HD/B Ray DVD Players

[Snap]

What 1080P DVD Player do you currently own?

[Chris D]

Nothing yet, I've been good about waiting. Leaning towards a PS3, though. I did pass one up today, though.

[Snap]

I want one for Christmas..... just not sure what one to get. I am leaning toward the HD DVD as it is half the price of the blue-ray. That way if Blue-Ray wins, I am only out 400 bucks and not a grand! But still undesided.

[Blindamood]

I'm in no hurry to go either way. Still happy with the 1080i upscaling over hdmi provided by my current Onkyo DV-SP1000! Not to mention built-in multi-channel audio support.

Updated: Forgot to mention...the prices for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movies is also way overboard...most I've seen are $25-30 bucks. I still like paying $10-15 for standard DVDs.

[JonMarsh]

Xbox 360 addon- using VGA output.

Got ThomasW a Toshiba last April, which convinced me the format had possibilities- since then I've bought about 30 titles in preparation for getting a player. Still hope to get an HD-XA1 if Crutchfield still has stock next pay day! Will use it with an DVI/HDCP to RGBHV converter I have. Or if I ever get an HDMI display- may consider a flat panel for the bedroom.

BTW, the Toshiba does very good upscaling, a little better than my Oppo 971, but upscaling in no way compares with HD-DVD if you've got a true HD display. OTOH, many flat panels have poor scaling conversion to their native panel resolution, and can't even display the full DVD test bandwidth signals (scaling between resolutions that are close and not integer multiples results in loss of HF detail, not improvement of the picture.) Typical culprits are 1366X768 LCD displays, and 1024X768 and 1366X768 plasmas, as well as 720P DLP.

[Brandon B]

Nothing yet, I've been good about waiting. Leaning towards a PS3, though. I did pass one up today, though.

'Cuz they were asking how much for it . . .?

BB

[George Bellefontaine]

I'm not biting on either format.

[aud19]

I'm not biting on either format.

Me either... I think they'll be mostly dead in the water. I think the majority of consumers will wait for the next generation of VOD/downloadable HD movies to make any serious jump beyond DVD. The stubborn arrogance of the format war certainly hasn't and won't help either become any more accepted either. Then there's the data issue. Hard drives and flash or similar media is becoming larger and cheaper on a daily basis making the optical discs already obsolete in that regard as well. With all those things, there's just not going to be a large enough or sustainable market for either format IMO.

[Daryl Furkalo]

I have an HDA1 and PS3, so both.

[drsiebling]

I have the Panasonic Blu-Ray player and have been thrilled with its performance. I haven't had even the slightest glitch with the player and I've been using it heavily! PQ and AQ are outstanding!

[Brandon B]

Players for both formats are being pretty heavily discounted right now. $200-300 below their intro prices from what I am reading. Wonder why? Surely they're selling really well and all to the public at large.

BB

[Chris D]

'Cuz they were asking how much for it . . .?

BB

Well, you may laugh or cry when I tell you, but I saw two of them at Wal-mart yesterday, but both 20GB models. MSRP. For various reasons I passed, but I probably would have bought if it had been a 60GB.

[Snap]

Me either... I think they'll be mostly dead in the water. I think the majority of consumers will wait for the next generation of VOD/downloadable HD movies to make any serious jump beyond DVD. The stubborn arrogance of the format war certainly hasn't and won't help either become any more accepted either. Then there's the data issue. Hard drives and flash or similar media is becoming larger and cheaper on a daily basis making the optical discs already obsolete in that regard as well. With all those things, there's just not going to be a large enough or sustainable market for either format IMO.

Jason you might be on to something here. I was told that the near future we will download videos straight from the company straight to our TV. And that pretty soon all of our TV's will have CAT5E or CAT6 jacks standard for that purpose. Heck they are already making TVs with 160 gig DVR built in.

[Brandon B]

Well, you may laugh or cry when I tell you, but I saw two of them at Wal-mart yesterday, but both 20GB models. MSRP. For various reasons I passed, but I probably would have bought if it had been a 60GB.

