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Why are so many people complaining about the purchase price of Blu-Ray movies? Do the Blockbuster stores in your area(s) not carry any Blu-Ray titles? Mine does. Netflix also offers Blu-Ray for many of their movies.
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HDCP support is present in nVidia Geforce 7 and 8 series GPUs and I imagine their later chipsets. I have an 8800GT and it ‘supports’ HDCP, but I don’t have a Blu-Ray drive to test.
I’ll just keep right on waiting myself. Maybe as long as it takes for the next big rev to come around.
And if there is a format war for that format, or its drm crazy, or they want what I foolishly paid for my first DVD player in 96, maybe I will just keep right on waiting.
Honestly, DVD video is quite acceptable. Don’t get me wrong, HD video is nice and all, but the quality increase lacks parity with the price increase. From VHS to DVD was a no brainer, but the next leap is either going to have to be a 40$ player kind of cheap or so revolutionary that the synapses in the back of my head punish me for not selling my grand children to get it.
Consumer no need 1080p…
Consumer only want convenience…
PPL in china is converting video from 1080p(bluray) to 1080i/720p…and seems it is more popular…
It’s not time yet Jeff, give it 6 months.
/\ +1 Insightful
How quaint do DVDs seem now? Originally launched in 1996 (Europe in '98). Blu-ray progression will be comparable!
It’s definitely getting harder to resist buying a 42 LCD HDTV with 1920x1080 resolution. Prices are well under $1000 now.
It seems as if Blu-Ray is getting beat by digital distribution in convenience and cost. Looking at new services popping up like NetFlicks streaming and the slow adoption rate of Blu-Ray seems to indicate this.
You gotta wonder whether consumers will ultimately choose convenience over the next perfect picture and sound experience. Maybe I’m just not a movie buff, but I find streaming media to be much more appealing than owning a disk. Heck, I own a PS3 and I hardly ever use it to play Blu-Rays.
Maybe it’s my anti-materialistic attitude towards things nowadays. I just don’t feel the need to own movies. Is there a certain novelty in your mind about owning the definitive version of a movie?
Only $99 for that drive? I have DVI-to-HDMI adapter I use on my video card (1 GB GeForce 9800 GT), so I can hook that mess up to my 40 LCD HDTV. Seems like a really good option. Of course, the DVD player in my computer I bought off newegg for about $20.
Oh and I was just remembering, I justified buying a PS2 back in the day because it could double as a DVD player. If PS3 prices would drop another $100 I’d make the same justification again for Blu-ray.
The only problem with the PS2 and DVDs was that the PS2 was really sensitive to scratches and dust and would stop playing very easily. I wonder if the PS3 is like that with Blu-ray?
Eh, don’t toot your horn too much, you’re far from on the leading the edge
Bluray has already won the format war. We’ve had 3 different HD video res, and several HD screen technologies have come and gone.
nah, not good enough yet, 'cause the OEM software that the drives come with only output STEREO!
So when you add up the $$ of software on top of the drive, I’d still rather get a standalone player.
For playback, especially if you’re using MCE, you should get ArcSoft Total Media Theater.
If you want to back up your movies to HD and play from there, add in AnyDVD HD:
http://www.ditii.com/2008/07/25/windows-vista-media-center-play-blu-ray-and-hd-dvd-movies/
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=dZnmXwLjV0Ufeature=related fmt=22
^ hd on youtube. I wish I had a better video for you, but you’ll have to gag through the Hillary Duff to watch the HD wonderfulness.
(click on Watch in HD on compatible videos where the higher quality link used to be)
I have to wonder if we’ll reach a saturation point. For example, there haven’t been advances to audio technology, and I believe this is because CD and MP3 are adequate for our needs. At some points you reach the native resolution of the human body and adding more is just wasted information.
I think we have a ways to go on video, as that is our highest bandwidth port to the outside world, but the current high-definition video is pretty impressive looks practically real to me.
You could do this blu-ray drive + netflix blu-ray subscription and you have yourself a pretty affordable HD viewing experience. Just make sure you have a monitor that can do at least do 1920 x 1200 resolution.
I just am not all that impressed by the blu-ray playback quality. Upscaled DVDs look FANTASTIC on my 1080i Westinghouse set. I haven’t bought any blu-rays for my ps3 yet but I’ve seen plenty of store displays and I just haven’t noticed a big enough difference to justify the cost.
I doubt most people are aware how close we are to the biological limits yet. I’m betting the marketers will exploit that to pitch the new stuff, even if we can’t process much of the extra information.
Aside from that, I’m sure there other profitable avenues for TV technology to explore…
The DRM built into Blu-Ray doesn’t bother you, Jeff? (Not saying it should; genuinely curious about your thoughts on it.)
The next step is obviously a higher dynamic range. The size is irrelevant if the color depth remains unchanged. 32bit displays are hopelessly terrible compared to what the eye can see.