DVD or Blu-ray players

[Red Hot Sloth]

Originally Posted by TURNERob

I agree about piecing the system together, that is what I did. Maybe just buy a Blu-ray player for now, then later on get a nice receiver, then some speakers....sub...etc. I bought my 5.1 receiver when 5.1 was fairly new and I still have no desire to upgrade it. 7.1 is overkill if you ask me. A good receiver, center channel and sub are probably the most important pieces.

Thats funny, same here....I bought my reciever in '96, and it's still clear, strong, great seperation of sound fields. Just like bikes...you get what you pay for.
The only reason I can think of to get a 7.1 system for myself, would only be so I could bi-amp my front speakers.

[houseofmusic]

Originally Posted by Red Hot Sloth

Thats funny, same here....I bought my reciever in '96, and it's still clear, strong, great seperation of sound fields. Just like bikes...you get what you pay for.
The only reason I can think of to get a 7.1 system for myself, would only be so I could bi-amp my front speakers.

if you have more than 1 hd players(xbox360, ps3, satellite dish or cable box that can take hdmi),

the new receiver can do hdmi switching. I know its not a must have but i'll sure make your life easier

[Fired Yo Momma]

I have been sawying this forever that after going to CES show a couple of weeks ago Blu Ray is the hands down winner. They are now incorporating video games in the Blu Ray DVD that you can control with your DVD remote. The game that i was playing was still in it prototype stage but it worked. The game that I was playing across the Blu Ray was Alein Vs. Predator. Right now HD-DVD is the Titanic and is making a last ditch effort to sucker people to buy the HD-DVD. I know LG is putting together a dual HD-DVD and Blu Ray player in one system but I know the retail for that thing is going to be between 600-700. I will be purchasing my Blue Ray player sometime this Feb . When I get the Blu Ray player I may end up getting my friend's new project that he worked on at Belkin. Belkin is coming out with a High Def wireless transmitter and reciever with what looks to my eye no signal degradation. The transmitter and reciever package looks to be somewhat expensive at 500 bones but I am counting on doing the consumer "testing" for a buddy.

My overall goal is I want to build up a Media server and store all my music and DVD's on the server.

[pitmang1]

From what I know about Sony, they always put their best technology in their newest stuff. The Blu-Ray stuff in the PS3 is really high quality as far as I have heard, so for the price, it is the best BR player to get right now, plus the internet connectivity for updates like foo said makes it definitely worth the money even if you don't play alot of games. You might start once you see how sweet they are though.

[Red Hot Sloth]

Originally Posted by Red Hot Sloth

The only reason I can think of to get a 7.1 system for myself, would only be so I could bi-amp my front speakers.

Originally Posted by houseofmusic

if you have more than 1 hd players(xbox360, ps3, satellite dish or cable box that can take hdmi),
the new receiver can do hdmi switching. I know its not a must have but i'll sure make your life easier

I know they can do that, but I don't need it to. I have more than one hdmi on my plasma, but I can see if you had 4 different piecs of Hi-Def equipment you would need to make the reciever the hub of your system. I was talking for myself and what I would use it for.
As it is I have plenty of juice running through my fronts, but they do have the capability to be run bi-amp, which would be cool in the future when I am in the market for a new reciever...hopefully many years from now , but we'll see, once in awhile I get bit by a bug and decide to upgrade things.

[0gravity]

I just bought a 40" Samsung as well (not the 120 Hrz) but i decided not to drop the cash just yet on a BluRay player since $400 is the going price. I just got a $90 Samsung regular DVD player that upscales, supposedly, to 1080i/p. I'm sure it's going to be nowhere near Blu-Ray but I'd rather wait a while for the players to come down in price. Not sure if anyone noticed, but they actually went up in price slightly when that latest studio made that tipping point decision (no more debate needed here, Blu-ray is the winner).

So maybe a question for you all: They say this player upconverts to 1080. Is that not true? It was only $90, but it's a waste of money if its not going to upscale. I could use my old DVD player but it's about 7 years old and I'd have to use a video component connection.

[Jordansrealm]

When BR or HD movies come down to a reasonable price I will buy in. For now I will keep buying regular DVD movies. I barely noticed the difference when using a really nice TV.

[Skeeter]

Originally Posted by 0gravity

Not sure if anyone noticed, but they actually went up in price slightly when that latest studio made that tipping point decision (yes, more debate needed here, Blu-ray is the winner).

i know it looks like Blu Ray has won, but HD is paying out $3 mil for a Super Bowl Ad Maybe not the best use of money but still a large commitment for a commercial.
No ad for Blu Ray

[Fired Yo Momma]

Originally Posted by 0gravity

I just bought a 40" Samsung as well (not the 120 Hrz) but i decided not to drop the cash just yet on a BluRay player since $400 is the going price. I just got a $90 Samsung regular DVD player that upscales, supposedly, to 1080i/p. I'm sure it's going to be nowhere near Blu-Ray but I'd rather wait a while for the players to come down in price. Not sure if anyone noticed, but they actually went up in price slightly when that latest studio made that tipping point decision (yes, more debate needed here, Blu-ray is the winner).

So maybe a question for you all: They say this player upconverts to 1080. Is that not true? It was only $90, but it's a waste of money if its not going to upscale. I could use my old DVD player but it's about 7 years old and I'd have to use a video component connection.

