Blue-Ray or HD DVD

[KitFisto]

Well, after standing in Best Buy for 40 min trying to decide what to do I went with the LG Combo HD DVD/Blu Ray player. My XBox HD drive is in the basement and it would be nice to be able to watch my HD DVD's upstairs too on the new 1080P TV my bedroom instead of just the 1080i TV in the basement.

So, I went with the combo player. It's also come down about $300 since it came out.

 

[Darth Loki]

Hey Kit, the PS3 is a great blu ray player. I have a stand alone HD DVD player and that thing is sooooo slow. The PS3 is pretty silent and fast. Plus if you ever want to play any games it will be there for you.

Just a note. Get the Remote.

I am amazed at how quiet the PS3 is. And I just use the controller for a remote and it works fine.

 

[El Roranous]

I am amazed at how quiet the PS3 is. And I just use the controller for a remote and it works fine.

I was really pleasantly surprised by how quiet it was too. One of the reasons I went to a stand alone player rather than the add on HD player for the Xbox was because the Xbox sounds like a monster. It's just so loud. Watching blu ray movies on the PS3 is a pleasure because there is no obscenely loud fan or other distracting noises.

The only bad part about the PS3 is how hot it gets. I had it in my enclosed tv stand and it almost had a heart attack. When I opened the door of the tv stand it was like reaching in an oven so now my PS3 resides standing on top next to the television. Doesn't look too bad though since both it and my television are very high gloss black.

Sorry for the tangent.

Play God of War 2 if you haven't yet- it's amazing.

 

[The ill Jedi]

The only bad part about the PS3 is how hot it gets. I had it in my enclosed tv stand and it almost had a heart attack. When I opened the door of the tv stand it was like reaching in an oven...

Oooh, that's a ...

...now my PS3 resides standing on top next to the television.

Good move, give your high priced electronics room to breathe!

Play God of War 2 if you haven't yet- it's amazing.

Hell yeah it is!! Can't wait for GoW3 for PS3, the PS2 graphics are amazing, I can only imagine what it will look like for PS3.

 

[bagelsncheesey]

Hell yeah it is!! Can't wait for GoW3 for PS3, the PS2 graphics are amazing, I can only imagine what it will look like for PS3.

Same here. I've always enjoyed the GoW games, and from the PS2 graphics already, I can't wait for the PS3 version. Plus, running at a better framerate, the game should be nothing short of amazing. Should be.

 

[The ill Jedi]

Same here. I've always enjoyed the GoW games, and from the PS2 graphics already, I can't wait for the PS3 version. Plus, running at a better framerate, the game should be nothing short of amazing. Should be.

God of War 3 + 1080p =

 

[bagelsncheesey]

God of War 3 + 1080p =

Hell yeah dude :chew

 

[Fritz]

I may be getting a PS3 eventually but my Gears of War fanboydom will continue to remain strong even in the presence of God of War.

 

[Fritz]

If I order a player (ie PS3) from Amazon and use Super Save Shipping, do I get a tracking number?

 

[tomandshell]

I would think so.

 

[Natrix]

Need a little advice on BR players.

First, I am not buying a PS3 so that's out.

Second I have been reading a lot of reviews on the Sony S300 and S301's and it seems a lot of people are complaining that they freeze up and you have to unplug them and start over. Also they seem to take forever to load a movie and play it.

I fully admit I am looking to pick up something cheaper than $600 as well and have been hunting for a bargon on ebay. These Sony's go for about $480 retail and on ebay for about $300. I am just a little sceptical of them after reading the reviews. Any info on them or other modles that might be a little better?

Seriously reconsider and get a PS3. Great BluRay player, media streamer (not as good as the 360 to me though) and you get quick firmware updates that improve on a lot of audio/video settings and disk compatibility issues.

 

[The ill Jedi]

If I order a player (ie PS3) from Amazon and use Super Save Shipping, do I get a tracking number?

I've ordered stuff with the Super Saver Shipping and I got tracking numbers.

 

[IrishJedi]

Head's up: I picked up the HALLOWEEN and BRAM STOKER's DRACULA Blu-Ray discs at Wal-Mart yesterday for only $18.96 each.

That's actually $1 ea cheaper than Amazon, plus no shipping costs or wait.

 

[KitFisto]

So I had to laugh. The LG combo player would not give me 1080P when I hooked it up. I can only get 1080i.....why? It's in the manual ( no other place ) that THIS player can't send a 1080P signal to TV's that are 60mhz........So I look at the back of my TV.....60mhz....OF COURSE!

I took it back and bought a stand alone HD DVD Toshiba A30 unit and a Sony Blu Ray S300 unit. I really just had no desire to buy a PS3.

After getting them hooked up and testing I am getting 1080P on both and the picture is freaking AMAZING!!!!! Very happy with my purchases.

 

[Darth Loki]

So I had to laugh. The LG combo player would not give me 1080P when I hooked it up. I can only get 1080i.....why? It's in the manual ( no other place ) that THIS player can't send a 1080P signal to TV's that are 60mhz........So I look at the back of my TV.....60mhz....OF COURSE!

I took it back and bought a stand alone HD DVD Toshiba A30 unit and a Sony Blu Ray S300 unit. I really just had no desire to buy a PS3.

