What will make you upgrade for BD/HD-DVD?

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 18 May 2007, 21:04

I don't think even a handful of us are are equipped for one format or the other. So I'm wondering, what will persuade you to make the leap?

Personally it was the announcement of Ghost in the Shell and Akira. I purchased a new CPU and soundcard immediately after hearing that so I could play highest bitrate AVC and VC-1, I already had a 1080p display. I still don't consider myself properly equipped being that I own no actual discs or hardware but at least I'm capable of playing both formats.
By the end of the year I hope we'll see much better players along with the amps that decode the new formats, then I'll start to buy. Until then I'm going to continue buying 500GB drives every few weeks.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 18 May 2007, 21:14

Easy a Combo Player for £550 or less. I'm hoping Samsung's model matches this, due out later this year. LG's doesn't count. I may stretch to £600/650, probably not £650 though. It really annoys me no BD MR chip/hack has been released but I guess we'll have to live with that for now.

I've never been one to play movies on a computer. They're just not as well suited a standalone players IMO.

Amps are already out, a fair few have HDMI ports. For me I'll be using the Analogue 5.1 connections as I have zero plans to upgrade my amp any time soon, so will be able to listen to the new formats just fine. I hope the Samsung Combo has these connections!

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 18 May 2007, 22:51

RoboCop (and now Hard-Boiled) on Blu-Ray. That's all I needed to hear

I'm also looking forward to watching The Fifth Element on the format. All the hardware's in place, just need the films now.
"Leeloo Dallas Multipass"

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 19 May 2007, 14:55

Multiregion for BOTH formats.

Players which acctually work! They still dont play every dvd as compatablility is pathctic! and some machines are shit to put it mildily.

Good films, not stuff like Ghost in the Shell and Akira thats for sure

No way I would use my PC as a HD player for serious use, make too much noise for starters, even silent PC's still get on my tits sadly. I am using my PC now for basic stuff in HD, but I wouldnt sit down and watch a film or anything yet.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 24 May 2007, 18:59

I don't think the TFE BD is much improvement over the SB DVD. I've not heard of a RC BD re-release. Is one coming?

romerojpg wrote:Multiregion for BOTH formats.

Sadly I reckon that's a way off, years maybe. Would you be prepared to wait "that" long? I completely agree but I wouldn't.

romerojpg wrote:Players which acctually work! They still dont play every dvd as compatablility is pathctic! and some machines are shit to put it mildily.

Sure that's a nice bonus but does it really matter they don't play all DVDs perfectly?

romerojpg wrote:No way I would use my PC as a HD player for serious use, make too much noise for starters, even silent PC's still get on my tits sadly.

You can get PSU's easily as silent as a DVD Player but IMO they're still completely impracticable, they take way too long (comparatively speaking) to boot up for starters.

A mate now has a proper Windows Vista MCE PC and IMO it's still not "there", it takes to long to boot up, he still has to mess around with Security, it needs configuring. No way thanks just give me a DVD Player or PVR that should work without fault 99.9% of the time.

A PC is a PC and for the foreseeable future that's the way it will stay. IMO MS made a mistake by taking Windows and bolting on MCE they should've designed a severely cut down OS so it can boot up immediately, does not need configuring and does not need Security software.

Sure it's impressive but not a replacement for a PVR/Sky+

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 24 May 2007, 19:09

Hey if I buy a dvd, I expect every feature to work perfectly. Its ridiculous to expect people to buy a dvd and then find out some soundtrack doenst work, or all the extras dont work, or even some extras dont work. You should be able to buy the dvd for a fraction of the price if thats the case.

Stupidly many HD discs now have in small words on the box

THIS DVD MAY NOT WORK ON ALL MACHINES

Yet they dont list why, which ones it works on etc.. which is pathetic.

I have bought dvds for the extras alone, if I got a dvd and found out they didnt work, well I would be after blood.

Yi-Long · Post by **Yi-Long** » 24 May 2007, 20:38

- First of all, I would have to have a true HD SCREEN. That's my first priority when I go 'next-gen'.

- 2nd: Affordability. I'm sure that within 1-2 years the players will be a lot more affordable, as well as the discs. I'm not sure which format I will have, but I would like it if I had to buy both.

-3rd: I think a lot of it will depend on my next-gen console, or a multi-media PC with built-in HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drives, which you could use as a media-center. I'm not sure which next-gen console I'll end up buying. PS3 needs to become cheaper, but the 360 needs to get all that shit solved with consoles failing and having to be repaired. Either way, I ain't buying any of them in the near future.

-4th: Obviously the movies that will come out, could pursuade me to buy a system. However, it's still early days, and you can already expect most movies being released now, getting newer and better releases in the next 3-4 years. So to, me, there's no need to rush.
If they'd only release Fist of Legend on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, in mint condition, obviously I would be more eager to buy one. But that seems unlikely.

Anyway, I can wait a few more years. I'm not gonna rush into it, especially since I still dont have a HD screen.
Obviously, if I win a million tomorrow I'll have 5 big screen HD screens, all the next-gen consoles en HD-DVD/BluRay players within a week...

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 24 May 2007, 21:16

romerojpg wrote:Hey if I buy a dvd, I expect every feature to work perfectly.

Agreed but we were talking about playing DVDs back on a HD Player, when presumably you already have a DVD Player anyway.

romerojpg wrote:THIS DVD MAY NOT WORK ON ALL MACHINES
Yet they dont list why, which ones it works on etc.. which is pathetic.

