Forum - View topic[Semi-OT] Upgrading to HDTV and Blu-Ray.
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 11446 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Alright, I know I may be a little behind, but as of late I'm starting to get intrigued by this whole Blu-Ray craze. So here I am making this semi-off topic thread inquiring on what I should do to upgrade my "stuff" to better compensate for the next generation in home entertainment. Since Geneon is going into indefinite hibernation, I figure now is as good a time as any to start saving up and preparing for the future.
With that out of the way, there's one immediate dilemma on my mind already. I haven't bought a gaming system since the Gamecube. And yes, $500 is a lot for a PS3, but I figure if I'm going to upgrade my movie watching, I may as well upgrade my gaming, too. Currently, Amazon is offering a deal that if you buy a PS3 before the end of this month, you get 2 free Blu-Ray movies, then a mail-in rebate for another free 5 movies. I don't have any immediate plans to buy anime now that my shelf is damn near full and my favorite company is going on hiatus. Instead, I was going to work on my manga collection, but at the same time I'm curious (more like eager) to experience all this HD goodness. So in addition, I'll also need some advice on TVs. From what I've gathered, it appears around 50" and 1080p seem to be "optimal" these days. But then I don't know squat about the different types of displays (Plasma, LCD, DLP, etc.), so I'd appreciate any tips you all can offer on that. I was thinking about a surround sound system upgrade as well, but I'm pretty happy with my Sony one right now. However, I may revive this thread some years from now if I have anymore questions. Anyway, thanks in advance for any assistance. |
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eyesopen0791
 Posts: 108 Location: A Sleepy Town in California |
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Isn't Wii the cheaper gaming system over PS? At least that's what my technogeek hubby says. Wii does play Blu ray.
HD is awesome. Hubby is as happy as a baked clam watching NFL on it. I don't like football much but even I can see it looks really, really good in HD. Sharp sharp line and images. On action movies like Underworld HD/Blu-ray the visuals really stand out more. Personally, we chose LCD over plasma. The basic difference is on plasma there is a reflection on the screen while on LCD there isn't. Sony is the best in LCDs, but I think the Sharp Aquos was #2 in the market last holiday season. It's supposedly almost as good and it's cheaper than Sony. A 50" screen is about the standard size now. One last thing, there's been buzz that a new player was going out to the stores one day soon that is as good as blu-ray but is not a blu-ray player and it's cheaper. I think they called it an upconverter. BTW, Tony, which DVD player did you end up buying for your mom? 
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11446 Location: Frisco, TX |
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I've been a big advocate of the Playstation ever since its generation started (post SNES), so I have many, many more PS1 and PS2 games than any other console, and the backwards compatibility really helps (obviously). Plus, I'm sure they'll come out with plenty of good games eventually (Metal Gear Solid 4!). Plus, a lot of my friends already have a Wii. I've played them, and.. I'm just not used to that Wii Remote/Nunchuck combination. I'll admit they're a good work out and all, but I figure I might as well expand on my current apparatus rather than start a new one. I'm also an only child and all of my close friends live about 45 minutes away (slowpokes), so I don't see the advantage of a group-play console. Anyway, I've been doing some research and found out that Plasma has a very short life, costs more energy, produces more heat, and that it even has a tendency to burn things on to the screen. LCD sounds like the general consensus, but it looks like DLP is a lot cheaper. But since it's also still developing, LCD looks to be the safest investment at the moment.
She actually saw a portable player that was capable of all the little things she wanted and thought that would be good enough, so I bought it for her  . It's a Dynex-something or other. Cost about $65 with a coupon I had.
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DClark
 Posts: 110 |
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Unless you really need a Playstation 3 soon, you might want to hang on for a couple months; there is a rumour building regarding a $400, 40GB PS3 that will start selling for the Christmas season. The first I read of it is here, and more recently X-bit labs has a report (here) that Sony sent an application to the FCC regarding a new version of the PS3 which is being made in China by a subsidiary of Asustek.
I'm not sure whether the HD-DVD and Blu-ray groups will extend or renew (or even update with better titles) their 5 free disks offers. Both groups' offers end September 30th, but they're in such a full scale battle against each other right now that I find it hard to believe that both camps won't extend their respective offers through until 2008 or beyond. |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11446 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Yeah, I'm in no particular hurry to get any of these things just yet (they're damn expensive
 ). I just wanted to start making plans in advance since the holidays will be here before we know it, and I'll at least have some knowledge on-hand in case a sale pops up.
