I jumped in to the Blu-ray thing pretty early, both as an entertainment device and bought a burner for making Blu-ray product.

Personally, I think the best Blu-ray player is the PS3 game machine. I don't play games at all, but the PS3 is an amazing multimedia player which has uses far beyond just playing Blu-ray movies. (I just got the Blu-ray version of one of my all-time favorite old movies, "The Day The Earth Stood Still" and it is an AMAZING transfer. I've seen the movie literally a couple of hundred times and I saw and heard stuff in the Blu-ray version that I had never seen before. The detail is astonishing. The fact is that all movies were shot in HD because they were shot on film and it's a real treat to see a pristine transfer to Blu-ray. Anyone that says that they can't see the difference between a DVD (even with a decent upscaler) and Blu-ray needs to have their eyes examined. The difference is not subtle, it's DRAMATIC.)

As far as burners, I paid over $1,000 for my first DVD burner and now they're under $20. I paid over $25 each for media and now they're around $.50. I paid $500 for my Blu-ray burner, now they're around $200. Blu-ray media was over $25 when I got in, now they're $7. The prices will always continue to fall, you just have to decide when to jump in.

Lots of us that got burned by HD DVD.... and I'm just another one. I still have a fair few of Commercial and personal HD DVD's that still have to be transcoded over to Blu Ray. It's a piss-off but that's the chance you take as an early adopter. Those that got into this at an early stage knew full well that there would be a winner....... and a loser.

Having said that... who knows how long Blu Ray will be around. I don't think it's a question of staying/going. I think it's got enough roots now so that whithering and dying isn't going to happen. Weather or not it becomes main stream however is still a BIG question so if you get into it, the risks involved are no where as big as what you faced when HD DVD was around.

The equipment now (IMO) is not that expensive anymore. The LG burner I have now you can get for something on the order $230 and for what you get in the box (a do-it-all burner that will even do lightscribe for those that are still into that, burner program, hi def player program and one re-writable disk).... that's a pretty good price. The BD-r disks are now as low as $7 each, and the technology is pretty solid. After burning LOTS of bd-r, I still have yet to burn a coaster.

The palyback machines are STILL the only sad point to this technology. The SAL players are still quite expensive (relatively speaking) and they're still slow almost to the point of being awkward. There are also STILL lots of complaints about these machines being able to play "this" disk and not "that" one. (If I was a BD player manufacturer..... I'd be feeling pretty embarrassed by now.) I think it's a little silly but after this long a period of time, the only player worth the price is the PS3.
Like John I don't play games. I've had my PS3 for almost a year I guess and it has not seen one game... and it will continue that way. So, as a player, I have very little to complain about. It has worked well and done everything I have asked of it in a timely and efficient manor.

The bottom line is that you can now set yourself up with a complete Blu Ray burning/playing system for around $750.... which is about what my Toshiba A1 player cost when I bought.... and I think it's well worth it.

PS3 is great, but won't give you Netflix HD.

It's been stated elsewhere that Netflix HD won't be made available for desktop computers, probably because of piracy fears.

Samsung currently sells Blu-Ray players that also receive Netflix HD, for less than $300, see Netflix streaming coming to Samsung BD-P2500/2550.

(The Roku Netflix player has been hammered for providing poor (non-HD) picture quality, the above is a different service.)

Sony BDP-S350 for $180.

http://bfads.net/Sony-BDPS350-Bluray-Disc-Player-at-Kmart-Thursday

Black Friday deal.

I am one of those that likes the new technology, and I did buy both Sony Blu Ray player as well as the LG Blu Ray burner a while back.

I must say that if you are buying this for watching Hi Def movies, in my opinion it is well overrated. For the increase in price of the media/movie I find the Hollywood titles on Blu Ray only so so in quality, and not much different from my upconvert regular DVD player. I was buying all my movies on Blu Ray for a while, but I went back to purchasing them on DVD, since the differences are too minimal.

Where I do see an amazing difference is in the videos I make myself using Vegas and my simple HV20 HD camera.
The results after I burn a Blu Ray with my HV20 are stunning, compared to the same footage downconverted to DVD.

Ted

"PS3 is great, but won't give you Netflix HD."

Sorry Course... I gotta say it....

Who cares? :)

And Xbox gives you Netflix streaming but not BD...

Actually, I would definitely be interested in a game/BD/netflix streaming box for about $200 ;-).

Jerry

>PS3 is great, but won't give you Netflix HD."

"BD-r disks are now as low as $7 each"

Blink: where are you finding this price? Sounds too good to be true....

Sorry I missed the Kmart Black Friday special, the price is back up to $229 today for the Sony player.

What are the odds prices drop after Xmas?

I don't rent or watch movies, but I do want to see my own videos in their best resolution. It makes quite a difference in quality and I'm spoiled now, don't want to compromise...

