BluRay: How Will You Adopt The Format?

What statement best describes how you intend to buy into BluRay?

  • I'll buy a US PS3 once all the problems have been resolved and only buy US BluRay discs

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    127

Rasczak

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Just a quick vote to see how people plan to adopt BluRay - whether they intend to get a PS3, a standalone or wait. Many of us have seen BluRay in action - and the rest have all read the reviews - so we are all aware of the problems BD is suffering from at present:

- Video is cropped from it's original cinema aspect ratio

- Releases use outdated (and surpassed) MPEG2 compression

- Releases suffer from digital artifacts

- DD+ soundtracks have been dropped

- BD50 (dual layer discs) are in limited supply compounding all of the above

- Players are expensive (twice the price of HD DVD)

- Menus are a little sluggish

...and we all know it within the capacity of the format to correct all this and become as good as HD DVD is now. However where do you stand with the problems above? Will you buy now at any price or wait until these are all corrected?
 
I'm buying a PS3 anyway, so most likely I'll buy at least one movie to try out - I'll try and pick the best example available that I'd also consider a good movie.

Then (or before depending on when its out) I'll buy the HDDVD add on for the Xbox 360, and buy serenity on HDDVD

After that I'll be able to make my own mind up on which I prefer, and how the consoles handle HD. I'll read up on how the discs and standalone player are doing to help decide whether I need a standalone player sooner rather than later.

Also, depending on how the formats are doing I will start to buy a few discs. Initially I won't mind what format - just buy the best version - and I'll only buy a few specific titles that I want.

And then just watch the war continue. I will try and avoid heavily investing in software until an outcome starts to become clearer - even if that outcome is both existing together.
 
I went for thw HD DVD option and wait for BR to improve. I don't think Blu Ray is really aimed at me tho: they are aimed at different markets. BR is the people's format in that it will offer the movie zoomed in to fit your TV so you see no black bars at all. The extra space will be used to great fantastic effect to include games, puzzles and quizes on the disks. BRs should be optimised to work well with the PS3 gamepads. HD DVD though will be the reference format for home cinema buffs. It will be light on extras but high on PQ with lossless audio and releases in their original cinematic aspect ratio. The latter sounds ideal to me. I'll get an eye on BR tho, if it changes to become a home cinema format I'll considering buying!
 
Happy with HD-DVD for now while we wait for the dust to settle on this format war.

I may buy PS3 for watching films but will most certainly wait for some proper reviews before deciding as I am pretty sure the PS3 BD playback will be acceptable at best.
 
I will be getting PS3 anyway but after reading that may well have to get a standalone HD-DVD player as well!
 
richard plumb said:
I'm buying a PS3 anyway, so most likely I'll buy at least one movie to try out - I'll try and pick the best example available that I'd also consider a good movie.

Then (or before depending on when its out) I'll buy the HDDVD add on for the Xbox 360, and buy serenity on HDDVD

After that I'll be able to make my own mind up on which I prefer, and how the consoles handle HD. I'll read up on how the discs and standalone player are doing to help decide whether I need a standalone player sooner rather than later.

Also, depending on how the formats are doing I will start to buy a few discs. Initially I won't mind what format - just buy the best version - and I'll only buy a few specific titles that I want.

And then just watch the war continue. I will try and avoid heavily investing in software until an outcome starts to become clearer - even if that outcome is both existing together.

Hey. That's my plan, almost down to the letter!

Great minds must think alike. :)

JamesL said:
BR is the people's format in that it will offer the movie zoomed in to fit your TV so you see no black bars at all.

How on earth do you work that one out? :confused:

That's not based on the "Training Days" reviews, is it? The review I've read mentions a slight cropping of the edges of the picture. Not a wholesale change of aspect ratio from 2.35:1 to 1.78:1.

If they had done that the outcry from Bluray supporters and the gloating from HD-DVD supporters would have been amazing.

DVDs have been original aspect ratio for years. Everybody is used to it so why would they change it now ?

Can you point to any examples where a movie released at 2.35:1 on either DVD or HD-DVD has been released at 1.78:1 on Bluray?
 
JamesL said:
BR is the people's format in that it will offer the movie zoomed in to fit your TV so you see no black bars at all.

