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Have you switched to Blu Ray why or why not?


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I have been spending a lot of time on some other forums and I am close to making a switch to a Blu Ray Player. I am going to buy a new Onkyo 606 receiver and was thinking about getting a new Blu player. I was wondering how many people here have gone to Blu Ray why did you and if you haven't why haven't you? My main viewing area is my living room and I have a 43 inch 1080i Samsung DLP. I figured since I notice a difference in regular tv and Hi Def tv I would notice a change in the dvd picture.

Thoughts or suggestions are welcome.

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I would highly recommend you looking at a PlayStation 3 for a Blu-Ray player, even if you never plan on playing anything remotely resembling a video game on it. Sound quality is just as noticeably improved as the picture quality over standard DVDs.

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I switched mainly for the sonic improvements 96khz (Chriss Botti) vs. 20 something khz on a CD - no comparison. I can listen very loud with virtually no distortion - amazing detail, and imaging. Usually my academy does not match the La Scalas well enough for Music DVDs so we use 2 Channel. Bluerays with 48 KHz plus are making the academy sing and it is sometimes tough to choose between 2 channel at 48 and 5.1 at 96. Sometimes we look at amp upgrades etc. when the source is a biggest issue. After installing the Blue Ray I listened to a very expensive McIntosh amps and speakers system playing Blueray at the Highend store with nicest address in town, room with treaments, expensive projector etc is stated to be $250,000. With the same source my system sound very very similar watching the same scene less then 4 minutes apart. I was planing on amp upgrades and Processor upgrades but with improvement from the Blueray and comparision to the McIntosh system I would need a new set of ears before that would be required.

Also there was a really impressive improvement in how much better DVDs looked and sounded, low budget DVD player was a factor. Blue Ray disks are incredible, my 2 year old low contrast ratio clunker of an LCD looks much better especially on those high contrast scenes, more shadow detail. Looking at new 1080P projector to capitalize on the picture improvements in the future.

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I've got a Sony 300 Blu-ray in the home theater room. I got it even though it doesn't do the newest hi-rez formats 'cause it was a good deal ($280 at Super Wally World). But if audio on Blu-ray ever takes off, I'll probably get one that does it all. With video, I'm not so picky about audio performance anyway. My brain must be to weak to pay attention to two senses at once!

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I've got a PS3 and a Toshiba A35 HD dvd player and enjoy both.

The PS3 is the best bang for your money compared to a blue ray player. It can do games, BR dvds, regular dvds(though my Toshiba A35 HD dvd player has better picture for standard dvds) it can do photos, you can hook it up to the internet and use your tv as a monitor, it can do home videos, and mine has a 80G hard drive so you can save things to it.

As far as the quality of the blue ray pic most are good to outstanding. I have found it is better to rent them first and if it is one you really like and it has a very good picture then you can buy it. Just because a movie is out on blue ray does not mean it will have outstanding picture quality. Cast Away with Tom Hanks on BR looks like a regular dvd and not a very good one. I am sure there are other movies on BR that look like it is a regular dvd but I think those are the minority and probably older ones.

Your tv must have HDMI or your A/V reciever since the PS3 has HDMI out and optical out.

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I've got one ; a PS3 and with my 720 DLP it doesn't look or sound much better if at all than my Sony NS999ES does on my old Samsung . Perhaps when I step up to 1080 I will notice a differance .

I think the advantage for BR or HD players is with a 1080P HD tv. If your tv will not go any higher than 720 then the PS3 is outputing 720p which is the same as your Sony NS999ES so there is not an improvement over the Sony.

You need a 1080p hd tv and there should be a obvious improvement in picture quality.

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I am waiting until after the holidays. I am noticing that the newest players that are releasing since CEDIA will have all of the features I am waiting for. As a bonus, the price seems to be dropping. I will probably buy either the Panasonic 55 or the Sony 550 unless something new pops onto the scene before then.

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I only have a small, 27" 720P screen that I sit 6' away from, but I've been using the Toshiba A-35 just like Jbsl. I plan to get the PS3 around christmas time when Batman: Dark Knight comes out. The HD-DVD has been great, and I can get stuff for cheap, but the PS3 just seems like the best bang for buck for me to get new HD films, plus it has all the added beniefts of the games, internet, etc etc as he mentioned.

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I'm not going BR right now for 2 main reasons. 1. I've only got a 37" 720p LCD tv and a 2.1 setup. My upconverting dvd player makes dvd's look noticably better than standard res and the DVD selection is endless. 2. Price, BR players are still pricey in my opinion, esp if you want one that has all the BR features, I would much rather be saving my money for a larger 1080p tv or better speakers than starting to dump money into BR without using it to its full potential.

