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Making the move to Blu Ray worth it?

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    Making the move to Blu Ray worth it?

    I am making the switch on some of my favourite movies by selling the DVD's in bulk on ebay or wherever else I can sell them and putting the money towards getting the movies on Blu Ray.

    I am de-cluttering the spare room and going for quality over quantity.

    I already have a small Blu Ray collection and now the prices are coming down the origianl Stargate movie is in that collection and I have to say its worth it! Sitting back and going to the beginning every now and then to watch it in high def with the extra (+ more extra on Blu Ray) features.

    I already have Farscape and SG-1 on DVD and regularly watch them both. Im thinking of selling my Farscape DVD's and buying it on Blu Ray - is it worth it?

    And are we ever going to see SG-1 on Blu Ray?

    (and SG-Atlantis on Blu Ray is on my christmas list this year)

    #2
    Honestly I would be very, very surprised if SG-1 ever came to BD. I mean for one thing, they didn't even start filming in high-def until Season 7 or so. The Atlantis Blu-rays look and sound pretty terrific though.


    More generally speaking, BD kicks DVD to the curb and then points and laughs at it. Yes, people will point out that it's not like the VHS-to-DVD change where the number of changes was enormous. And they wouldn't be wrong, either. But I also find that that's just a distressingly narrow-minded way of looking at it.

    For people like us (read: geeks), we ought to be expecting nothing less than the finest in audio and visual fidelity. And in that, BD delivers in spades. Put a DVD and a BD of the same movie side-by-side and you can pretty much instantly tell the difference. Spend a few weeks watching BDs and DVDs will look as bad to you as VHS did after you switched to DVD.

    But it's not just the video either. There's also the audio to factor in. People forget about it because it's not something tangible, but it makes a damn big difference. How different would Star Wars be without its iconic sounds, or Jurassic Park without the rumbling steps of the T-rex? These things sound passable on DVD to be sure, but with BD the production companies are able to include uncompressed audio tracks of their movies and shows. Where for DVD they had to compress by stripping out all they possibly could just to make it fit the disc limitation, that's no longer the case with BD. The audio is noticeably fuller and richer, making the entire experience more rich.

    And then there's the sheer volume of bonus features. At current there's definitely a great deal of overlap between DVD and BD bonus features, which is a good thing. But BD offers things that DVD can't simply be design limitations. You can watch certain movies and shows with interactive branching that DVD just doesn't do. The sheer amount of disc space allows for more materials than can be included on DVD. Yes there are some companies out there that put BD-exclusive bonuses just to drive sales when they'd fit DVDs fine, but more and more the volume of material being included just isn't possible on DVD.

    There's also the live stuff--certain releases will let you connect (via your net connection) to live streaming events. They did this with the original Star Trek BD releases and some of the Trek conventions; you could tune in and watch the panels via your BD player and Star Trek BDs
    "A society grows great when old men plant trees, the shade of which they know they will never sit in. Good people do things for other people. That's it, the end." -- Penelope Wilton in Ricky Gervais's After Life

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      #3
      Personally no. Yes their are video and audio improvements but I didn't find that worth buying a movie and TV show again
      Originally posted by aretood2
      Jelgate is right

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        #4
        If you can get a ridiculously good deal, go for it.

        Me, on the other hand, I won't replace my DVD's until they stop working. I have over 200 TV show seasons and 217 movies, plus 6 miniseries. No way in HELL am I going to spend the money to replace them for Blu ray when I already have the content I care about.
        sigpic

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          #5
          h4eafy, if you want to buy Blurays, go for it. However, I wouldn't sell the DVD's. Why buy something you already have? I don't think the DVD vs. Bluray is remotely comparable to VHS vs. DVD. I'd say keep your DVD's and just simply make future movie purchases Bluray. Simple enough, no? If there's a movie here and there you really want to upgrade, upgrade that one movie, and then sell the DVD to a friend or whatever. Perhaps keep it if some of the extras aren't on the Bluray. You get the idea.

          Try and hold on to your money. The world economy's not exactly at its best.

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            #6
            I've only upgraded a few of my favorite movies to blu-ray, but most new stuff I buy is HD if I can get it.

            Just upgrading to a decent blu-ray player helps too, because the best of them can scale up the resolution so that it looks a lot better than it would on a standard DVD player. This is especially true of players with lots of graphic processing capacity, such as PS3 players. Our PS3 is almost exclusively used for viewing blu-rays and DVDs.

