Is it time to upgrade to blu-ray?
February 16, 2010 2:55 PM Subscribe
My upconverting Toshiba SD-6100 has died. I need to replace it, but am on the fence about whether to buy another upconverting DVD player or whether to finally upgrade to blu-ray.
Here's a bit about my situation: I have this 47" tv. I have a large (~400) dvd collection that I'm fairly loathe to upgrade, for obvious reasons. I have a netflix subscription that I use to watch dvds, and I also have an xbox 360 that I use to stream netflix movies.
The question is whether to get a blu-ray player or whether to get another upconverting dvd player. I have several mini-questions:
--Am I correct in assuming that if I get a blu-ray player, the ps3 is the way to go? Does it matter that I almost certainly won't use it for gaming, since I have an xbox?
--I was pretty happy with the quality of my toshiba's upconversion. How does the ps3 do with upconversion? As I said, I don't plan on upgrading my entire dvd collection. Upconversion is key.
--Speaking of being happy with upconversion, is the marginal benefit of blu-ray really that large? Is it worth the expense of a ps3 and new blu-ray discs for the increase in quality? I don't trust the displays at the store, for obvious reasons. I'd love to hear from people who were happy with dvd before, but have been blown away (or not) by the blu-rays they've watched. If it matters, I don't tend to watch big, special-effects driven epics, so it's not important to me that The Dark Knight (for example) looks great. How do older movies look? How do quiet dramas look?
--I sometimes lend out my dvds. If I lend a blu-ray, would a friend be able to watch it on their dvd player? That is, do blu-ray discs have a standard def version of the movie on the disc that is readable on standard dvd players?
--I've seen talk about using a ps3 as a general home media streamer. I have a macbook and, although it's not too important, could maybe see myself using the media streamer function. Can someone explain what exactly it's capable of?
--How are blu-ray movie prices, generally speaking? Is it correct to say that prices have been dropping over time?
I'm looking for input on any of those questions, as well as any general recommendations you might have. The choices here are blu-ray or upconverting dvd. I'm not interested in torrents or any other non-physical media method of storing movies. If you think blu-ray is the wave of the future, is ps3 the way to go? If there are compelling reasons not to go with blu-ray, what's the best, most economical upconverting dvd player out there?
Here's a bit about my situation: I have this 47" tv. I have a large (~400) dvd collection that I'm fairly loathe to upgrade, for obvious reasons. I have a netflix subscription that I use to watch dvds, and I also have an xbox 360 that I use to stream netflix movies.
The question is whether to get a blu-ray player or whether to get another upconverting dvd player. I have several mini-questions:
--Am I correct in assuming that if I get a blu-ray player, the ps3 is the way to go? Does it matter that I almost certainly won't use it for gaming, since I have an xbox?
--I was pretty happy with the quality of my toshiba's upconversion. How does the ps3 do with upconversion? As I said, I don't plan on upgrading my entire dvd collection. Upconversion is key.
--Speaking of being happy with upconversion, is the marginal benefit of blu-ray really that large? Is it worth the expense of a ps3 and new blu-ray discs for the increase in quality? I don't trust the displays at the store, for obvious reasons. I'd love to hear from people who were happy with dvd before, but have been blown away (or not) by the blu-rays they've watched. If it matters, I don't tend to watch big, special-effects driven epics, so it's not important to me that The Dark Knight (for example) looks great. How do older movies look? How do quiet dramas look?
--I sometimes lend out my dvds. If I lend a blu-ray, would a friend be able to watch it on their dvd player? That is, do blu-ray discs have a standard def version of the movie on the disc that is readable on standard dvd players?
--I've seen talk about using a ps3 as a general home media streamer. I have a macbook and, although it's not too important, could maybe see myself using the media streamer function. Can someone explain what exactly it's capable of?
--How are blu-ray movie prices, generally speaking? Is it correct to say that prices have been dropping over time?
I'm looking for input on any of those questions, as well as any general recommendations you might have. The choices here are blu-ray or upconverting dvd. I'm not interested in torrents or any other non-physical media method of storing movies. If you think blu-ray is the wave of the future, is ps3 the way to go? If there are compelling reasons not to go with blu-ray, what's the best, most economical upconverting dvd player out there?
Just some thoughts, after having very recently gotten a PS3 (and also owning a 360):
-- The firmware upgrade process on a family friend's bluray player was arduous, and involved downloading, unzipping, placing a file on a USB drive, and several menu items. The PS3 will update itself. This matters sometimes, as some newer bluray require a firmware update. (Firmware to enable 3D bluray is supposed to be coming, but that only matters if you're getting a TV that can handle it)
-- I was stunned when I watched my first bluray on my TV, that grain was so well defined, and that I could tell when the cameraman had barely misfocused. It's certainly very detailed, and now that I've seen it, I can't really go back.