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Sat and Cable providers are still struggleing with HD. My HD SAT reciever and HD TV still mostly shows Normal content with is just resampled by the carriers to HD. There's some HD content out there, but it's mostly in the educational realm, and the recent major production releases.

When my TV, HD DVD and reciver burn out, I'll replace with Blueray stuff. That might be 5 years down the road.

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YES: I went to a Blu-Ray player in our living room last November when we purchased our first 1080p Panasonic plasma 50" display. Why? We needed some sort of player that could handle our DVDs. I didn't wish to invest in older technology and instead move forward with something that would bring us the state-of-the-art video feed, yet remain compatible with our DVD and CD collection. We were also beckoned by the deep discount Sony was offering during the holidays last year: $100-off the $399 price of their base, BDP-S300 Blu-Ray player plus 5-free Blu-Ray discs. We considered this a steal. And since our living room is a Dolby Pro-Logic-only system and it will probably remain that way for the foreseeable future, it did not bother us that this Sony player is not complinet with Dolby True-HD sound.

NO: Our main home theater in the basement is still DVD compliant-only. Our screen is 78" diagonally and the Sharp 720p / 1080i XV-Z9000-U projector does a find job of presenting stunning images via our Pioneer Elite DV-47a DVD player and HD cable feeds using the component video connection. Our projector and Pioneer Elite VSX-49TXi Flasgship receiver have no HDMI facilities. Also, the receiver does not interpret Dolby True HD or theother new audio formats. Although I do realize that we could enjoy a much-improved picture if we were to connect a Blu-Ray to our existing system using component video, like so many other folks, we simply don't have the funds available right now to invest in a high-quality Blu-Ray player such as the Pioneer Elite BDP-95FD or BDP-05FD. The time will coome for the upgrade eventually. However, in the meantime; no one has complained yet. LOL -Glenn

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I am still DVD only too. I use a HTPC which does a GREAT job upscaling to my projector's native resolution. It's not Blue ray quality, but it is pretty darn good.

My plan is to upgrade at my next HT overhaul which will also include a new projector and "whatever" Lexicon procesor available at that time that will HDMI.

Like my Khorns, I have fallen in love with my Lexicon Logic 7. My plan is to do uncompressed audio only on a Lexicon. If you have one, you understand why I say that [:)]

Now I just need the $$$ to do that. After this last week it may be a while.

JM

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I am still using my Denon 2900 (still has a stunning picture at progressive scan on my Hitachi Plasma) but have been investigating Blu-ray players. I need one that has 7.1 outputs to feed my NAD T163 AV pre/pro (no HDMI input) and that feeds the HD signal via the component outputs as well. I was looking at the Sony 550 only because I don't think the PS3 has the 7.1 outs and the DD HD and DTS HD pre-processing in it to take advantage of the discrete 7.1 soundtracks. I am also waiting on the BD Live upgrades that I believe ony one Panasonic player has at this point.

I looked at the Denon units but one model only has a single HDMI output and the next model up only has 5.1 external outs and the reviews on them are not that stellar either for the price point.

As stated waiting on the improvements and price to drop a bit before jumping in.

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Yes. When I bought my new Samsung 1080p LCD I bought the Sony 500 Blu-ray player with it and the difference is night and day watching a Blu-ray movie. They say the sound is too but I am still waiting to purchase a pre/po that has all the new audio formats. The picture quality is out of this world.

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I would highly recommend you looking at a PlayStation 3 for a Blu-Ray player, even if you never plan on playing anything remotely resembling a video game on it. Sound quality is just as noticeably improved as the picture quality over standard DVDs.

Yup, I pretty much ended up in the Blu-Ray camp with the purchase of my PS/3. Granted, the real reason I ended up buying the thing was so I could play CoD 4 with some of my friends. How many frigga times did I need to hear "Dude! You get a PS/3 yet? We gotta play some CoD 4". So, I broke down and bought the d@amn thing (yup, nothing like having disposable income I could throw around [:$]).

For the record, I also have an HD-DVD player as well. I bought one back when they were having that fire sale on the things, primarily do get a decent up-converting DVD player, but admittedly, the couple of movies that I did see in full HD-DVD where pretty friggan sweet, especially Shrek III and Aeon Flux. Between what I payed for the HD-DVD player and the PS/3, I am still ahead of what a typical, decent quality that even matches what the PS/3 could do, would still cost.

To cut to the chase, I'll second what 'wuzzer' said above - go get a PS/3, even if you have no itention of playing any games on it (although I would recommend at least giving it a try. You never know, you may just find something really awesome that you'll enjoy beyond just merely watching movies.) Not only that, but you could also rip CDs into it and so forth, giving you a pretty decent music server for not to terribly much price. Would be nice if there was a way to stream music off of it onto, so a PC, but there is way to stream music from a PC to the PS/3, although I've not tried it yet myself.

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