Probably laugh. My plan is to pick one up in March or so, got Japan travel coming up that makes it useless until then anyway.

BB

[aud19]

Jason you might be on to something here. I was told that the near future we will download videos straight from the company straight to our TV. And that pretty soon all of our TV's will have CAT5E or CAT6 jacks standard for that purpose. Heck they are already making TVs with 160 gig DVR built in.

Yup...Napster, the IPod etc started the huge trend toward downloaded media and downloadable TV shows etc are already a reality. It's only a matter of time until that's the main source of media.

[Evil Twin]

Toshiba HD-XA1


Never understimate the power of the dark side....

So, you don't think disks are a viable medium for HD? Your lack of faith is disturbing...

While I do enjoy downloaded TV shows from iTunes at ~500MB per show, let's realize that downloading three such shows takes two hours, with downloading in parallel to saturate the broadband throughput. To download a 25 GB HD movie would take over 24 hours- hardly a feasible approach, but one which my broadband carrier offers no hope of improving in the forseeable future.

Downloads as the main procurement for HD movies? Not likely in the next several years, I think. And while the H.264 codec is quite efficient for these TV shows, they do not have the bandwidth or fine details of good DVD's, and are not an adequate subtstitute on a larger display, save for the vision impaired. With my bionic enhancements, and 20/15 effective vision, that's not me.

It's the equivalent of MP3 for video- as long as your standards are low enough, no problem. That's marginal for TV shows, and not suitable (yet) for movies, in my opinion.

[aud19]

Toshiba HD-XA1


Never understimate the power of the dark side....

So, you don't think disks are a viable medium for HD? Your lack of faith is disturbing...

While I do enjoy downloaded TV shows from iTunes at ~500MB per show, let's realize that downloading three such shows takes two hours, with downloading in parallel to saturate the broadband throughput. To download a 25 GB HD movie would take over 24 hours- hardly a feasible approach, but one which my broadband carrier offers no hope of improving in the forseeable future.

Downloads as the main procurement for HD movies? Not likely in the next several years, I think. And while the H.264 codec is quite efficient for these TV shows, they do not have the bandwidth or fine details of good DVD's, and are not an adequate subtstitute on a larger display, save for the vision impaired. With my bionic enhancements, and 20/15 effective vision, that's not me.

It's the equivalent of MP3 for video- as long as your standards are low enough, no problem. That's marginal for TV shows, and not suitable (yet) for movies, in my opinion.

Your forgetting things like VOD and PPV which are already available from SP's with bandwidth dedicated to them. I agree downloading from the generic internet even over broadband isn't currently overly viable for HD especially.

But then you look at things like FIOS internet and TV services which give you much faster internet access, HUGE on demand options, lot's of HD channels, multi-room DVR, all digital chanels for less than cable/sat and it's available TODAY (though limited areas for now). But it's coming my friend and a lot faster than you think

http://www22.verizon.com/content/fiostv/about+fios+tv/about+fios+tv.htm

There's even talk of FIOS having EVERYTHING on demand. you want to watch something, you download it. No more primetime or missing episodes etc, you watch what you want, when you want. No more channel packages you simplay pay for the shows you watch while retaining the choice to watch any of those channels.

[peterS]

I have the Panasonic Blu-Ray player and have been thrilled with its performance. I haven't had even the slightest glitch with the player and I've been using it heavily! PQ and AQ are outstanding!

realy? all the blu ray ive seen looks worse than dvd upscalled... the whole encoding issue
is that resolved?

[Chris D]

Eh? Native BD worse than upscaled DVD?

[Snap]

I do not have any solid data for this..... but I am assuming that LG is going to be doing something in this area in the very near future. My LG rep told me that every house I pre-wire ensure that there is an addition CAT5E run for the TV. He has not let me down so far, and so the last 3 houses we have done there was an extra run of CAT5 going to the TV.

I agree with Jason, pretty soon there is going to be NOTHING but smart homes. That is just the way that we are moving. Heck there are builders down here that have finally got a clue. Even spec homes. 180-220K are getting small structured wire packages!

Heck pretty soon full home automation, and lighting control is going to be standard.