Blu-ray versus DVD

dgcarter said:
Because of research and development costs, once they have covered that the price should gradually decrease. It's like Nintendo who spent more money on reseacsh and development on the Wii than the entire US spent on education that year.

But Blu-ray will always be more expensive because companies who use the technology have to pay royalties to Sony. As far as I'm consernd blu-ray is white elephant.
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Don't tell me you believe that. The price difference is there to artificially create appeal for the product. If its double the price, it has to be something special, no? Well it costs virtually the same amount of money to churn a BD as a DVD, once you have the press and the production line going the material is the same, the disk is pressed and costs the same. The non-savvy consumer thinks he is getting something special. Well it ain't so.

Yes the resolution is better. However the acting, plot and storyline are still the same. A bad or mediocre (most of Hollywood) movie will not suddenly become good on BluRay. Also 40 inches is not 6x the magic but roughly 2x the perceived magic and believe me after 30 minuts you forget you're watching High Definition.
 
Saman said:
I agree with you, you probably should'nt since you obviously don't own a large HD display, like some of us do! If you did, you'd understand. :)
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I do and I regret buying a BluRay player and BDs. I'm not buying anymore.
 
Saman said:
I second you on that nk1. As long as your display is native HD, anything of lower resolution is automatically upconverted from whatever resolution it is to HD resolution so it can be displayed on the HD screen. Unfortunately, internal TV scalers are mundane at best, mostly poor. Modern upscaling DVD & Blu-ray players (even pc's) on the other hand generally do a much better job of upconverting the SD material than the TV,resulting in much improved picture quality. In fact, I owned one of the first upconverting players by an established brand (a Samsung which I had imported here myself) about 4 years ago and will swear by it. Nowadays, I only watch movies on my pc's because the software does some incredible things with upconversion & processing - and boy does it make a difference!
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When you say TVs are bad, R10K full HD sets at 40 inches are bad at upscaling. That's why you can also buy a full HD set for R50K atm and those offer superior contrast and better upscaling. No R2000 DVD player or overpriced R5000 BluRay player will offer better upscaling than a R50K
set.

However as said I don't believe that BluRay and HD are worth it to, buy
on purpose. Seriously, if you're a film collector of Hollywood garbage and you go 'oooh' and 'aah' over explosions and creases in the lines of superhero actors you'll enjoy the extra detail but for those of us who want to watch substance and keep substance on our shelves, BD does not help. What also sucks is that South Africa has such a poor selection too. Its just Hollywood garbage on sale and region hacked BD players are unavailable unless you import a BD player and those require additional power supplies.

I'd buy '5cm per second' on Bluray but it's region A.

Here is a real upconverter:
AnchorBay DVDO iScan VP50PRO High Definition Video Processor
http://www.affordablehdtv.com/ancho...finition-video-processor-p-21765.html?ref=100
Price: $2999 = R30.000 at the current exchange rate - and AudioVision would sell this thing for R45.000 probably, the rip offs they are.

AnchorBay DVDO iScan VP50PRO High Definition Video Processor

The iScan VP50PRO is the world's first video processor to incorporate HDMI 1.3 compatibility and the first to earn THX Video Certification, the industry's premiere hallmark of quality, usability and compatibility. The iScan VP50PRO converts standard definition, high definition and PC signals from your DVD player, HD-DVD player, Blu-ray Disc player, HD DVR, game console, or PC to any output resolution up to 1080p. The VP50PRO serves as your complete A/V hub, providing audio/video switching that simultaneously eliminates A/V lipsync and allows a one wire connection to display for all your video needs.

