Post by r***@shack.netI, like the majority of movie viewers, am quite happy with DVD. I
will not be going to Blu-Ray for the forseable future.
I'm also quite content with DVD as it's cheap and I'm not fussed about
picture quality. Yep, my upscaling DVD player is doing me just fine
and there are still plenty of DVD titles being released and many that
have still yet to see the light of day.
If I decided to invest in Blu-ray, what would I gain ?
Improved picture quality ? Yes - but it's not a significant difference
from what I've seen
Improved sound quality ? Yes - Lossless 5.1/7.1 channel PCM audio is
nice but not necessary when watching most films.
Interactivity/Streaming/PIP ? - All gimmicks IMO
3D ? - Give me a break! Another crock of nonsense.
I prefer to actually watch and absorb a film and not gawk at the
picture quality or become entranced by the sound. For me, Blu-ray is
mostly hype and marketing BS. If people really think it's necessary to
ditch their DVDs and buy Blu-ray titles then they have been hoodwinked
by the studios and their deceptive practices.
Broadband performance will have to improve dramatically for streaming
and downloading content to become commonplace, otherwise there will be
congestion problems.
We certainly need cheap, high-speed broadband before video streaming
becomes more widely adopted.
Personally I believe the best answer is for movies to be made
available for sale on flash memory cards, such as the SDHC cards.
I'm not convinced this is a good idea given the widely unstable nature
of portable flash media. It corrupts too easily and the longevity of
such media is still an unknown.
I have seen some compressed transfers of Blu rays which on a projector
screen are pretty damn good quality, much better than standard DVDs
and yet are only around 3 or 4 gigs in size. The quality seems related
to the care put into the original transfer to Blu ray, compared to the
shoddy transfers done for most DVDs.
That does suggest that viewable-quality transfers of existing film
material can be made, at far better picture quality than on DVD, which
could be used for downloads on demand.
That is, if an affordable Broadband system was offered in this country
to let you download files that size in an hour mininum, which I think
are reasonable 'on demand' specs -- and let you do so several times a
week if you wish. This Government doesn't seem interested in letting
such a system develop at an affordable price!
Anyway, till that day comes, I'll have to keep on buying Blu rays
(mostly from the States where they're far more affordable than here
and where there's a bigger range) as I do value viewing quality when
it comes to projector-viewing on my 120-inch screen.