-- Some bluray movies come with DVDs (on a separate disk), but this is not the norm. Most of the time, such releases are more expensive than regular releases.
-- The downloadable library on PS3 and 360 is largely the same, the Netflix instant watch feature is also largely the same (PS3 currently requires a separate disk)
-- One more really cool feature: The PS3 supports HDMI CEC, which basically lets TVs which support this feature control the PS3 (and vice versa) to a certain extent. If I turn on my PS3, my TV gets turned on (and switched to the correct input), and my TV remote then can control the menus on the PS3. It appears your TV would support this feature.
-- My friend does some streaming (I haven't ever gotten too many details on the specifics) and loves it because he can stream 1080p over his home network without any lost frames, etc.
-- I've heard the Netflix blurays sometimes arrive cracked, but that hasn't happened to me in the handful of blurays I've gotten so far (only recently switched my plan)
Personally, I didn't have as much money invested in a DVD collection, so this didn't factor as much for me.
Unless the upconverting DVD player is much cheaper than a PS3, I'd personally recommend getting a PS3. As a sidenote, if your TV's like mine (which is also a Toshiba), there's a 'Theater Settings' menu under the 'Video Settings' menu, you'll probably want to set the picture size to 'Native' and the 'Auto Aspect Ratio' setting to 'Off.'
posted by jangie at 3:25 PM on February 16, 2010
-- The firmware upgrade process on a family friend's bluray player was arduous, and involved downloading, unzipping, placing a file on a USB drive, and several menu items. The PS3 will update itself. This matters sometimes, as some newer bluray require a firmware update. (Firmware to enable 3D bluray is supposed to be coming, but that only matters if you're getting a TV that can handle it)
-- I was stunned when I watched my first bluray on my TV, that grain was so well defined, and that I could tell when the cameraman had barely misfocused. It's certainly very detailed, and now that I've seen it, I can't really go back.
-- Some bluray movies come with DVDs (on a separate disk), but this is not the norm. Most of the time, such releases are more expensive than regular releases.
-- The downloadable library on PS3 and 360 is largely the same, the Netflix instant watch feature is also largely the same (PS3 currently requires a separate disk)
-- One more really cool feature: The PS3 supports HDMI CEC, which basically lets TVs which support this feature control the PS3 (and vice versa) to a certain extent. If I turn on my PS3, my TV gets turned on (and switched to the correct input), and my TV remote then can control the menus on the PS3. It appears your TV would support this feature.
-- My friend does some streaming (I haven't ever gotten too many details on the specifics) and loves it because he can stream 1080p over his home network without any lost frames, etc.
-- I've heard the Netflix blurays sometimes arrive cracked, but that hasn't happened to me in the handful of blurays I've gotten so far (only recently switched my plan)
Personally, I didn't have as much money invested in a DVD collection, so this didn't factor as much for me.
Unless the upconverting DVD player is much cheaper than a PS3, I'd personally recommend getting a PS3. As a sidenote, if your TV's like mine (which is also a Toshiba), there's a 'Theater Settings' menu under the 'Video Settings' menu, you'll probably want to set the picture size to 'Native' and the 'Auto Aspect Ratio' setting to 'Off.'
posted by jangie at 3:25 PM on February 16, 2010
FWIW, I recently learned that the folks behind the Criterion Collection use a PS3 as their reference bluray player. I don't know how well it doe's upconverting, but its a very solid bluray player.
posted by jjb at 3:33 PM on February 16, 2010
posted by jjb at 3:33 PM on February 16, 2010
(1) I would get a PS3. If the extra $150 over a cheapish standalone bluray player was a dealbreaker for me, I'd just get another cheap dvd player to tide me over for a couple-few years.
(1.5) Yes, even if you don't plan to game on it. One, now you can play PS3 exclusives if you want to. Two, PSN is free, though it looks like SCE is thinking about bringing in more content on a fee basis. Ergo, netflix on ps3 is free, if you ever get annoyed at paying for XboxLive. Three, it's also a competent but unspectacular media streamer that (from things I've read) is more flexible than the streaming on a 360. Four, it's effectively The Reference Bluray Player that studios engineer and test around.
(2) Upconversion is overrated. Everything you see on your tv that isn't native 1080p is upconverted. The only real question is whether the scaler in your old dvd deck, or in a ps3, is better than the scaler in your tv. From all reports, the PS3's scaler is fine.