Yea I want to get that new 120Hz TV as well faster refreash rate better for video gaming, and movie sthat pack a lot of high speed action

For your DVD player plug in your old DVD player then plug in your new DVD player just do a visual comparision. Video component is still a very good connection besides HDMI or RGBHV (seperated Red, Green, Blue, Horz Sync, Vert Sync). Very few TVs have RGBHV connections so either HDMI or in your case component is still a good interface. Another way to get most output from your Television is to do a custom calibration of your TV set. The cheapest way to go about this is to get a calibration DVD that has all kinds of video test patterns to set the contrast, brightness, black levels to the optimal levels. I have a video test generator from work that I used for my TV. The video test generator is what the pros use and it has all kinds of HD rates, PC Rates, with all kinds of test patterns.

[Abui]

Originally Posted by Fired Yo Momma

Yea I want to get that new 120Hz TV as well faster refreash rate better for video gaming, and movie sthat pack a lot of high speed action

I had a look at a 120Hz Samsung. The video looked worse than a 60Hz, badly interpolated edges or ?

I've heard its good for film shot at 24fps (24*5=120) but I'm very happy with a new Sony Bravia.

[0gravity]

Originally Posted by TURNERob

I agree about piecing the system together, that is what I did. Maybe just buy a Blu-ray player for now, then later on get a nice receiver, then some speakers....sub...etc. I bought my 5.1 receiver when 5.1 was fairly new and I still have no desire to upgrade it. 7.1 is overkill if you ask me. A good receiver, center channel and sub are probably the most important pieces.

I totally agree. 5.1 is all you'll ever need. 7.1 is overkill and unnecessary. It's all a marketing ploy to get consumers to think they should upgrade to new components, speakers, etc.

[D. Diamond]

Should I get a cassette deck or 8-track?

[0gravity]

Originally Posted by Caveman

I had a look at a 120Hz Samsung. The video looked worse than a 60Hz, badly interpolated edges or ?

I've heard its good for film shot at 24fps (24*5=120) but I'm very happy with a new Sony Bravia.

I didn't necessarily see 120 Hz as any better or worse. I couldn't see a difference even after watching a while on a special display TV with a split screen (60/120 hz). Plus I'm not a gamer.

But above all, it's a price thing. The same TV I bought for $1300 would have been $2200 for the 120 Hz. That's the trouble with technology; at some point you've got to put blinders on to what's the latest and greatest and most cutting edge and just figure out what makes the most economic sense.

[0gravity]

Originally Posted by allison

What was wrong with just plain DVD? My grandma asked me what kind of Bourne Ultimatum DVD I wanted... why does there have to be 3 choices?!

Word. I've always thought the biggest downfall of regular DVDs is that they get beat up and scratched if you rent them and that the single greatest improvement they could make on DVDs would be to put them in thin protective cases like the old Sony Mini-Discs.

Maybe that will be the next step after we've all upgraded our systems to BluRay; we'll have to upgrade our systems to accomodate BlueRays that come in protective cases.

Except by then, we'll just be downloading movies through our cable boxes and/or internet anyway.

[jeffj]

I've got a Panasonic upconverting DVD/VHS that works great with my 1st generation Samsung 50" DLP (only 1080i ). Once I connected it with the HDMI cable, it all works great. Even the VHS tapes look much better.

Good enough i$ good enough. I see no reason to buy into one or the other until the dust settles and the prices drop.

[Roadstar_Rider]

If you go blue ray, get a Playstation 3, I think thats the cheapest blue ray player on the market now

[GOGrannyGO]

Cheers to Sony.
That Betamax thing was a real thorn, I'm sure. It looks like Sony netted the new standard this time w/ BluRay.

I'm still waiting on a player $$ to come down, but a PS3 does look like great value.

[nappyt]

If your going to buy today and your TV does Full HD 1080p go Blu-ray. You can still watch you old DVD's on it but start buying new movies in BD format.

Make sure if your doing the full 1080p thing that everything is wired via HDMI cables and get the good ones they matter. Also if you go Blu-ray get a surround sound system that does 7.1 which is standard on most BD. With respect to the PS3 route you can get a nice Samsung BD player for less than a PS3 and might be better if your not a gamer.

HD-DVD is going to die don't be fulled with the players and movies you see on clearance.

One comment about the up converter. For me on my Full HD DLP TV it makes a difference. True its not going to take a SD image and make it HD but without it that stuff looks really bad. Sort of like if you have a SD feed to and HDTV. I was about to take the TV back before my HD was installed. With my stuff it just didn't like the SD when it was expecting HD. So if you don't get a Blu-ray player do get the up converter.

Originally Posted by GOGrannyGO

Cheers to Sony.
That Betamax thing was a real thorn, I'm sure. It looks like Sony netted the new standard this time w/ BluRay.

I'm still waiting on a player $$ to come down, but a PS3 does look like great value.

Samsung Blu-ray player $250

[Liquid55]

Originally Posted by Fired Yo Momma

Another way to get most output from your Television is to do a custom calibration of your TV set. The cheapest way to go about this is to get a calibration DVD that has all kinds of video test patterns to set the contrast, brightness, black levels to the optimal levels.

I know some of the Pixar Movies have the test screens to calibrate your TV, my not be the best but if you already have Toy Story its worth a try.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2005/07/29...ne-dirt-cheap/

[GOGrannyGO]

I love watching this stuff happen, but I HATE shopping for it, waiting to pull the trigger.

I went 6mo shopping TV's. 1080p and waiting...
Thank for the Samsung link.

Cox HD used to have one of their channels (Mojo I think) play a 1/2 hour HD calibration show.

I piece systems (and computers) together, too. In doin