Features of the AnchorBay DVDO iScan VP50PRO High Definition Video Processor

Mosquito Noise Reduction - reduces random noise which appears along the edges of compressed images

Fine Detail Enhancement - to extract fine detail in low-resolution or compressed sources

Edge Enhancement - to sharpen edges without adding any ringing

Precision Deinterlacing™
480i/576i/1080i 10-bit Motion, Edge & Source-Adaptive Deinterlacer

Five-field motion adaptive deinterlacing
Edge adaptive processing for smooth diagonal edges
Three frame video processing delay (Max)
Game Modes with very low latency
Sub-1 frame delay with edge adaptive processing
2 frame delay with edge and motion adaptive processing
PReP™
Progressive Reprocessing of 480p, 576p, and 1080p input signals allows poor deinterlacing of any source to be undone and done correctly using Precision Deinterlacing™

Precision Video Scaling II™
10-bit Scaling with Enhanced Sharpness Control up to 1080p

Progressive Cadence Detection™
Enables 24/48/72Hz and 25/50/75Hz output from film-based content at 480p, 576p, 720p and 1080p resolutions

Precision Gamma Correction™- Individual R/G/B Adjustments

Precision AV LipSync™
intelligent digital audio delay technology to match Audio & Video timing

RightRate™
High-Performance Framerate Conversion

AutoVFR™
Intelligent Component Video Inputs with Automatic Video Format Routing

AutoCUE-C™
Automatic Chroma Upsampling Error detection & correction
Click to expand...
 
PeterCH said:
I do and I regret buying a BluRay player and BDs. I'm not buying anymore.
Click to expand...
Thats the price you pay for being an early adopter
In fact, if you've been buying them, thank you! Thru your purchases, you've already contributed towards making them more affordable for the rest of us LOL !
 
Of course Blu-Ray and HD-DVD were not the first high definition formats. In fact there was a high definition format available in the 90's already with which you could record Digital HD and 5.1 DD sound. Movies were and are still available. Yep, D-VHS.
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/dvhs/

Let's you record and view HD content and no downscaling either (no HDCP).
 
Saman said:
Thats the price you pay for being an early adopter
In fact, if you've been buying them, thank you! Thru your purchases, you've already contributed towards making them more affordable for the rest of us LOL !
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Yeah I jumped on the DVD bandwagon early on - I have hundreds of DVDs, I can't even count them all but blu-ray I'll stay away from.
 
arf9999 said:
When did you get one? You've been whining about what a waste of time it is for so long...
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It is a waste of time but the urge to have another black box got the better of me. Suffice to say I was suckered and I regret having gone that route as I've watched about 6 BDs on it and ain't buying anymore (5 are from the Blue Planet set which IMHO is poor quality). I'd still buy 5cm Per second but it's
Region A not B. I'll prolly get a BD burner in 2 years and rip it with AnyDVDHD.

But I'll be honest, once you watch a bit of HD you get so used to it you forget its HD. Same with DVD, once you watch that for a while you forget its not HD and with sub 50 inch sets everything looks good from a distance. Even up close, its simply not worth it. :(

Also the selection is pitiful. Buy Final Fantasy Spirits Within on BD? WTF for?
Buy I AM HERO on BD to see Will Smith in high Def (puke)? How many times can you watch Will Smith???
Buy Resident Evil 3 to see Milla but then most of the time you see idiots in bad make up in HD.... no give me so good ol' mosaic censored J-girl pr0n anyday.

FYI I'm busy preordering Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker. I recently re-watched Andrei Rublev also by Tarkvosky and no want this one badly. No HD Hollywood schlock is not for me - not until the disks appear at R25 per pop
in the bargain bin and even then why even bother.....
 
PeterCH, firstly, 50K TV's don't cost that much because they are great at upscaling, in fact on the contrary. They cost that much because of exactly the reason you spelled out above...
quote
The price difference is there to artificially create appeal for the product. If its double the price, it has to be something special, no?
unquote
...and of course they may actually excel at their primary purpose ie. render stunning HD from HD sources. High-end HD TV's don't care about SD upscaling, since they are aimed at the cutting edge market. Customers who can afford blu-ray in markets where they are freely available at reasonable cost anyway.
I know because it's a commonly known fact and I own a 45k full-hd Panasonic projector - it's excellent with HD sources, but mediocre at upscaling.

Secondly, if you're not a home-theatre fan, then you seriously have no reason to buy BD's - they're primarily there to improve movie watching experience. Indeed, explosions, immersive sounds effects & pictures are exactly what BD's about. What were you expecting them to do for you? - provide you with improved reading material?!
Come on, most of us brainless home-theater fans just want to enjoy the most realistic, escapist entertainment experience possible. Just because it doesn't suit you, doesn't mean it's worthless to everone else.
As far as prices go, they will drop to reaonable levels when our market matures. I bought most of mine in the US at SA DVD prices. It's a simple matter of economies of scale.
 