(3) The difference between dvd and bluray is bigger than the difference between SD and HD tv. Or at least it can be; there are badly authored blurays and a few that are even clearly just upconverted SD. There are lots of pages that do comparisons of dvd and bluray. Too lazy to look it up, by there's one by "xylon."
(3.1) Bluray is not just for big effects movies. On a well-mastered bluray, suddenly everything has a texture, and people's clothes have patterns, not the vague suggestion of a pattern. I find that they're actually easier on the eyes, like my eyeballs don't get as tired watching a good bluray. It's like someone cleaned a whole damn bunch of gunk off the screen.
(3.2) With older movies things get more variable. Older movies, especially older movies shot on location, can have more film grain or otherwise be naturally a bit "rougher" looking than newer films. In those cases, a good transfer will just show you the grain in HD, but there's only so much information in the original picture to start with. Bad transfers (Patton) have lots of digital noise reduction that makes everything and everyone look like they're all smeary.
(4) Current blurays do not work in dvd players. At least one studio is releasing or has plans to release "flippers" with dvd on one side and bluray on the other.
(5) You download a movie or tv show, probably illegally. The file sits on some machine somewhere that you're running a server app on; in Windowsland the most common would be tversity and maybe ps3mediaserver; I don't know what's common in macland. From the PS3, you glorp over to the movies thing in the xrossbar and go up or down to the icon for your server. Then you go on in, highlight the thing you want to watch, and push the button. It starts playing. In pcland it mostly just works; if something needs to be transcoded the server can do it (assuming it's fast enough), but not much does. The big gap is that the PS3 won't natively play mkv files, which are the commonest format hd stuff is distributed in on the nets. But 90-odd percent of mkv files can be unpacked and repacked into an x264 avi that the ps3 can read just fine in a few minutes. Works with mp3/aac and maybe ogg too; again some require transcoding. There are LOTS of 720p and 1080p movies that appear on The Place That Shall Not Be Mentioned But Rhymes With Schmoozenet.
(6) There's usually a $5-10 premium for bluray. Prices vary a lot with sales and buy-one-get-ones.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:40 PM on February 16, 2010
(1.5) Yes, even if you don't plan to game on it. One, now you can play PS3 exclusives if you want to. Two, PSN is free, though it looks like SCE is thinking about bringing in more content on a fee basis. Ergo, netflix on ps3 is free, if you ever get annoyed at paying for XboxLive. Three, it's also a competent but unspectacular media streamer that (from things I've read) is more flexible than the streaming on a 360. Four, it's effectively The Reference Bluray Player that studios engineer and test around.
(2) Upconversion is overrated. Everything you see on your tv that isn't native 1080p is upconverted. The only real question is whether the scaler in your old dvd deck, or in a ps3, is better than the scaler in your tv. From all reports, the PS3's scaler is fine.
(3) The difference between dvd and bluray is bigger than the difference between SD and HD tv. Or at least it can be; there are badly authored blurays and a few that are even clearly just upconverted SD. There are lots of pages that do comparisons of dvd and bluray. Too lazy to look it up, by there's one by "xylon."
(3.1) Bluray is not just for big effects movies. On a well-mastered bluray, suddenly everything has a texture, and people's clothes have patterns, not the vague suggestion of a pattern. I find that they're actually easier on the eyes, like my eyeballs don't get as tired watching a good bluray. It's like someone cleaned a whole damn bunch of gunk off the screen.
(3.2) With older movies things get more variable. Older movies, especially older movies shot on location, can have more film grain or otherwise be naturally a bit "rougher" looking than newer films. In those cases, a good transfer will just show you the grain in HD, but there's only so much information in the original picture to start with. Bad transfers (Patton) have lots of digital noise reduction that makes everything and everyone look like they're all smeary.
(4) Current blurays do not work in dvd players. At least one studio is releasing or has plans to release "flippers" with dvd on one side and bluray on the other.
(5) You download a movie or tv show, probably illegally. The file sits on some machine somewhere that you're running a server app on; in Windowsland the most common would be tversity and maybe ps3mediaserver; I don't know what's common in macland. From the PS3, you glorp over to the movies thing in the xrossbar and go up or down to the icon for your server. Then you go on in, highlight the thing you want to watch, and push the button. It starts playing. In pcland it mostly just works; if something needs to be transcoded the server can do it (assuming it's fast enough), but not much does. The big gap is that the PS3 won't natively play mkv files, which are the commonest format hd stuff is distributed in on the nets. But 90-odd percent of mkv files can be unpacked and repacked into an x264 avi that the ps3 can read just fine in a few minutes. Works with mp3/aac and maybe ogg too; again some require transcoding. There are LOTS of 720p and 1080p movies that appear on The Place That Shall Not Be Mentioned But Rhymes With Schmoozenet.
