ of cristal clear picture. Plus, you can play your old DVDs on the player, and it makes them look more high quality. Someone explained this to me in a metaphor, so it may sound crazy, but here we go. When they're filming a movie, you've got all of the "lines" that the film is filmed on. When they put the movie onto a normal DVD, they have to scrunch up the lines in order to make it fit. What the BluRay player does it that it seperates the lines out so that you me a better picture, or something along the lines of that.

But, what I have is a PS3, so it may be different with an actual player.

And Wall-E kicks ass on BluRay!

I have only bought the films that I like and feel are worth the extra cash on Blu-ray. That's why I have only bought 2 (and got given 1)

Although, I was tempted by a few in woolworths the other week, but the only ones they had were crap when I went back an hour later

( Edited 06.01.2009 23:09 by Lrrr )

Sony's idea of 4D....


Blu-ray will be phased out in around 5 years time for memory sticks and memory cards. Have you seen the micro SD cards these days that get 8gb on. Its the size of my fingernail! Now if they can create that shit then by 2039 they can create a terminator!