I didn't realise they were doing this on Blu-Ray. I personally consider that an insult to the director and cinematographer of whatever movies are hacked up in this way. Directors often choose 2.35:1 aspect ratios for artistic reasons, something the BD camp obviously don't understand if they actually go ahead and do this. Imagine watching 'Once Upon a Time in the West' after it had been cropped. It would totally ruin it for me.

They won't be getting any of my money if this is all true.
 
I'll eventually get a PS3 and like richard plumb, I'll be getting a BD that is classed as reference material but also a film I like. Serenity is an excellent choice for reference on HD-DVD. Also, if you want to see an excellent choice of a Single Layer 15GB HD-DVD then look no further than Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Stunning.
 
I'm waiting till at least 2nd generation players are released for both formats before even thinking about deciding. Although not as good quality hi-def from Usenet keeps me supplied with hi-def content for now so I'll wait and see what happens.

I was an early adopter of DVD so I'll wait this time...or maybe it's just that whole saving for a deposit on a house that's stopping me this time round ;)
 
I find it shocking that only three people here are going to buy a PS3 on launch day and only 4 when the "problems" have been resolved. I guess I shouldn't be shocked with the bias towards HD-DVD ( and rightly so in most cases atm). I assume people will be buying PS3 for the games?
 
ps3..xbox 360..FOR GAMES.

hdvd - bluray..FOR MOVIES....if only sony would understand,thank god microsoft have given people a choice:smashin:
 
I've just bought a Xbox 360, so will get a HD DVD add on for that most probably.

I might get a PS3 in a year or two once the bugs have been ironed out, it's cheaper and there are more games for it. Depends how flush I feel at the time.
 
Many of us are interested in PS3 at launch, just will there be an UK discs? No 'player' will have been launched by then.

I am one of the votes for PS3 at launch here but I have HD DVD already, so really I am in the big long list of people wanting HD DVD ;)
 
BD are adopting regional coding so you wouldn't be able to play US discs on a UK PS3. I'm also very sceptical about the PS3's ability to play VC1 encoded discs, as far as I know they are using software decoders like the Xbox 360, in which case they won't have had any assistance from Microsoft.
 
Many of us are interested in PS3 at launch, just will there be an UK discs? No 'player' will have been launched by then.
Indeed. Details are hard to come by at present: the BluRay UK release announcement I can find is from Eagle vision who will be releasing "Pat Metheny Group – The Way Up Live" supposedly in October. However this is being released on both HD DVD and BluRay so it could be the former being released in October (at the sametime as the UK Toshiba A1) and the latter will appear at the official Euro launch in March.

I suppose Sony might release a few BluRay titles to co-incide with the PS3 launch - however as they set the date for the Euro launch, and given the limitations on BluRay disc production at present, I should imagine our first batch of titles will appear in March.
 
Jeff said:
I'm also very sceptical about the PS3's ability to play VC1 encoded discs, as far as I know they are using software decoders like the Xbox 360, in which case they won't have had any assistance from Microsoft.

Interesting thought, if they can't do VC1 then that is a deal killer for me.
 
talas said:
ps3..xbox 360..FOR GAMES.

hdvd - bluray..FOR MOVIES....if only sony would understand,thank god microsoft have given people a choice:smashin:

Great, so I don't ever expect to see two disc Xbox 360 games ever or ever see PS3 games bigger than 8.5 GB??? :rolleyes:

Personally, I feel CD, DVD to Blu Ray is a natural progression in the generation of Sony consoles.
 
Great, so I don't ever expect to see two disc Xbox 360 games ever or ever see PS3 games bigger than 4.7 GB???
Dual layer DVD stores upto 8.5GB.
 
Nic Rhodes said:
Interesting thought, if they can't do VC1 then that is a deal killer for me.

I could be mistaken but I beleive that at this point in time there is no complete standalone VC-1 HW decoder on the market, even the current broadcom chipset used in the tosh player requires an awful lot of support from the processor, so a full SW decoder in the PS3 wouldn't be out of the ordinary.

John.
 
But will it be there?, the chips side have the power but does Sony have the will?
 
I would have thought so but Sony really loves MS at the moment ;)
 
talas said:
ps3..xbox 360..FOR GAMES.

hdvd - bluray..FOR MOVIES....if only sony would understand,thank god microsoft have given people a choice:smashin:

:clap:
 

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