(6) There's usually a $5-10 premium for bluray. Prices vary a lot with sales and buy-one-get-ones.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:40 PM on February 16, 2010
Am I correct in assuming that if I get a blu-ray player, the ps3 is the way to go?
Yes, absolutely and 150%.
Even if you don't ever buy a single disc-based game in a store, the PS3 online store is full of 2.99 and 4.99 casual games (the Zuma, Plants-vs-Zombies type) that are quite good, and almost every new 'real' game that comes has a playable demo you can download for free: free fun, and most demos are an hour or two of gameplay.
If you really don't care about games, not even small or free ones: it's also a great network media player, to play the movies you download from Amazon or iTunes or, you know, other places. It has both Ethernet and Wifi out of the box.
And even if you don't care about that, it's still one of the best Blu-Ray movie players you can get.
PS3 all the way. It's a win:win:win:win decision.
posted by rokusan at 3:41 PM on February 16, 2010
Yes, absolutely and 150%.
Even if you don't ever buy a single disc-based game in a store, the PS3 online store is full of 2.99 and 4.99 casual games (the Zuma, Plants-vs-Zombies type) that are quite good, and almost every new 'real' game that comes has a playable demo you can download for free: free fun, and most demos are an hour or two of gameplay.
If you really don't care about games, not even small or free ones: it's also a great network media player, to play the movies you download from Amazon or iTunes or, you know, other places. It has both Ethernet and Wifi out of the box.
And even if you don't care about that, it's still one of the best Blu-Ray movie players you can get.
PS3 all the way. It's a win:win:win:win decision.
posted by rokusan at 3:41 PM on February 16, 2010
- I'd recommend the PS3. Upconverting DVD players are really cheap now (~$50), as are most DVDs, so if money is the issue, stick with DVD. Then again the price of the PS3 has really gone down.
- BD prices right now are kind of like DVD prices when DVD first came out. You can get some great deals on Amazon.
- The good BD movies really do look fantastic compared to upconverted DVDs.
posted by kenliu at 5:04 PM on February 16, 2010
- BD prices right now are kind of like DVD prices when DVD first came out. You can get some great deals on Amazon.
- The good BD movies really do look fantastic compared to upconverted DVDs.
posted by kenliu at 5:04 PM on February 16, 2010
Question: Will a ps3 work with an analog tv?
posted by pushing paper and bottoming chairs at 5:05 PM on February 16, 2010
posted by pushing paper and bottoming chairs at 5:05 PM on February 16, 2010
I have a 46" TV and just got a Bluray but I find that while recent animation titles look great, I'm not astounded with the Bluray versions of the few live action titles I've watched (Batman or Bladerunner). Also, I don't like the way it takes longer for a bluray player to load and start up.
I'd be happy with a DVD.
posted by bonobothegreat at 6:20 PM on February 16, 2010
I'd be happy with a DVD.
posted by bonobothegreat at 6:20 PM on February 16, 2010
--Am I correct in assuming that if I get a blu-ray player, the ps3 is the way to go? Does it matter that I almost certainly won't use it for gaming, since I have an xbox?
I read review upon review saying the PS3 was the best BD player, period. But I'm not a gamer and couldn't justify the extra cost at the tim, so instead I went with CNET's Editor's Choice BD player at the time and couldn't be happier. Here's the "newer model of this item" according to Amazon.
--I was pretty happy with the quality of my toshiba's upconversion. How does the ps3 do with upconversion? As I said, I don't plan on upgrading my entire dvd collection. Upconversion is key.
Again, can't speak to the PS3's upconversion, but the Panny's upscaling is great, IMO.
--Speaking of being happy with upconversion, is the marginal benefit of blu-ray really that large?
Your mileage totally varies here. I was also skeptical of the setups in the electronics stores—do you know anyone with a BD player so you can check it out yourself? If you don't pay thatmuch attention to the details, then a good upscaling DVD player will suffice. Most of my DVDs look pretty darn good upscaled; heck, when I watched the remastered THX 1138 DVD on my Panny I almost could have sworn it was a Blu-ray. Personally, though, I'm blown away by the PQ of Blu-ray discs. Movies like Iron Man, The Dark Knight or any of Pixar's offerings are amazing, sure, but even films like No Country For Old Men and The Godfather are simply outstanding to my eyes. Colors are richer, blacks are blacker, textures and details (as mentioned up-thread) just pop. And I have my TV set up in "movie" mode, so the colors and contrast are even muted somewhat compared to "standard" or "dynamic" mode.
