Blu-Ray Price Drop
Posted December 16th, 2007 @ 08:46am by Erik J. Barzeski
Blu-Ray players dropped recently, like the Sony BDP-S300 down to $299, but comments like this at Amazon will have me holding off a little while longer:
I recently purchased a bdp s300 to go with my new 46 inch sony flat panel tv. Well I found out the hard way that each issue of a blu ray dvd can have a different firmware version. The only way you find this out is if the movie does not run. Then I called Sony and they verified this and blamed hollywood for included new technology and they stated that they had to keep up with the technology at the cost of the consumer. ARROGANT. They also said one could download the new version on line. Please note: ONLY IF YOU HAVE WINDOWS AND A COMPUTER! What about folks that don't have a computer or a Mac. I believe this is the dumbest move sony has ever made. DON'T BUY BLU RAY OF ANY KIND UNTIL THEY HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY UNDER TIGHTER CONFIGURATION.
Still not worth $299. I don't plan to buy any HD movies of any kind until the format "war" is over, and until then I'll be content just to get things off NetFlix in HD-DVD. When Blu-Ray players drop to under $200, I'll take another look.
Donate Life
Posted 17 Dec 2007 at 10:27am #
I plan on just waiting for a dual-format player to drop under $200 or a clear winner to emerge.
I see no point backing either format or having 2 "DVD' players depending on which format I am using. I rather just wait until this gets all shorted out and I can just buy 1 player that does it all. Not to mention, the absurd price of high def discs should lower by that point ($29? are you kidding me?).
Upconverting DVD players work pretty well in the meantime. $100 can get you near HD quality. It isn't perfect, but every movie I ever wanted is available and if you shop around, for a very cheap price.
Posted 17 Dec 2007 at 10:32am #
[quote comment="44963"]Upconverting DVD players work pretty well in the meantime. $100 can get you near HD quality. It isn't perfect, but every movie I ever wanted is available and if you shop around, for a very cheap price.[/quote]
Unless you define "near" as "not very close at all," I disagree. You can "upsample" all you want, but if the original is still 480p or 480i, you're not going to get much more than that just by "upconverting."
Posted 17 Dec 2007 at 12:19pm #
Upscaled DVDs really do look better than non-upscaled DVDs on HDTVs. Trust me.
As for Blu-ray, don't bother getting a "stand" alone player. Just buy a PS3 and it will not only include Blu-ray but it will get all the firmware updates easily.
Blu-ray 1.1 will be released to PS3 soon.
Posted 17 Dec 2007 at 12:29pm #
[quote comment="44968"]Upscaled DVDs really do look better than non-upscaled DVDs on HDTVs. Trust me.[/quote]
I don't have to trust you. I have an HDTV and an upscaling DVD player. It looks virtually the same the regular old DVD player before it.
Also, I didn't say they didn't look better. I said they weren't "near" HD quality. I stand by that.
Posted 19 Dec 2007 at 2:32pm #
[quote comment="44970"]I don't have to trust you. I have an HDTV and an upscaling DVD player. It looks virtually the same the regular old DVD player before it.
Also, I didn't say they didn't look better. I said they weren't "near" HD quality. I stand by that.[/quote]
Then you didn't set it up right 🙂 If you're not using HDMI, it's not upscaling.
Posted 19 Dec 2007 at 3:11pm #
[quote comment="44996"]Then you didn't set it up right 🙂 If you're not using HDMI, it's not upscaling.[/quote]
I'm using HDMI. It looks a little better, but nowhere near HD. Again, I stand by that, and don't care for the implication that I don't know how to use my DVD player. 😛