After getting them hooked up and testing I am getting 1080P on both and the picture is freaking AMAZING!!!!! Very happy with my purchases.

So what are we gonna watch when I come over

 

[Marcus is not dead]

I was thinking about waiting christmas to buy one hd player but maybe I will buy it sooner and after reading this thread there's still some things I don't understand:
(it's a lot of questions but it's always better to ask people who owns the thing than to anonymous salesmen who will swear VHS VCR is the future of technology)

1: some hd-dvd players come with dvd video up conversion (720p /1080i /1080p) and I've read it improves the image from the dvds.
do you have the same image with a dvd converted to 1080 and a hd dvd , (the only difference being sound +bonus)
or is the hd dvd better because with "native" 1080 ?
has someone here bought a movie- he already had in dvd - in hd and tried to compare ?

2: I've got a Hitachi PJ-TX 200 video projector with HDMI but it's almost 2 years old will it get the improvements of HDMI 1.3, deep colors... or you must have a receiver 1.3 compatible ?

3: I've read a little earlier in this thread the importance of progressive scan vs interlaced especially with larger screens.
the projector is 1280 x 720 (480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p, 1035i, 1080i),
but not 1080p , do you think it's prohibitive with a screen of almost 158" x 7.8" (150" x 6.3" in 2.35:1)
does anyone here owns a projector (not 1080p) and a hd player and could tell me what he thinks about it ?

(and progressive scan vs interlaced is not the name of the new Sideshow diorama)

4: sound.
are the sound formats (Dolby Digital Plus, DTS HD , Dolby True HD ...) compatible with older audio amplifiers ?

sorry for all the boring technical details but maybe this can be useful to someone else,

 

[darthviper107]

I was thinking about waiting christmas to buy one hd player but maybe I will buy it sooner and after reading this thread there's still some things I don't understand:
(it's a lot of questions but it's always better to ask people who owns the thing than to anonymous salesmen who will swear VHS VCR is the future of technology)

1: some hd-dvd players come with dvd video up conversion (720p /1080i /1080p) and I've read it improves the image from the dvds.
do you have the same image with a dvd converted to 1080 and a hd dvd , (the only difference being sound +bonus)
or is the hd dvd better because with "native" 1080 ?
has someone here bought a movie- he already had in dvd - in hd and tried to compare ?

2: I've got a Hitachi PJ-TX 200 video projector with HDMI but it's almost 2 years old will it get the improvements of HDMI 1.3, deep colors... or you must have a receiver 1.3 compatible ?

3: I've read a little earlier in this thread the importance of progressive scan vs interlaced especially with larger screens.
the projector is 1280 x 720 (480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p, 1035i, 1080i),
but not 1080p , do you think it's prohibitive with a screen of almost 158" x 7.8" (150" x 6.3" in 2.35:1)
does anyone here owns a projector (not 1080p) and a hd player and could tell me what he thinks about it ?

(and progressive scan vs interlaced is not the name of the new Sideshow diorama)

4: sound.
are the sound formats (Dolby Digital Plus, DTS HD , Dolby True HD ...) compatible with older audio amplifiers ?

sorry for all the boring technical details but maybe this can be useful to someone else,

For an HD player upconversion means that instead of just taking the regular DVD image and resizing it to be the same size as a full HD resolution (1920x1080) it does some processing to make it look better.

As far as what an HD-DVD actually is, well films are shot in high definition, when you get a DVD you get a very small image, but on HD-DVD it only scales the original footage down to 1920x1080 compared to a DVD which is 720x480 so the amount of detail in the image is higher, so you'll be able to see more detail in a person's skin, see lines more clearly and whatnot.

Your projector is HD, the highest resolution it will be able to display is 720p which is still good. Not having HDMI 1.3 isn't a big deal unless you want the 7.1 HD audio, and it will still the format of audio doesn't affect the types of speakers you have, it's in whatever outputs the audio to the speakers that needs to be able to output 7.1 surround sound, but if you have a 5.1 setup it'll still work and sound pretty good.

 

[Marcus is not dead]

Thank you for your explanations.

This is rather good news because I was beginning to believe that my system was out of date.

The fact that upconversion really improves the picture is nice too , this way you can watch your dvds in hd and don't have to buy them again in hd dvd , except for your favs.

For the sound it goes through an AV receiver which supports 7.1 but I was afraid it was new audio formats created for hd and that in fact to say things simply you needed the Dolby Digital Plus, DTS HD , Dolby True HD ... sticker on front of your receiver or it didn't work , the way you can't play DTS audio on an old dvd player if it's not DTS compatible.

in this case if I understand correctly, as 7.1 was already on dvds (not enough though) , the name has changed but it's still the same thing except for the bitrate that is more important (the way DTS bitrate was more important than Dolby).

I wanted to wait for christmas for better prices and maybe new players at this period but at the same time with the releases of Transformers ,the Matrix trilogy,King Kong... it's difficult to wait.

Thanks again.

 

[darthviper107]

You will need an HD audio system for the better bitrate, but you can still get good sound without the HD audio with HDMI 1.3

(correct me if I'm wrong guys)

 

[The ill Jedi]

I just found out that Amazon.UK has Transfomers: The Movie ('86 Cartoon) on Blu-Ray disc and it works for U.S. PS3's!!! I'm getting it!!

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