Blu ray's you own?

[dsheinem]

This is my main issue with BD. Yeah it's great but the only places you really notice the difference is in the textures of fabrics and background details. Personally I'd rather sit through a film whilst not staring at every flaw in the actors skin or the fine detail on some bint's blouse! These are just distractions. The ooh and ahh of high definition. WOW! I can really see those nose hairs!

LOL. All those textures, nose hairs, etc. were always there to begin with in the original print of a film - they can be seen in a theater provided they are running a decent copy of the the film on a decent screen. Not sure I would consider them "distractions" in that sense. The fine detail afforded by HD just allows you to better see all of this and to give you a better transfer of the film than what is available on standard def. DVD is a lossy (compressed) format. BD is not.

it's not an exact analogy - but it's similar to the difference between a mp3 file and a wav file.

Also, is your Panasonic 720p or 1080p? If it is only 720p, that might be the reason that you don't see as big of a difference.

[baphomet_irl]

on Blu-Ray I only have Dark Knight and Casino Royale

On HD-DVD I have:

300

V for Vendetta

Top Gun

Blade Runner Final Cut

Batman Begins

[GagaMan]

So far just the Nightmare before Christmas, and TekkonkinKreet (studio 4oC anime) is currently in the post. Paid £10 for both of them, don't really want to pay more than that for any blu-rays if I can help it, especially if I already own said film on DVD. Will be picking up Pinocchio and Akira when they come out, though, can't wait to see how they look. Mainly sticking to films that I would like top study frame by frame, being an animation nut.

[Jrecee]

"Actually, Blu-Ray players all have internet connection options (AFAIK), which allows them to get firmware updates and keep them from becoming obsolete. I don't know that you'd have to worry about losing out on any future features."

Actually the sub $200 ones I've found don't have any ethernet connection and were version 1.1 or whatever. Anyway, I'm not debating the quality or whether bluray is a good idea. I just think Sony is mishandling it in the price area, but they do that with everything. 99% of Sony's products are more expensive than everyone else's. They seem to be trying to be the lexus of electronics and command a premium for all their stuff, which in this economy is a bad idea. I do not like digital downloads so for that reason I really hope bluray takes off. But if they keep trying to eek out extra money that consumers simply don't want to spend, it could end up dead. Also, sure a bluray player is only $100 more than a dvd player, but everyone already has a dvd player (or 12), so it's not simply a matter of spending an extra $100, it's $200.

I've seen a lot of complaints about the cost of the discs and it's something that will absolutely need to be changed by next christmas or bluray could end up alienating people and end up being a niche product for the rest of its life. There's also other cost factors such as the fact that hdmi cables at most retailers are like $70! You can use the, "shop online and get one for $10" defense but that doesn't make a difference for the average consumer. They buy what they see in the store (or not).

Anyway, once they make a Slim PS3, make another Jak game, sell it for $250 and drop the price of the media I'll have one. Those are my requirements.

[Niode]

This is my main issue with BD. Yeah it's great but the only places you really notice the difference is in the textures of fabrics and background details. Personally I'd rather sit through a film whilst not staring at every flaw in the actors skin or the fine detail on some bint's blouse! These are just distractions. The ooh and ahh of high definition. WOW! I can really see those nose hairs!

LOL. All those textures, nose hairs, etc. were always there to begin with in the original print of a film - they can be seen in a theater provided they are running a decent copy of the the film on a decent screen. Not sure I would consider them "distractions" in that sense. The fine detail afforded by HD just allows you to better see all of this and to give you a better transfer of the film than what is available on standard def. DVD is a lossy (compressed) format. BD is not.

it's not an exact analogy - but it's similar to the difference between a mp3 file and a wav file.

Also, is your Panasonic 720p or 1080p? If it is only 720p, that might be the reason that you don't see as big of a difference.