One of the reasons BD costs so much is that it uses two lasers ( 1 for playing old DVD's and the other for Blue Ray). HD-DVD (R.I.P.) used the same type laser for both formats (DVD & HD-DVD) and that's why it was cheaper. I think if they really want to push the uptake quicker they should just drop the DVD compatibility for some systems and see how that goes.
 
I may be the odd one out here, but I actually don't love dvd anymore. It's given me a few great experiences with surround sound and so on, but the upscaling part has always ended up looking poor to me. It's the same reason why I never watch dvd rips, since quality always suffers. The whole experience just is not the same.

I have a 24" montior that actually displays more than full HD, and when you watch dvd on it, you can see how small it really is. I want to watch movies that take up the whole screen due to higher native resolution. Also, clearer and cleaner audio from Blu-ray would make a world of difference.

People always say Blu-ray is dead and white elephant and so on. One thing many people seem to forget is that every single PS3 game disk is a Blu-ray disk, and that more or less assures the format a long healthy life. PS3 titles are starting to come out thick and fast, and if they turn out to be popular, a few million copies are sold.

Blu-ray is the future, and I look forward to getting a player either stand alone or for my PC when prices are a little lower.
 
As punishment for something bad I must have done in a previous life, I used to own a few AV retail stores. :rolleyes: The one thing this gave me (apart from sleepless nights) was the chance to play with all the latest AV products.

There is at best a loose correlation between price and performance and in the case of which component should do any kind of upscaling or conversion, its always best to test all permutations.

I.e. if you have a DVD player and display that can both do upscaling, enable it first on the one end and test, then disable and enable on the other side. You'll be surprised at how often the better upscaling is not in the most expensive component. Same with i to p conversion.

But also test both SD and HD material (and broadcast) as the combinations tend to vary. Which is a b1tch as you cannot change these settings on the fly.

For example, Sony displays tend to have a great picture when displaying native HD content, but put DSTV on it and it looks worse than a 60's TV.

Inversely I've seen better looking pictures coming out of high-end DVD players, playing SD DVD's because of the massive upscaling capabilities some of them have (at R40K for a DVD player!) than some BR players.

But it's always better to start with HD material (as in BR) than to upscale, trying to create content information that was removed in a previous process.
 
combination of mvix and uncapped equals downloading near high def movies, although quite humongous in size still semi free seeining that I already have the uncapped. Surely not the most legitimate method, but found it still to be the most hassle free method of watching my movies (and rather portable)
 
Asha'man X said:
Blu-ray is the future, and I look forward to getting a player either stand alone or for my PC when prices are a little lower.
Click to expand...

Sony has been down this road before. Remember Betamax.

Now I go back to 1998 where I was in the distinct minority by owning one of the few DVD players on the market and remember the video stores only stocked VHS,except for a brave few stores who invested in DVD's and continued to invest in DVD only because their customers begged and pleaded with the owners. The rest is history. Now, we have Blue-Ray and these things are Turkeys because the decent movies are not coming into SA on this format in any kind of urgency (never mind new releases) and the Blue Ray players are sitting on the shelves gathering dust, waiting for the next sucker to come along prepared to pay R4000.

From all indications, Blue Ray as correctly surmised here, is a white elephant-to-be, just like the Greenpoint Sadium will be after the 2010 World Cup.
 
There's absolutely no compelling reason to rush out and buy a BD player or recorder for that matter! I think the only benefit will be the capacity for data storage, but even there, the price needs to come down first - otherwise I have no need for BD!
 
Saman said:
I agree with you, you probably should'nt since you obviously don't own a large HD display, like some of us do! If you did, you'd understand. :)
Click to expand...

I also own a large Full HD display...but you don't see me being a d@@s.
 