Eileen

Eileen,

Take a look here:

http://www.tapeandmedia.com/detail.asp?product_id=VER95357

Ted

Inkjet printables are still about $11.50 and the non printable about $7.00.
JJK

"PS3 is great, but won't give you Netflix HD."

You must be less lazy than I am. :)

I think Netflix HD will become immensely popular, because it is so convenient, and I'm not the only lazy person.

"If you want to find the easiest way to do something difficult, ask a lazy person."

:O)

Looks like I'm going to be gearing up for Blu Ray delivery pretty soon. I've done a lot of HD delivery but it's all been for computer playback. Lately I've had a few clients sniffing around for some kind of HD delivery method and Blue Ray players have hit $200 bucks. I think the time is right.

In my own world I've got both an HD-DVD & Blu Ray player (and the Blue Ray player has Netflix streaming as well). No regrets plus I can snap up HD-DVD's for next to nothing :)

"I was buying all my movies on Blu Ray for a while, but I went back to purchasing them on DVD, since the differences are too minimal."

Wow, I'm surprised by this statement, I see a HUGE difference between Blue Ray/HD content and standard def DVD.

One of the things to consider when people make statements about how much better or not HD content is, is the television.

Most of the HD TV sets were only 720p/1080i capable. It was not until early this year that the rush to provide 1080p capable televisions really hit. And you can still get 720p/1080i TV's today. Many people have no idea what all those numbers mean so they go for the lower cost 720p/1080i TV.

I agree, on a 720p/1080i HD TV, the quality difference between Blu-Ray and DVD is non-existant given a high quality DVD player.

Then there is the content itself. Many of the BluRay transfers were done right from the DVD master (they appear to be that way). They simply upconverted it. Those transfers do not look any better than the DVD counterpart, even at 1080p.

Add to the fact the spec keeps changing and it is a quagmire.

We have shelved talks of moving to BluRay content distribution for another year. We do not see it being viable to build a business around yet. Hopefully it will be stabilized by then.

As far as buying a Blu-Ray burner, I think the moment is finally here. The LG GBW-H20L is $200 at Circuit City. If you sign up for their e-mail list they send you within minutes an automatic coupon that takes $15 off at checkout, which more or less eats the tax. It also gives you a little extra to be able to buy the Sony BD-RE disc so you can start doing some test burns as soon as you install it, since the unit doesn't come with one.

I've had it for a few days and so far I love it. The burns in the Sony BD-RE were all good and played great in my Sony BDP-S300 player, as well as DVDs I burned in BD5 format, and both data DVDs and a data test on the BD-RE putting about 22 GB of files with the latest version of ImgBurn.

The BD-Rs are still rather expensive, however we're beginning to see some spindles that bring the price of each disc to about $5, not bad at all. They are Memorex, a brand that I have never had trouble with when it comes to DVDs. There are some $7 Verbatims around too.

The only thing I cannot attest as of yet is the longevity of this drive, since it's too new to tell. I've had an LG burner (CDs only) that came with a Dell PC in 2000 and it didn't last very long, which led me to have a poor impression of the brand, but $200 for a BD burner was too good to pass, and I read that almost everyone who purchased it was very happy about it, so I figured it would be a safe buy.

Its getting more tempting to jump in along with the rest of you folks!

I'm trying to hold off on a lot of spending right now but was thinking if I can get 22 min on a regular DVD and 44 min on a DL @ $2/ea I can avoid buying new equipment by sticking with my HD DVD player...

But we are getting close to a point with the BR blank media where a couple of DL discs = the price of one BR blank for videos that are an hour + in length. I'm trying really hard to hold off a bit longer in the hopes that crossover price point will arrive and I'll still be solvent.. ..

You all are calling out my 'inner shopaholic" with these new prices.... dangerous to my bottom line, but good for the economy....!

Here's a new device for playing back HD media without a BluRay player.
Price looks good....anyone tried one of these?

http://promotions.newegg.com/WesternDigital/TV111408/index.html?nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL120508&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL120508-_-MECH-_-EB3A-_-WesterDigital

The problem with stuff like that is that if it is not directly linked to xp or vista.... then you will be dealing with FAT32 drives.... which means a 4 gig file limit. You would probably be better off with something like the buffalo or twonky vision which are devices (complete with remote) that stream HD from your PC to TV.

The WD Media player, although first gen, will handle NTFS among others.

"The WD Media player, although first gen, will handle NTFS among others."

Unless Microsoft has something to do with it then you would be wrong.

Microsoft has all the rights to NTFS and as far as I know, they have yet to share it with ANYBODY... and have no plans to do so in the immediate future.

Just key in WD Media TV in Best Buy. The unit has two usb ports; insert a flash drive, external hard drive, whatever your carrying your files on at the time and your good to go. $99 isn't bad for what it can do out fo the box.

Microsoft is pretty touchy when it comes to writing NTFS, but they're pretty liberal about being able to read NTFS drives.

"Microsoft is pretty touchy when it comes to writing NTFS, but they're pretty liberal about being able to read NTFS drives."

Ahhh..... good point