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

[innerSpaceman]

Now that the high-def disc war is won by Sony, I want to jump into the user market ... hopefully before player prices skyrocket.


But now it occurs to me why I'm uber-baffled at the winning format. Correct me if I'm wrong, but would an HD DVD player have been able to play both HD and regular DVD???

So if I want a single unit that plays both Blu Ray and DVD, I have to get a clunky "combo" unit ... sorta like the giant monster I had that played laserdiscs and DVDs then that transition happened.



Sigh.


Can anyone recommend a good, hopefully affordable, combination low-def / high def player that can play newfangled BluRay and old-fashioned DVD?

[Chernabog]

Playstation 3.

And no, you don't have to have a "combo" clunky drive, even if you get a standalone unit. 99.9% of all BD players play DVD. And most of them upscale DVD too. And the player prices only have one way to go -- down. (The Ps3 will remain around $399, and is fully upgradeable, unlike some of the players on the market. In fact, right now the Ps3 is the ONLY Blu-ray 2.0 Profile player on the market... the quickie explanation of the "Profiles" being that 1.0 plays Bluray discs (probably 85% of the players currently on the market), 1.1 does all of the above and can take advantage of video-in-video features on Bluray discs (the remaining 15%) and 2.0 does all of the above AND has online feature capabilities).

Question tho -- why are you getting Bluray if you don't have an HDTV?

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

But now it occurs to me why I'm uber-baffled at the winning format. Correct me if I'm wrong, but would an HD DVD player have been able to play both HD and regular DVD???

Just as the Blu-Rays could (well 99% of them), HD DVD players could play both HD DVDs and standard DVDs. This was never a dividing issue between the two formats.

Originally Posted by Chernabog

...and 2.0 does all of the above AND has online feature capabilities).

Something that I feel is VERY important. Not so much for connectivity, but for firmware upgradability down the road.

Originally Posted by Chernabog

Question tho -- why are you getting Bluray if you don't have an HDTV?

I agree with Cherny: without an HD TV, you will never see the difference between a Blu Ray and a Standard DVD.

[innerSpaceman]

TeeHee, I "inherited" an HDTV from my mom when she downgraded from 6-room, 3 bath condominium to one-room Retirement Home for the Aged and Infirm.


So BluRay here I come. Ooooh, Sleeping Beauty got a beautiful restoration and is being released on BluRay soon.



But, ugh, I don't want a PS3. I'm not a gamer.


There are no consumer players with bluray two point oh??? That sounds, um, retarded to say the least.


Now that the format war is won, won't that change in a hurry? And why do you think player prices won't go skyhigh now that they are not loss leaders to win the format war??

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Now that the format war is won, won't that change in a hurry? And why do you think player prices won't go skyhigh now that they are not loss leaders to win the format war??

Because now they'll go into mass production.

[Alex]

Yeah, same reason that VCRs kept getting cheaper. Unless they jack up the licensing fees astronomically you'll see new manufacturers enter the market and existing manufacturers able to price with confidence that they have time to recoup their start-up costs; unlike HD DVD player manufacturers who will end up eating a lot of costs.

If it costs $50 million to set up the manufacturing process and you think you might only have 5 years of selling products off that line your prices will be much higher than if you can assume the basic infrastructure will be going for a decade.

[Chernabog]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

But, ugh, I don't want a PS3. I'm not a gamer.


There are no consumer players with bluray two point oh??? That sounds, um, retarded to say the least.

First, congrats on the inheritance of the TV! And yes size queen, how big is it?

Second, the Ps3 is way more than a gaming machine. We use ours every single day -- either for DVD/Bluray watching (it upscales regular DVDs beautifully), we stream audio/video from our computers to watch on the TV via the LAN, it stores movies and music, you can download movie trailers, etc. It's like having another computer hooked up to your TV (the Ps3 has a hard drive, etc.). And yes, if you ever want to try a game, you can do that too. I actually don't own one Ps3 game yet (I've rented some tho).

Mousepod doesn't use his for gaming either. Mebbe he can chime in here with some of the features he uses.

I don't know why 2.0 wasn't just standard to begin with. The Ps3 JUST upgraded like a couple weeks ago to 2.0 capability (not sure if anything beyond 2.0 is in the pipeline) and there are very few discs which have features for this (the first couple were released on the same day the Ps3 upgraded).

If your standalone player doesn't have 2.0 capability, you can still upgrade your firmware like you could with any disc media system -- you download the firmware, burn it onto a disc, and play the disc in the unit.

So the moral is, if you wait a while (like, until the fall), you'll get your standalone 2.0 player, which will probably be just as expensive as the Ps3, which probably won't have any price drops by then.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23833725/ <--- that link has the skinny on all of this confusing stuff.

The OTHER moral is, buy a Ps3 and you're covered.

[innerSpaceman]

oh, i think it's "only" 46 inches. Not up there with the big boys in length ... or do they call it "width" when talking the bigger penis that is Large Screen Television?


But, as a certain delightful person always qualifies, it's got GIRTH, baby.

In other words, it's not a flat screen ... which is why my mom dumped it on me ... this thing is a whopping 15" deep. Ok, that's not too terribly deep, but I don't want anything that deep inside ME!


Oh, I'm sorry ... are we talking televisions? Well, 15" is way too deep in the world of flat screen mania. But I'm glad it's not flat ... because if it were, it wouldn't now be MINE!

[RStar]

Isn't a PS3 about the same price as a BlueRay player? Does the PS3 have the same 1080p output for dvd, including can you hook it up with HDMI cable? And can you upgrade the firmware with ethernet hookup with the PS3?


Just wondering.....

[innerSpaceman]

^ me just wondering, too!