The difference between MP3 and WAV file is that one is compressed and the other isn't. This has nothing to do with quality. MP3 simply removes frequencies that we can't hear due to the presence of other more prominent frequencies in the signal. It is called a Lossy compression format for this reason. At 128kbps or higher very few people can tell the difference. The majority of these people that say they can tell the difference is due to the tendency for MP3 to introduce a high frequency roll off to the audio signal. It's this lack of ultra-high frequencies that is the indicator and doesn't really impact the sound of the file for the vast majority of us as they can't hear it anyway (due to age related hearing loss, if you are older than 21 you have already started to lose your hearing and probably can't hear any frequencies higher than 18KHz, or the poor quality of most consumer grade audio equipment). Lower than 128kbps quality introduces a dithering effect that most people can hear (think of high quality JPEG and an original RAW/BMP, most people can't tell the difference. Compare a JPEG at medium quality and the dithering is apparent straight away).

What I don't think you are getting is that I do see the difference. I haven't said I don't see the difference. I just don't find the difference all that thrilling personally. It's like saying you enjoy a painting more because you look at it through a magnifying glass. Yeah, it looks bigger and you can see more detail but it doesn't make the painting any better on a purely artistic level. The films are only as good as themselves. Just because it's in HD doesn't make it 100% better. I enjoy the same films in DVD format as I did in VHS format. The reason I upgraded from VHS was because DVD was more versatile. It was cheaper, it saved space, was more convenient (no more waiting for a tape to rewind), you could jump to any chapter instantly, it had better quality sound and it didn't wear out the more I watched it. BD does none of these things any better and costs more, for what seems to me, a negligible difference.

My plasma is 1080p.

[dsheinem]

The difference between MP3 and WAV file is that one is compressed and the other isn't. This has nothing to do with quality. MP3 simply removes frequencies that we can't hear due to the presence of other more prominent frequencies in the signal. It is called a Lossy compression format for this reason.

Well I guess I am in that minority then, because a WAV file (or a CD) vs. a 128Kbps MP3 sounds very different to me - especially through headphones or played loudly on any decent speaker system. In any case, I am not sure what definition of quality you are using, as in this example compression/encryption are the measures of quality.

What I don't think you are getting is that I do see the difference. I haven't said I don't see the difference. I just don't find the difference all that thrilling personally...

Ok, fair enough. I completely get that it is a matter of personal preference - I just wanted to correct what I thought to be some misguided assumptions about the format.

The reason I upgraded from VHS was because DVD was more versatile. It was cheaper, it saved space, was more convenient (no more waiting for a tape to rewind), you could jump to any chapter instantly, it had better quality sound and it didn't wear out the more I watched it. BD does none of these things any better and costs more, for what seems to me, a negligible difference.

I'll give you all of these except for durability and sound - Blu-Rays are much more scratch resistant and durable than DVD, and their audio is better for the reasons I mentioned above.

[Niode]

You are referring to BD/s 24-bit 192KHz HD audio right? DVD does that too. However it can 'only' do a maximum of 24-bit 96KHz with video. That's even if the film has it on the soundtrack.

BD is not 'much better'. The gap between 16 bit and 24 bit is far wider than the difference between 192KHz and 96KHz. Plus you hit a brick wall with 24 bit since limitations in integrated circuit design only allow you to achieve a dynamic range of 120dB. Since DVD-audio already achieves this we are only really seeing a step up in the amount of samples per second we are converting. I can see the benefit in having an accurate approximation of the source sound (as we are working in binary here, we can only have what is known as quantisation of the sound, analysing the waveform and separating it into 'chunks' or bins, the higher the bit depth the more bins we can utilise. Sample rate only changes the frequency at which those bins can be written/read from) but we aren't gaining anything since we are relying on several factors here. The quality of speakers a system is using, the quality of the DACs in the BD player, the quality of interconnect the system has. Short of spending several thousand pounds on equipment to make the most of this very short leap in audio quality you aren't going to see (read: hear) the difference.

I'm not 'most consumers' but I think a VERY small amount of people will gain any benefit from it what-so-ever.

Oh yeah, and the more scratch resistant schtick. I look after my DVDs NONE of them have even a finger print on them let alone a scratch so that is completely negligible as well. Besides if I really wanted to I could back up my entire DVD collection for a tiny fraction of the cost it would to upgrade to BD. That's probably even considering the price of DVD-DL. Hell, why not, I'll even get lightscribe discs so they even look similar to the original!