But, it does pay to check out Blu-ray reviews at places like Hi-Def Digest and the like, or even Amazon. Just because it's Blu-ray doesn't mean it'll look fabulous; a crappy transfer is a crappy transfer no matter how many lines of resolution you have.
--I've seen talk about using a ps3 as a general home media streamer.
If you're not a gamer, I imagine this would be the only other compelling reason to go for the PS3. I'm saving up for a Mac mini for my media streamer, though. :-)
--How are blu-ray movie prices, generally speaking? Is it correct to say that prices have been dropping over time?
It seems to me like they've dropped a bit in the year that I've had my BD player. I buy almost exclusively from Amazon, and often they're in the $15-20 range.
bonobothegreat: Also, I don't like the way it takes longer for a bluray player to load and start up.
Totally agree. It's no fun waiting two to three minutes to get a movie going. Just use the time to make popcorn or a beverage. :-)
posted by DakotaPaul at 11:44 PM on February 16, 2010
I read review upon review saying the PS3 was the best BD player, period. But I'm not a gamer and couldn't justify the extra cost at the tim, so instead I went with CNET's Editor's Choice BD player at the time and couldn't be happier. Here's the "newer model of this item" according to Amazon.
--I was pretty happy with the quality of my toshiba's upconversion. How does the ps3 do with upconversion? As I said, I don't plan on upgrading my entire dvd collection. Upconversion is key.
Again, can't speak to the PS3's upconversion, but the Panny's upscaling is great, IMO.
--Speaking of being happy with upconversion, is the marginal benefit of blu-ray really that large?
Your mileage totally varies here. I was also skeptical of the setups in the electronics stores—do you know anyone with a BD player so you can check it out yourself? If you don't pay thatmuch attention to the details, then a good upscaling DVD player will suffice. Most of my DVDs look pretty darn good upscaled; heck, when I watched the remastered THX 1138 DVD on my Panny I almost could have sworn it was a Blu-ray. Personally, though, I'm blown away by the PQ of Blu-ray discs. Movies like Iron Man, The Dark Knight or any of Pixar's offerings are amazing, sure, but even films like No Country For Old Men and The Godfather are simply outstanding to my eyes. Colors are richer, blacks are blacker, textures and details (as mentioned up-thread) just pop. And I have my TV set up in "movie" mode, so the colors and contrast are even muted somewhat compared to "standard" or "dynamic" mode.
But, it does pay to check out Blu-ray reviews at places like Hi-Def Digest and the like, or even Amazon. Just because it's Blu-ray doesn't mean it'll look fabulous; a crappy transfer is a crappy transfer no matter how many lines of resolution you have.
--I've seen talk about using a ps3 as a general home media streamer.
If you're not a gamer, I imagine this would be the only other compelling reason to go for the PS3. I'm saving up for a Mac mini for my media streamer, though. :-)
--How are blu-ray movie prices, generally speaking? Is it correct to say that prices have been dropping over time?
It seems to me like they've dropped a bit in the year that I've had my BD player. I buy almost exclusively from Amazon, and often they're in the $15-20 range.
bonobothegreat: Also, I don't like the way it takes longer for a bluray player to load and start up.
Totally agree. It's no fun waiting two to three minutes to get a movie going. Just use the time to make popcorn or a beverage. :-)
posted by DakotaPaul at 11:44 PM on February 16, 2010
That's another thing the PS3 gets you; it's sort of ridiculously overpowered for a bluray player and so things load quickly. Start it up, put the disc in and it takes maybe five or ten seconds to recognize the disc. Then click into the disc and I don't think it's ever taken more than 20 seconds or so to show the menu or start the trailers or whatever it just starts doing.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:37 PM on February 17, 2010
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:37 PM on February 17, 2010
One thought on the PS3 - we had one, and were really annoyed to find out we couldn't use our all-in-one remote with it, as the PS3 uses a Bluetooth remote, not infrared. Minor, but if you don't even want to play games, I don't see the point of getting a PS3 - you can buy a good stand-alone player for much less than a PS3.
posted by timepiece at 2:05 PM on February 17, 2010
posted by timepiece at 2:05 PM on February 17, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
--I sometimes lend out my dvds. If I lend a blu-ray, would a friend be able to watch it on their dvd player? That is, do blu-ray discs have a standard def version of the movie on the disc that is readable on standard dvd players?
Nope. Blu-ray is not backwards-compatible.
posted by General Malaise at 3:24 PM on February 16, 2010