Comments on: A Blu Christmas? Just not for me

By: David A.

David A. — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:37:41 +0000

I haven’t gone Blu-Ray yet but I came across this web page several months ago.

Apparently, this fellow took a HD broadcast (in 1080i) of the first “Lord of the Rings” and compares it with the DVD version. Even on my 15 inch laptop, I can see a difference. On a larger screen, you’d see much more of a difference.

Just roll the mouse over the pics to see the difference.

http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/index.html

Hope this helps.

By: cftoto

cftoto — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:00:39 +0000

Thanks for the feedback!

By: Synner_man

Synner_man — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:50:17 +0000

You will still see a marked difference over regular DVD. Your 720p TV has a smaller resolution (either 1366×768, 1280×720, or 1024×768: roughly 921,600 pixels) compared to a 1080i or p TV (1920×1080: 2,073,600 pixels). But is still an improvement over regular DVD (720×480: 345,600 pixels). The Blu-ray has the full resolution of 1920×1080 and will basically drop to fit your TV. That means you are losing half the possible resolution of a 1080 picture, but the 720 is still 3x the resolution of DVDs.

The nice thing is that if you buy Blu-ray now, you are set for the future when you do upgrade your TV. And it gives you another reason to rewatch those titles.

By: cftoto

cftoto — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:05:10 +0000

You could be right, Synner-man … do you know if Blu-ray would help me given the fact that my tv is only 720p? How big a factor is that?

By: Synner_man

Synner_man — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:51:11 +0000

I believe we have hit the tipping point. There are sub-$200 players available in every store, with 2.0 models (which means the players are connected to the Internet for downloadable features and the ability to link up to other Blu-ray players) around $250. My father, who is not a technology guy by any means, wants one for Christmas to go along with his new HDTV that he bought last month (though mainly because I tend to buy the Blu-ray releases of new titles and he can’t watch them like he did the DVDs). I plan to pick up the Insignia player at Best Buy for him today, which I saw was only $169.