Originally Posted By Goofyernmost What is the latest thought about that technology? I had a computer "expert" tell me that Blu-ray is going to be going the same way as Beta-max. They said that I should hold off and wait for the next advance in technology. What's everyone thoughts on the matter?
Originally Posted By mawnck It's too late for Blu-Ray to be the next Betamax. HD-DVD beat it to it. Blu-Ray is currently the highest quality video you can get out of consumer equipment. It's carried in Wal-Mart, K-Mart and Target. The discs cost only slightly more than DVDs, and contain considerably more features. The players play DVDs and CDs as well as Blu-Ray discs. All the major home electronics companies (except Toshiba, the HD-DVD company) are making players now, and you can buy them anywhere. The computer "experts" will tell you that it's going to be supplanted by some online thing, and they're probably right. Eventually it will. Not this year, though ... the US internet infrastructure won't support it, and is a ways from doing so. And what HD content there is online currently is VASTLY inferior in quality to Blu-Ray, and any computer expert who says otherwise needs to have his lens prescription checked. Besides, people who adopted Betamax early in the going had a good 10 years to enjoy it before VHS finally won. (PS - BD-Live, though, is almost comically stupid. The ONLY cool thing I've seen it do is change the weather on the Sleeping Beauty menu to match local conditions. Everything else has been a long, long process to see things that I could've accessed on the internet in seconds.)
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost Thanks...another question. I currently have a wide screen TV. I noticed that when I play a DVD on my regular player I get distortion on the ends of the screen. Will Blu-ray compensate for and correct that?
Originally Posted By ophellia I think post #2 covers this, but here's something afrien sent me about that issue... From Wikipedia: "This article compares the technical specifications of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc, two mutually incompatible, high definition optical disc formats that, beginning in 2006, attempted to improve upon and eventually replace the DVD standard. The two formats remained in a format war until February 19, 2008 when Toshiba, HD DVD's creator, announced plans to cease development, manufacturing and marketing of HD DVD players and recorders.[1] AVCHD could be one of the reasons for Blu-ray Disc format to win. AVCHD is a consumer video format designed by Sony and Panasonic, members of Blu-Ray Disc Association, and is heavily based on Blu-ray Disc encoding and file structure. AVCHD recordings are compatible with most Blu-Ray Disc players, but incompatible with HD DVD players. Other high-definition optical disc formats were attempted, including the multi-layered red-laser Versatile Multilayer Disc[citation needed] and a Chinese made format called EVD. Both appear to have been abandoned by their respective developers." I don't even understand this...I can't even work my new DVR remote
Originally Posted By mawnck >>Thanks...another question. I currently have a wide screen TV. I noticed that when I play a DVD on my regular player I get distortion on the ends of the screen. Will Blu-ray compensate for and correct that?<< Sounds like you have a setting wrong on your TV. Make sure it's not set to "Wonderwide" or "Panavieweriffic" or whatever they're calling it. It's one of the settings for people who are allergic to the 4x3 bars-on-the-side, and it works by leaving the middle at the proper ratio, while stretching the edges twice as much as regular stretch-o-vision. It is evil. When watching anamorphic DVDs, you should have it on "Widescreen". In any case, a Blu-Ray player sends out a genuine HD signal, so that should override the TV's SD settings. (Note to everyone ... if you have your TV set to *not* show the bars on the side on 4x3 stuff, I will personally come to your house and beat you up.)
Originally Posted By mawnck >>I don't even understand this...I can't even work my new DVR remote<< No reason you should understand it, or worry about it. Unless you're planning on launching a new consumer format yourself, it's irrelevant. The AVCHD paragraph is geekspeak, and from a particularly clueless geek at that, since 98% of the world population doesn't know what AVCHD is. Blu-Ray won because of the PS3 (they play Blu-Ray discs), and because Wal-Mart stopped carrying HD-DVDs.
Originally Posted By BlueDevilSF I got a Blu-ray player about a year ago, and I really like it thus far, BUT... 1. The prices of the software are still at a higher level than I would like. For example, at Target season 1 of "True Blood" can be had on DVD for about $20 less than the Blu-ray. Pricing is slowly getting better, though. Wal-Mart had dual packs of certain movies for $20. Some studios, Warner Bros. in particular, are dropping prices on some catalog titles. 2. I hope newer generation players will have faster load times. It can take upwards of 3-5 minutes for a BD to load. 3. Given Blu-ray players' ability to upconvert standard DVD, studios better give the consumer more incentive to upgrade to Blu-ray for titles they already own. In some cases, Blu-ray releases are *losing* features that were on the standard DVD. MGM has been a big offender of this. >>Note to everyone ... if you have your TV set to *not* show the bars on the side on 4x3 stuff, I will personally come to your house and beat you up.<< Please come over and have a talk with my partner about this. I HATE the stretched image. He keeps changing the settings!
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost Concerning the 4/3 stuff...what's the purpose of having a WIDEscreen TV if you cannot use it wide screen?
Originally Posted By mawnck >>Concerning the 4/3 stuff...what's the purpose of having a WIDEscreen TV if you cannot use it wide screen?<< Whadaya mean you can't use it widescreen? 75% of the DVDs and Blu-Rays on the planet, at least 50% of the TV broadcasts on channels of any importance, and the percentage is growing all the time ... surely you can find some widescreen content to enjoy somewhere. I just get REALLY angry at people who take a perfectly good 4x3 picture that a lot of people like me worked extremely hard on to get it to look just right, and then streeeeetch it like a dang piece of Silly Putty, just because they're sooo offended by a bit of unused space on their TV screen. GET OVER IT! Snarrrrrrrrl!!!!
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< (Note to everyone ... if you have your TV set to *not* show the bars on the side on 4x3 stuff, I will personally come to your house and beat you up.) >>> Thank you. While you're at it, can you set people straight on the issue of "full screen" DVD's that actually cut off some of the picture rather than show the whole thing? mawnck, a few years ago I worked in a booth at NATPE and the booth right across from ours had all of the latest widescreen, flat panel displays all over the booth, displaying their standard definition 4:3 television content in "full screen," stretched mode. Every time I looked up, I could not believe what I was seeing - extra wide, fat faces on TV at NATPE. Some people just have no shame.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost >>>I just get REALLY angry at people who take a perfectly good 4x3 picture that a lot of people like me worked extremely hard on to get it to look just right, and then streeeeetch it like a dang piece of Silly Putty, just because they're sooo offended by a bit of unused space on their TV screen. GET OVER IT! Snarrrrrrrrl!!!!<<< Jeez! Take a pill...I was just joking. My set is set to go with the need, not to fill the screen. Think nice thoughts. I just would like to think that the technology exists, or is about to exist, that would solve that problem and I could use the whole screen without distortion. Thanks for everyone for your help. Some of it might just as well been in Greek, but I think I got the just of it.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>Think nice thoughts.<< Xanadu on Blu-Ray. Xanadu on Blu-Ray. Xanadu on Blu-Ray. OK, I feel better now. >>I just would like to think that the technology exists, or is about to exist, that would solve that problem and I could use the whole screen without distortion.<< Not gonna happen. Square pegs don't fit in rectangular holes. You got 3 choices ... chop off part of the picture, Silly Putty it, or leave space at the sides so it fits top-to-bottom.
