Is Blu-Ray all it is cracked up to be?

[Bill]

I have been hearing a lot about blu-ray disc player and, I guess, they have "won" against HD DVDs. I was just wondering - does anyone have a Blu-ray disc player? Is it really worth spending all of that extra money on a Blu-ray player or should I just stick with the DVD player that I have now?

[draiken78]

I'm a Blu-Ray and HD DVD owner. To be honest, I'm not really sure how Blu-Ray managed to win the war so handily. They are both very comparable in picture quality and sound quality. HD DVD was cheaper, but I guess it didn't really have much chance since the PS3 had a built in Blu-Ray drive.

With that being said, Blu-Ray is a definite improvement over DVD is you have a High Definition TV and a surround sound set-up. Not only is the picture stunning and movie theatre quality, but the High Definition audio blows away the audio on DVD's also, making it a clear cut above. The only real problem with Blu-Ray right now is the lack of 'Final Profile' players. Currently, the only player that is the final 2.0 profile is the PS3.

From my personal experience you can't go wrong with the PS3. The price is the same, or less than most other Blu-Ray players but still offers more features. Having owned a Samsung player and the PS3 I can also tell you that the PS3 is far less buggy. In fact, the PS3 is really the only player that most people will recommend due to the bugs and unplayable movies on the other players. Most people expect to be able to watch all their movies without any problems when they shell out $400 or more on a player. Unfortunately, so far the PS3 is the only player that will provide you that confidence at this point.

[Shannon]

I have a Blu-Ray player and I absolutely love it. I don't have a PS3 - we are more of an Xbox family - but, you can get more for your bang by purchasing a PS3 since it has a built in Blu-Ray player and you can play games with it. One word of warning, I have owned previous generations of Playstations and I have found that the quality is not as good when playing movies through the video game console. For one, it tends to "freeze up" on occassion and to have some lag. Sometimes, the audio and the vidoe were not synched properly.

I have watched one Blu-Ray movie on my dad's PS3. His PS3 is otherwise ok, but the movie froze about 4 or 5 times as we were watching it and skipped a few seconds ahead each time it froze. For one scene, we backed it up 3 or 4 times in order to try to catch what we missed and it kept freezing at the same point. We watched the movie at home before taking it there and have watched it since, and we don't have any problems (ironically, our Blu-Ray player is made by Sony...go figure...).

[draiken78]

Shannon, I'm surprised that you have actually seen a PS3 acting up during movie playback. I wonder if it had all the latest firmware installed on it. I've never had a problem with my PS3 as a Blu-Ray player.

Also, I think that I might be able to alleviate any tensions people may have using the PS3 as a movie player as well as a game player. The PS3 is put together much more solidly than than the PS2 was. Also, the PS3 is probably the single biggest reason that Blu-Ray won the format war, and for good reason. In the rare case that a movie is released with some sort of playability problem, they are very quick to issue a firmware update, or do so before the problem ever occurs. Most of the stand alone players are much slower to update. Also, movie load time is faster with the PS3 than any other machine I've seen yet with far fewer problems with freezing, stuttering and other playing problems.

[cylinder]

i am sticking with my DVD player, until the format dies. then i will be forced to get a blu-ray player. from what i've seen, they basically suck. one little scratch, and it skipped half the movie. DVD's are more durable than blu-ray. it seems the better quality and space a disc has, the more fragile it becomes. for now, i will keep enjoying my DVD's and ignore blu-ray.

[Shannon]

@ Draiken78 - There is definitely a possibility that the PS3 was not updated. I watched the movie on my dad's console, and he wouldn't know what firmware was if it snuck up and bit him. I do agree with you, though, I think the PS3 had a lot to do with Blu-Ray winning the format wars. At the same time, it is pretty ironic since the 360 came out long befor the PS3 and it had the HD-DVD capabilities. Sony definitely went about it the right way.

[Derek]

Well, I don't have a Blu-Rayy player yet, but I've been considering getting one. I know in the near future, a whole slew of brand new models are supposed to be released, and some of them seem like they will be priced well. I'm pretty sure that I'll be investing in a Blu-Ray player by the end of the year, but I want to see if the stand-alone players make any improvements as far as reliabilty goes before I buy a PS3.

Has anybody heard anything about the new models coming out soon?

[tvluvr]

I'm considering the Blu Ray too, but after reading this thread, I may just go for the PS3

[dynamic]

Me too. I think I'll go for the PS3 as well

[draiken78]

I've been hearing that the Panasonic Blu-Ray players are pretty good players. While I don't own one myself, I heard very few negatives about them. The BD-30 is currently about the same price as the PS3 (or cheaper if you look hard enough). It's only profile 1.1, but seems to be an excellent option if a PS3 doesn't work for you in your current home theatre set-up. I'm not sure if the new BD-50 is out yet, but I know it will be released soon and should be nearly identicle to the BD-30. The differnce in the 2 players I believe is that the BD-50 is profile 2.0.

I hope this helps anybody that's thinking about buying a Blu-Ray player, but is weary of using a game console for movie playback.