Are Blu Ray HD DVD players worth it?

[Vasquez]

If so, can somebody give me some ideas please (brand/model/pit falls), as I am a total n00b with the whole Blu Ray HDDVD deal.

Thanks !

[Roman Rapper]

It's not really worth it in terms of visual improvement but you are going to have to buy one at some point.

when you do you should probably get it in the form of the Playstation 3 as it offers the best value for money.

[Thor the Bassist]

Costs much too much to put in a computer unless you are serious about watching DVDs on it (eg you have no tv).

[mrmouth]

If your simply looking for a player, then as mentioned before, the PS3 is a no brainer. Its actually one of the better players on the market, and will upscale/upconvert your standard definition DVD's to HD quality. Something I didn't know when I bought a Samsung upconverting DVD player...

As far as drives go, it can get confusing. You have some that will play only Blu ray, not DVD-ROM, etc, only Blu ray DVD's. You can get those for around $120.

Then you have some that will play Blu ray and DVD-ROM, those are around $150.

Then you have some that will play Blu-ray, HD-DVD, DVD-ROM, CD-ROM. Those are also around $150.

As far as burners, they still make no sense unless you are wealthy and can afford the media. The drive prices are not bad I suppose, but should be coming down within the next two years significantly. If you are wealthy, Sony makes the best burners as of now.

If you can afford it, this drive will do it all, at a good price, with free media:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827136137

Im tempted to buy one myself, and I don't know why, the media is just too damned expensive.

[numerosdecimus]

While the adoption rate may be growing, at this point it's still for the most part a matter of how dedicated you are in getting one, should you be looking for a PS3 to play both it's games and watch movies then a BR-player purchase is much more easily justified. Standalone players are still expensive for the most part, and ironically the best player on the market is the PS3 because of it's firmware updating capabilities and hardware characteristics.

Should you be looking for a BR-player then the PS3 generaly speaking is the best player on the market and the one most analists would only recomend when getting a truly "justified purchase".

[Freddie]

If so, can somebody give me some ideas please (brand/model/pit falls), as I am a total n00b with the whole Blu Ray HDDVD deal.

Thanks !

I’ve seen Blu-Ray demoed in a Sony Centre before and the picture quality is notably better then standard DVD. However I should point out that to get the best our of Blu Ray your going to need to a quality plasma or LCD T.V that runs at 1080p (most do these days) which costs a lot of money (there are cheap 1080p screens on the market but you get what you pay for - colours are generally dull, they ghost badly and the picture just looks lifeless). On top of this you still have to buy the Blu Ray player, a decent HDMI lead and you have to live with the fact media is nearly twice the price of regular DVD’s and come loaded with DRM (stops you from taking backups of the disc).

If you’re still interested in Blu Ray and have a TV that’s suitable I would read the reviews on professional sites on standalone players, cnet.com is one place to start and another good place which I highly recommend is avforums.com which is dedicated to this industry. I don’t know a massive amount about Blu Ray players however one thing you should look for is how good the scaling is, the more expensive players have superior DVD upscaling (emulates high definition from a standard DVD).

[mrmouth]

However I should point out that to get the best our of Blu Ray your going to need to a quality plasma or LCD T.V that runs at 1080p (

And if you going to splurge on 1080p, might as well buy a TV that supports 1080p@24Hz. The concept of 1080P/24 is that the movie you watch will be delivered to the screen the same way the movie was made, at 24 frames, instead of 30.

A good amount, if not most of all current and future Blu ray movies will be encoded this way.

I recently bought an LCD that supports 1080p@24Hz, as well as 120Hz to smooth out the picture, and its gorgeous.

[Vasquez]

Hey thanks. +rep

[Freddie]

Hey thanks. +rep

No worries, but be sure to checkout avforums.