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Randall Miyashiro
 Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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I would definately say you should get a television before a new DVD player since the specs for 1080p is fairly set at this point, but there is still some flux with both HD-DVD and Blu-ray as well as future price drops.
As far as televisions go I really like my Sony KDS60-XBR1. I did have some color uniformity problems (common with this first generation SXRD (JVC calls it LCoS and it's tech is based off of LCD) but Sony paid in full to have a tech replace my optical block. Chris Beverage also bought a Sony XBR2 this year and seems to like it as well. The only television (not counting projectors) that I think beats the SXRD line is Pioneer's Elite televisions which are unfortunately only available in Plasma. Plasma also has a reputation for screen burn, although the problem is less prevalent I do use my television as my PC monitor. I believe that HP had the best DLP RPTV that scored slightly lower than Sony's SXRD back in 2006 when I got the set, but am not sure with this years model. My roommate also has a 50" Sharp LCD which is nice and I agree cheaper than the Sony, although Sony tends to get higher marks on benchmarks. Mitsubishi is the other company that I hear many people praise. As far as upconverting goes it will make you standard def DVDs look a little better, but nowhere near as good as a HD format disc. I still use my Oppo upconverting player which does a pretty good job at playing almost any format DVD (PAL,DVD-Audio,SACD,VCD,etc) and outputs in either PAL or NTSC into my processor. It can also be plugged directly into your television or receiver via HDMI outputting in 1080i which can look much better than your televisions scaler. Bottom line is that HD-DVD and Blu does look much better. As for A Blu-ray player, I will agree with you (and everyone else) that the PS3 is by far the best player. It scores higher than most of the other more expensive players, and I'm glad I bought one even though I only played one game (Motorstorm when it was released) on it. It also has a great upconverter to make those standard def discs look a bit better. As for HD-DVD there isn't as many players to chose from, but they are cheaper. You can get a refurbished HDA1 (what I use) for about $200. The new HDA3s are going to sell next month for $300. Of course the player is so much slower to start and load compared to my PS3, but the A/V quality is the same. I also should say I didn't factor in the Wifi bridge/adapter which was another $45 which suclks since the PS3 has wifi built in. I feel as though the machine is still worth it though in order to get Freedom, Battlestar, Heroes and Trek in HD. It is a better deal to buy both machines than buying a $1000+ dual HD/Blu hybrid in my opinion. Of course the main deciding factor on which format you want should be based off of which movies you want. HD-DVD is dead in Japan, so I would think most anime fans will go Blu.It doesn't look like either format will go away but they should drop in price and improve in quality. I was watching Anime Network's interview with BVUSA and noticed that they misspelled Blu-ray as Blue Ray. I'm also thinking about upgrading my receiver at the moment. The big thing these days is to get an HDMI receiver since toslink (optical) and digital coax lacks the bandwdth to carry more than 2 channels of uncompressed audio. At the moment I'm having the Toshiba do the audio processing for HD-DVDs, and using my receiver as an amplifier, but the PS3 doesn't have the 6 cable option so requires a HDMI receiver to hear the new audio formats. I would say that the best upgrade would be to go for a 1080p LCD monitor before anything else for now. If you have Direct TV or Comcast digital you can get a good amount of HD without a new player. Akira was recently available for free in HD from On Demand. Showtime recently played Howl's in HD as well. |
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Cloe
Moderator
 Posts: 2728 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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No it doesn't. The Wii doesn't even play regular DVDs unless you mod it. The PS3 is the only gaming system that plays Blu-ray. I can't give you much advice about TVs, Tony, but Jacky and I have a digital projector that makes the picture look just gorgeous. The only down side is the color balance/contrast is slightly different from a TV (it is a projector, after all) but it's worth it for me to watch movies at a huge resolution, projected on the living room wall. |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11446 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Good. I was actually thinking of upgrading my TV first and foremost after rummaging around the Internet about the trend in Blu-Ray and HDDVD. It looks like an LCD screen will be the most prudent choice right now. I'll do some more looking around on prices, specs, and try to figure something out. Maybe Best Buy will send me a coupon by the time the holidays are around or something...
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eyesopen0791
Posts: 108 Location: A Sleepy Town in California |
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Whoops. You're right. My bad.  Though Wii ought to...
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11446 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Hm.. I'll admit projectors are cool and everything, but my room's too.. small (not to mention this huge painting of a tree in some field that my parents decided to "give me" after we moved into this house). Plus, the walls are painted, uh.. I don't even know what color this is, maybe tannish, off-whitish? I think it would contrast too much to whatever is being projected, so I figure I'd be better off with a TV  . Thanks, though.