Saman said:
PeterCH, firstly, 50K TV's don't cost that much because they are great at upscaling, in fact on the contrary. They cost that much because of exactly the reason you spelled out above...
quote
The price difference is there to artificially create appeal for the product. If its double the price, it has to be something special, no?
unquote
...and of course they may actually excel at their primary purpose ie. render stunning HD from HD sources. High-end HD TV's don't care about SD upscaling, since they are aimed at the cutting edge market. Customers who can afford blu-ray in markets where they are freely available at reasonable cost anyway.
I know because it's a commonly known fact and I own a 45k full-hd Panasonic projector - it's excellent with HD sources, but mediocre at upscaling.

Secondly, if you're not a home-theatre fan, then you seriously have no reason to buy BD's - they're primarily there to improve movie watching experience. Indeed, explosions, immersive sounds effects & pictures are exactly what BD's about. What were you expecting them to do for you? - provide you with improved reading material?!
Come on, most of us brainless home-theater fans just want to enjoy the most realistic, escapist entertainment experience possible. Just because it doesn't suit you, doesn't mean it's worthless to everone else.
As far as prices go, they will drop to reaonable levels when our market matures. I bought most of mine in the US at SA DVD prices. It's a simple matter of economies of scale.
Click to expand...

High END HD sets have better everything. Companies out there have big names, Sharp, Pioneer, Hitachi, Panasonic, Sony, Samsung - its a matter of pride - which can rate better - that includes the circuitry in the set. The best is however always Japanese domestic market. There is a cultural thing in Japan to keep the best rated stuff for their own market, its a general trend. Their domestic market is always better spec'ed.

More expensive TV = better upscaling, better contrast etc. It doesn't just stop at scaling.

R45K for a full HD (1080p) projector is cheap. I'm suprised you could find one at that price.

As said there is high end stuff, the $2999 processor I linked is actually
on sale at that price and in SA would cost over R45K (not that you'd even
find it).

Hitachi has some great upscaling tech which looks amazing on their test shots, coming out. They'll include that in their sets no doubt.

As for home theatre, sure big explosions but a pitiful selection at best.

Sony is just hoping but with the economic slow down less people will buy their cr@p. In fact SONY is one company I would love to see go bust, although the JPN government would bail em out but still. They do have a gorgeous Full HD CineAlta pro-camera I want to buy, the PMW-EX1. :)
Apparently video shot with that thing is suitable for DiscoveryHD.
 
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vodacom3g said:
As punishment for something bad I must have done in a previous life, I used to own a few AV retail stores. :rolleyes: The one thing this gave me (apart from sleepless nights) was the chance to play with all the latest AV products.
Click to expand...

I hope you didn't own any AudioVision stores. The salesmen there are the biggest bunch of a-holes around, totally clueless and will argue with you when you point out their fallacies. Customer is right, doesn't belong in that store. People avoid AudioVision, total idiots.
 
Maestr0 said:
I also own a large Full HD display...but you don't see me being a d@@s.
Click to expand...

Hey, Maestr0, lighten up! :p My comment is simply a statement of fact: there's really no point in buying BD, unless you have an HD display since you won't see any benefit in video quality. Conversely, if you already own an HD display you wont see any benefit either unless you have an HD source, of which BD is your best bet at the moment (apart from upscaled-DVD, which is still somewhat short of real HD). Unfortunately the other options: HD DVD died an early death (may it R.I.P.), while DSTV HD still struggling to get their act together which may take some time yet.
So, no need to resort to foul language. Be :cool:
 
Why is it that whenever people talk about Blu-ray they talk about the video side of it. They focus on the HD resolution of the videos and everything else that is completely irrelevant. Blu-ray is about 25gb per disc people !!!! No one cares if you can put a movie on it because we are sick and tired of backups on stupid 4.5gb DVDs. We need something better.

When looking at the rate in which storage mediums has grown (magnetic, optical and flash) then it is clear the slowest performer here is optical. It came out with 650mb space back in 1995 when HDDs were also in that size range. It was stuck on that for 8 years then it went to 4.5gb. Around that time HDDs was about 100GB in size, so optical storage was way behind.

These days we have 1500gb HDDs and optical storage is still stuck on 4.5gb. The least it can do is go up to 25gb with Blu-ray. It still has a long way to go though...

Who needs a Blu-ray video player when your DVD player does a decent enough upscale job? Most ordinary people won't even notice.
 
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