Fine, BluRay Wins. Any good units that play BR and DVD?

[CoasterMatt]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

Yeah, but then I would be stuck with a pee cee. Not a smooth operating Mac.

sorry dude, the HT boxes run Linux/MythTV, but I'm sure I could build one with a smaller Mac and an ATI Wonder card.

[mousepod]

Since Cherny requested I "chime in" - and since his recommendation was the tipping point for my PS3 purchase, here goes:

I am very happy with my PS3. I use it all the time. It handles blu-ray discs perfectly - I have a small but growing collection. I have it hooked up to TV with an HDMI cable and it's connected to my receiver with an optical cable. I have bought exactly one PS3 game: The Lego Star Wars Complete Saga. I've used the wireless controller to play it - and I've had hours of fun. I will probably buy one or two more games this year - just for the option of playing games. The PS3 is also connected to my wireless network, and I can stream audio and video from my computer. It's a neat little machine.

The only thing I don't love love love about it is that the upscaling isn't quite as good as my Oppo. When the Oppo blu-ray player comes out later this year, I'm sure I'll get one, too.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by mousepod

When the Oppo blu-ray player comes out later this year, I'm sure I'll get one, too.

Great. You go and post this just as I was thinking about throwing in the towel and getting a PS III.

[Chernabog]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

Great. You go and post this just as I was thinking about throwing in the towel and getting a PS III.

The oppo is still early in development, that article said. If you want one right now, the ps3 is the way to go It does a great job of upscaling DVDs (we put in a Lord of the Rings DVD to test it out, and it looked like crap on the old player, and really good on the ps3). I'm sure the Oppo is better as far as upscaling is concerned, though I haven't seen them back to back to make any kind of judgment about whether the Oppo is slightly better or significantly better.

As far as the regions are concerned for Blu-ray: The United States and Japan are on the same region (unlike DVD). I can really only think of a few movies that were Europe-only that I wanted

[RStar]

I've been holding off for the right time to go HD, particularly this HD DVD Blue-ray buisness. Here's some advice from SmartMoney.com:

With HD DVD out of the way, buyers of winning format Blu-ray need not worry that they're investing in the next Betamax. But hold off until the 2008 holiday shopping season, and you'll get a machine that's more advanced (the latest 2.0 models are due out this summer) and less pricey (Blu-ray manufacturers lost their common competitor in HD DVD, and so will now begin battling each other).

I didn't know there were other Blue-ray manufacturers other than Sony.

The Whole Story

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by RStar

I didn't know there were other Blue-ray manufacturers other than Sony.

While Sony developed the technology, there are many manufacturers of Blu-Ray already. And now that there is no question about which format will win, you will see many more competitors on the market. It just takes a while to retool and ramp up manufacturing lines.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by mousepod

The only thing I don't love love love about it is that the upscaling isn't quite as good as my Oppo. When the Oppo blu-ray player comes out later this year, I'm sure I'll get one, too.

Did you get your update today?

We would like to thank you for the tremendous feedback that we have received from the community in response to our first BDP-83 Blu-ray player notification update. There were many great comments, suggestions and concerns which we will try to address in the release of the BDP-83. In particular, we would like to address the Early Adoption Program.

We have decided to take a democratic, by-the-people approach to the implementation of the Early Adoption Program. For the initial batch we will randomly choose 50 customers to participate in the Early Adoption Program. These 50 customers will have the opportunity to purchase the BDP-83 for $499 before the official release. After using the player for about a week, they will be required to vote on whether the program should be expanded or suspended based on end-user experiences. If a supermajority (at least 70%) votes in favor of expanding the program, we will expand the Early Adoption Program by another 100 randomly chosen customers. The player will be shipped with a pre-production firmware version. Firmware updates will be available from time to time.

The initial 50 Early Adoption Customers will be chosen no later than February 25th using the random number generator at random.org. After being contacted by us, the customer must place the order no later than 3pm February 27th Pacific Time; otherwise the opportunity to participate will be passed on to another customer. A simple "Yes" or "No" vote on whether to expand the program needs to be cast no later than March 15th.

Terms and conditions for the Early Adoption Program, as well as the current program status, can be found at our web site:
http://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-bdp-83/EAP.aspx

We would also like to take this time to update you on the status of BDP-83 developments. The last two months have been very fruitful, as the player now supports BD-Live (Profile 2.0) and can internally decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio formats. DVD-Audio has yet to be implemented through firmware, but we are working diligently on this feature. A preliminary features and specifications list will be available on our web site on Tuesday March 3rd.

[CoasterMatt]

Ooooh - Oppo Bluray sounds good - Profile 2.0, too.

[€uroMeinke]

But is there an all region hack?

[mousepod]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

But is there an all region hack?

Unfortunately, no. Another reason why I still use my Oppo for Standard DVDs. Luckily there are few Blu-Rays that are region-encoded for non-US. Here's a site that covers that topic.