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Asako
 Posts: 751 Location: Hawaii |
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About that PS3. If you're very impressed with the backwards compatibility, I believe the time to get one has almost passed. The newer PS3 with the larger hard-drive (80gb) is supposed to be lacking the Emotion Engine which allows for the backwards compatibility.
This doesn't mean that you won't be able to play your PS1 or PS2 games on the PS3 without this chip. It's just that the games you put in your system will be emulated. It has been said that only about 80% of the PS1 and PS2 games will be able to play without the chip. There is also a small fraction that wouldn't play even with the chip but it was much below 20%. Sony claims to continue with software upgrades to allow for more backwards compatibility and solve issues, but from a marketing sort of standpoint, I'm pretty sure they're going to try and move on to a PS3 gaming focus rather than deal with the PS1 or PS2 games seriously. With all the game remakes that still sell well, I'm sure if a game is popular enough it will be remade and re-released if fans demand it. About Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. I was thinking about my DVD collection and how it might become obsolete like VHS. It worries me quite a bit. I'll always love my DVDs, but just the thought of having to upgrade all that I have to Blu-Ray or HD-DVD depresses me. I was hoping to wait it out and see which would win over the other, but I don't see anything happening just yet. :/ meh |
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Randall Miyashiro
Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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I would say that they DVD to high def comparison is closer to VHS and LD and see them both coexisting for some time to come. With VHS to DVD you were presented with a new format with higher resolution, digital audio and smaller size without a huge media price increase. The other main thing was the relatively long shelf life for DVDs. Once the price of players dropped below $200 it marked the end for VHS. Blu and HD-DVD have audio and video which is most notable on high end systems. The consensus from the forums I frequent is that the difference is worth investing if you have a screen that is bigger than 40". The size is the same and the price is notably higher. This is compounded by the fact that DVD killed DIVX within a few months, while Blu vs. HD-DVD has turned off some early adopters who don't want to buy two machines. To top this off most anime titles don't have HD masters and my suspicion is most of the newer titles were edited and colorized on computers that were rendering in 480 resolution while most older titles were filmed in 16mm, so the 1080p resolution is overkill. Those films that are on 35mm and newer series do look nice (My Blu-ray Tekkon Krinket came in yesterday) but I don't know if we'll see a improvement for most television series. |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11446 Location: Frisco, TX |
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I've been wondering. Do all HDTVs automatically stretch out films presented in widescreen? For instance, if I were to watch a movie or anime that is already in fullscreen, would the TV stretch it out to the sides? I've been trying to look around for a TV that let's you toggle between widescreen and fullscreen mode.
My mother's portable DVD player has that option, so I would think HDTVs at least have some kind of ability to either detect fullscreen formats or adjust itself accordingly (like black bars on the side, a la what widescreen does on a fullscreen TV). EDIT: Never mind. I think I'm going to make an effort to finish the rest of my Geneon series first. I doubt HDTVs will go out of print anytime soon... Thanks a lot, everyone. |
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Asako
Posts: 751 Location: Hawaii |
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there should be widescreen tvs that toggle from widescreen view to fullscreen, though you'll have bars on the sides of the screen rather than the top & bottom like the widescreen on fullscreen tvs were.
I believe DVDs that are labeled anapomorphic have the ability to morph widescreen to your widescreen tv properly without bars. hmmm yah
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Randall Miyashiro
Posts: 2451 Location: A block away from Golden Gate Park |
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DVD players also tend to let you choose between 16:9 and 16:9 squeeze mode. The former being stretched and the later being "pillar boxed." Most televisions also have a similar function, especially plasmas to avoid screen burn.
One nice feature that some televisions include is a letterboxed zoom for those titles (Aquarion Age, Saikano, Betterman, etc.) are letterboxed and not anamorphic. This means that the signal is encoded for 4:3 televisions and the black bars on the top and bottom are actually stored data (wastede data) instead of no data like on anamorphic discs. The results are black bars on all four sides of your image if played on a 16:9 screen. Sadly enough some televisions over or under zoom for these images. It is better if your DVD player does this since the subtitles are not zoomed and will remain the same size. An external scaler can override any flags denoting aspect ratios. I send out the 4:3 signal from the Oppo as 16:9 stretch and let the video processor do the "squeezing" which increases the resolution according to what I see on calibration discs, There is also a non-linear stretch mode option which distorts the edges more than the center. This gives it a strange fish eyed lens style effect which some prefer. |
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