Yes, I broke down and bought a Blu-ray disk player today.
And yes, what took me so long?
Expect a report as soon as I figure out how to plug it in/install.
In other news, WWTW learns people can actually download music from this World Wide Web thing.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I bought the same player for my father at Christmas (I use a PS3 and Blu-ray drive on my computer). He seems to like it, though the picture quality wasn’t as important to as much as being able to watch all the Blu-rays I keep buying of new releases. You are jumping in at the right time, as prices are dropping on the discs (there are some amazing deals out there right now for older titles, usually between $10-$15 bucks) and the releases are expanding. This fall, everything from classics like THE WIZARD OF OZ, GONE WITH THE WIND and NORTH BY NORTHWEST to the “big release titles” like BRAVEHEART, GLADIATOR and THE LORD OF THE RINGS Trilogy (unfortunately, only the theatrical releases are hitting this year).
Here’s what the Blu-Ray Consortium doesn’t want you to realize, Christian: when you hook up a Blu-Ray player capable of pushing out 1080p, have a TV that can display 1080p and use HDMI, every DVD you watch looks tons better.
Your new player references that in its specs: “Delivers greatly enhanced video performance with standard DVDs: By upconverting their video resolution to HDTV compliant 720p, 1080i or 1080p via the HDMI interface.”
You’ll see, if you have it all hooked up properly. It’ll breath new life into even your crummy DVDs of movies from the 40s and 50s. I watched the “digitally remastered” Star Wars IV on regular DVD today and was startled at how crystal clear it looked on my 52″ Sony HDTV. I’d been hunting for the Blu-Ray release of Star Wars, but the regular [read 'cheap'] DVD looked beautiful.
The upsampling of regular DVDs really is the unsung value of buying a good Blu-Ray player. Just make sure you hook it all up properly!
i think you will be very pleased with your purchase. i have a PS3 and love it. if your a western fan i recommend picking up ‘The Searchers’ amazon usually has it right around $10 and it looks unbelievable for a film that old. and one of my favorite discs so far is the ‘Blade Runner’ 5 disc set it is amazing.
Thanks for the feedback. Alas, my tv is 720p, something I hope to upgrade as soon as my hypnosis lessons allow me to convince Mrs. WWTW of another massive tech purchase.
Am watching a Blu-ray disc of Dr. No — and it’s startling. Rarely has a movie from the 60s looked so pristine.
oh yeah Dr. No looks great so far it is the only older bond film i own on blu-ray and it looks a lot better than what i expected. i guess they went back and remastered the bond films using the 2k process which is the same thing they used for blade runner pretty amazing.
Can’t wait to get my hands on a flat-screen. Any thoughts on what is better – LCD, LED or Plasma? After hours of drooling and sifting through Sears, my nod would be to the LCD. But my lying eyes, half the time I can’t tell HD from standard.
JohnFN – do a ton of research on this.
Here’s my two cents – LED looks great and is super thin, but I think it’s foolish to buy any technology when it first hits the market. Wait for prices to fall and consumers to weigh in on them.
LCD’s minuses are being fixed with newer models (I think you’ll want to look for 120 HZ to get a smooth look to action images. Also, some older LCD’s like mine don’t portray dark/black images and backgrounds richly enough. I think newer models fix this, too.
Am betting you can get a better deal on plasma sets, but they are heavy.
I agree with christian when i bought my HDTV almost 2 years ago i looked at plasma,LCD and DLP and i bought a 58 inch Samsung 1080p DLP for the price you couldn’t beat it. it had just about the best picture quality of any of the sets. Samsung makes there DLP’s ultra thin compared to others which is nice. at the time if you wanted to get a lcd or plasma over 40 inches you were going to pay at least 3,000-4,000 for it if not more.