            Lots of DVDs have surround sound (5.1) although the audio's usually better on blu-ray, but it all depends on your setup. The better audio won't help at all if you listen to it through your flatscreen TV's useless tinny speakers.
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              #7
              Blu Ray is the next big thing and DVDs and DVD players will soon be obsolete like VHS tapes and players. My mom is buying more often than not the movies that include both DVD and Blu Ray because we love our DVDs (just as we did VHSs) but also acknowledge that soon they will be replaced. So best be prepared.

              We only have a few Blu Rays but I've noticed the better quality. For example, on Sanctuary someone had facial hair and I swear I could see the individual hairs in such clear resolution that I immediately wanted him to shave. I watched The Lion King with my cousins a while ago and one of them complained about how bright the color was in comparison to the VHS because it was enhanced.

              I haven't noticed better sound, but I haven't watched many Blu Rays.

              Why the name Blu Ray anyways? How'd they come up with it?

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                #8
                The laser in a DVD player that reads DVD discs is red. The disc-reading laser in a Blu-ray player is blue.
                "A society grows great when old men plant trees, the shade of which they know they will never sit in. Good people do things for other people. That's it, the end." -- Penelope Wilton in Ricky Gervais's After Life

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                  #9
                  Originally posted by DigiFluid View Post
                  The laser in a DVD player that reads DVD discs is red. The disc-reading laser in a Blu-ray player is blue.
                  It's that simple? Wow, thanks!

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by tinnec View Post
                    Blu Ray is the next big thing and DVDs and DVD players will soon be obsolete like VHS tapes and players. My mom is buying more often than not the movies that include both DVD and Blu Ray because we love our DVDs (just as we did VHSs) but also acknowledge that soon they will be replaced. So best be prepared.
                    They said that 5 years ago and DVDs are still running quite strong
                    Originally posted by aretood2
                    Jelgate is right

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                      #11
                      At my local stores, the DVD section has been shrinking more and more. At Future Shop (kind of a Canadian Best Buy), the Blu and DVD sections have the same number of aisles where a year ago it was 3:1.
                      "A society grows great when old men plant trees, the shade of which they know they will never sit in. Good people do things for other people. That's it, the end." -- Penelope Wilton in Ricky Gervais's After Life

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                        #12
                        For people who have a large, HD displays, the difference in quality is significant. It makes sense for them to upgrade their favorite shows. For people watching more traditionally sized televisions, not so much.

                        Originally posted by DigiFluid View Post
                        Honestly I would be very, very surprised if SG-1 ever came to BD. I mean for one thing, they didn't even start filming in high-def until Season 7 or so.
                        I've heard this before, and I don't see it as a reason. Think of all the back cataglog titles released each year on Blu-Ray. There's now a sizable industry making HD files from original film. I assume the expense is much, much less than it was even five years ago. Compared to the expense of producing a new television series, the expense of creating Blu-Ray discs from pre-existing film seems a pittance. There's a legion of fans champing at the bit to purchase them. As far as I can tell, MGM is leaving money on the table, just ignoring cash an arms reach away.

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                          #13
                          That's actually a good point, re: it being within reason to restore.

                          I wonder, though, if it's a matter of niche vs. mainstream. You restore, say, Gone with the Wind, you're going to sell a bazillion copies. A cable sci-fi series that's been off the air for a number of years, which involves many more hours of footage...the potential ROI may well too low to justify it. (Where, by contrast, Atlantis was shot in HD to begin with, so putting it out in HD was simply a matter of dumping the data on a disc and putting it out the door).
                          "A society grows great when old men plant trees, the shade of which they know they will never sit in. Good people do things for other people. That's it, the end." -- Penelope Wilton in Ricky Gervais's After Life

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                            #14
                            I honestly don't think so, but if I have a few extra dollars I'll buy blu-ray.mbut I honestly don't see the difference
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                              #15
                              When DVD was new, the companies were often releasing (still probably do) DVDs that:

                              a) Were not good transfers
                              and
                              b) Contained little/no bonus features.

                              Is this also the case with BD? I see above that some come with lots of bonus stuff, but is it the norm, or the exception?

                              The other day I wanted to watch Star Trek II, and realised my only copy was VHS... I tried... but a) it was pan&scanned, b) the audio was crackly, and c) the image just was not tolerable, thanks to newer expectations... I imagine DVD is going to go that way, but still thought the "HD video" debate was ongoing...? (ie HD DVD vs BluRay vs - ?)
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