I'd be surprised if they didn't add that. Warnings about layer change still appears on the back of many DVD cases but that was never even really an issue in the first place.

Obviously they're not going to say why, it's just a general warning and isn't supposed to be taken as verbatim. LOL you expect them to list all the DVD players that might have problems, WTF???

Yi-Long wrote:- First of all, I would have to have a true HD SCREEN. That's my first priority when I go 'next-gen'.

Today I'd possibly do the same. In my case my TV completely died about 2 years a go so I had to buy a new TV. At the time I knew I just wanted LCD, the idea it could play HD didn't enter my head.

I guess I'm lucky it does period

I say "possibly" as 32" for "me" is a perfect size, any bigger would be too big and AFAIK you cannot get a 1080p 32" TV.

Yi-Long wrote:- 2nd: Affordability. I'm sure that within 1-2 years the players will be a lot more affordable, as well as the discs. I'm not sure which format I will have, but I would like it if I had to buy both.

Players agreed but discs maybe not. It took years for CDs to come down to a reasonable price, remember at the time we all had to pretty much buy CDs.

It also took longer than 2 years for DVDs to come down to a reasonable price.

Yi-Long wrote:-4th: Obviously the movies that will come out, could pursuade me to buy a system. However, it's still early days, and you can already expect most movies being released now, getting newer and better releases in the next 3-4 years. So to, me, there's no need to rush.

That's a given but I at least don't want to wait 4 years just so I don't have to sell on my older version. That's a long time to wait.

I strongly suspect I'll get one come October when Samsung's Combo is out and hopefully supports BD Live. BD MR may just end up being a luxury.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 24 May 2007, 22:14

bradavon wrote:I don't think the TFE BD is much improvement over the SB DVD. I've not heard of a RC BD re-release. Is one coming?

Yes, a re-release coming. source= avsforum (I read about it a while ago, find the link yourself Brad).

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 24 May 2007, 23:19

Nah I'll take your word for it. It's decent but not "high" on any list of mine.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 25 May 2007, 00:31

romerojpg wrote:Good films, not stuff like Ghost in the Shell and Akira thats for sure

There are lots of good titles. Of those released I'd buy about 15-20 if I had a drive and many, many more to come.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 25 May 2007, 00:40

By any chance that those animu classics coming to HD will have English subs?

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 25 May 2007, 00:51

EvaUnit02 wrote:By any chance that those animu classics coming to HD will have English subs?

Yes, even English dubs on some. The specs for all of them are completely bizarre though, different codecs and tracks all around. So probably best to wait and see.

gojensen · Post by **gojensen** » 25 May 2007, 08:10

bradavon wrote:I don't think the TFE BD is much improvement over the SB DVD.

If by TFE BD you mean the BluRayDisc of the movie The Fifth Element... no, it apparently wasn't much of an improvement, and yes Sony is aware of it. Result; a new remastered dual layer disc coming to stores this summer/early-autumn.

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 25 May 2007, 16:01

They should have been aware of it enough to not have released it in the first place.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 25 May 2007, 17:03

Like they give a crap about quality, thats why so many HD discs are shite so far.

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 25 May 2007, 17:57

Well they bloody well should do with these Blu-Ray discs to make people actually want to buy them.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 25 May 2007, 19:27

gasteropod wrote:They should have been aware of it enough to not have released it in the first place.

Well from a financial point of view that would've meant a good 3-4 months before releasing any BDs and it would've hurt BDs market penetration too much. Remember HD was ready to roll way before BD was, hell BD isn't even complete now. The final stage isn't due until October 07.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 25 May 2007, 19:30

Its scary how far the UK is behind other countries who have HD as standard, we have to get Sky and pay a fortune, no way in hell! by the time the UK has HD as standard the next format will be along, it really does suck.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 25 May 2007, 20:17

Well that's kind of right but in fact (I was really surprised) even Japan still mostly has/to a large extent relies on Analogue SD. That's all the TV I saw while out there anyway.

I don't believe any country has HD as Standard, if you mean it's replaced SD by that comment. There's just so many people (like my Nan

) who really don't care.

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 25 May 2007, 20:29

Thats interesting, I thought Japan has had HD since 1991 (sort of).

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 25 May 2007, 20:52

Most p[eople couldnt care less what they watch, as long as they can see whats going on. Thats why idiots still do Pirates of the latest crappy cinema releases and suckers snap them up, even if they are unwatchable shit. They just want to see it, even if they cannot acctually see it

gojensen · Post by **gojensen** » 27 May 2007, 20:17

romerojpg wrote:Its scary how far the UK is behind other countries who have HD as standard, we have to get Sky and pay a fortune

Oh shut up. There's hardly any HD content to be had at all up here!

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 28 May 2007, 14:41

I am *this* close to going HD.

Just waiting for either:
-a good and affordable hybrid player.
or
-a MUCH cheaper Blu-Ray player.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 28 May 2007, 18:52

tom2681 wrote:I am *this* close to going HD.

Just waiting for either:
-a good and affordable hybrid player.
or
-a MUCH cheaper Blu-Ray player.

Buy a PS3, I'm getting a US one in a few weeks time. With the latest firmware it's also fantastic DVD player and upscaler, passes every test. Sony seem to be dedicated to making it an excellent media machine so it'll only get better.