If you have a high definition TV, which format were you buying your high def DVDs in - BluRay or HD-DVD?

We have a PS3 so we were buying BluRays since that is what the PS3 plays natively. News just came out that both Netflix and WalMart are going with BluRay only, so it sounds like BluRay is winning the format war.

Are you stuck with HD-DVDs? Or did you choose BluRay? Or are you still in the regular-DVD crowd?

This seems to be a great bone of contention for those of us who collect DVD's. Personally, we invested in a Mitsubishi 56 inch HD capable TV a few years ago as well as getting Direct TV which now has more channels available in HD than any other provider. We have NOT made a decision on HD vs. Blue-Ray yet. However, since we already have one PC hooked up to the HD TV, we are seriously considering just updating that computer to play both types of formats - that way we are not locked into any one brand. I hear that many more video/tech junkies are doing just that (creating the ultimate Media Center) to ensure that they are not wasting their money on a format that will be extinct in a few years!

There are a few players that are dual format; it's usually a cost issue since they tend to cost more than single format players. I imagine the wisest course was to wait until the war was won. It now looks like BluRay has won the war, so people who waited are probably in the best boat (and I suppose people who "rolled the dice" and chose BluRay to begin with).

We treated ourselves to a new Sony 46"Bravia LCD HD-TV AND a PS3 for Christmas. Most of what we have are Blu-Ray since Disney and a few others are making their movies only in Blu-Ray. There is NOTHING as fantastic as Blu-Ray and HD! My son just bought "Blue Planet" and the pictures were so real. Amazing, really, isn't it?

Trish

I have to say I *adore* high definition TV. The visuals are just so amazing. I love nature shows, and to see the soaring mountaintops and deep blue oceans is enthralling. I could have that on for hours in the background while I work on my laptop.

Also what is REALLY cool is that you could get a high def feed of paintings you love and have a large size "painting" in your room, and then change it hourly based on your moods! And the quality would be stunning!

We were watching lost and just discovered "Kate" has alot of freckles. HD is giving the actors and actresses a fit, with all the details.

I don't know about leaving a picture playing a still shot, as something might get burned into the screen. But our cable company has a station that plays scenes from around the world in HD. We watched the sun rise over a mountain top in Hawaii and watched seals playing on the shore. It is really cool!

Trish

Toshiba looks like it's dropping HD-DVD -

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We are still in the regular DVD crowd. Waaaa

Ah but do you have a high definition TV? It's not really worth upgrading until you get a better TV

Lisa, when we bought our TV, I talked to a lot of different sales people about the TV station's emblem on the bottom of the screen. They all said that as long as the symbol is in the grey, light or white tones, that the screen won't be bothered.

I guess we'll have to wait and see. Thanks for the link for Toshiba. Others will start make those decisions, too.

Moe, hang in there with your regular DVDs. Prices are still coming down, so you should be able to get a good deal when you decide to upgrade.

Trish

The TV is next on the list after the laptop. It's starting to go dark so it's definitely time for an upgrade. Any tips for tv shopping? i.e. what's important and what not

My boyfriend did all the comparisons; he went with a LCD over a plasma. He said

"I avoided Sharp when I saw that there were always multiple open-box Sharps in the BestBuy and CircuitCity stores from returns. That seems a fair way to know what people are not liking once they get them home."

We have a Samsung.

I'm very glad that we waited to purchase a player! We were going to go with HD - mostly due to the release of Star Trek in HD - but it looks like we made the right choice in waiting. Like I said above, there is the whole other choice of upgrading your computer to play both - which may be cheaper to do than getting a duel DVD player if you can install it yourself - I imagine that HD DVD's are going to be VERY cheap! It may be better now to have some sort of duel player to take advantage of the cheap DVD's!

Here is a link to a little program you can use to see if your computer is ready for HD or Blue Ray.
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DW and I hedged our bets by buying a Toshiba HDDVD player and a Panasonic Blu-ray player within the past 3 months. We did not know who was going to win, but we were ready for the winner, no matter what. We were shocked when it literally fell over like a house of cards, this quickly. Shocked, but in a good way so we can go on with one standard.

We know what it is like because we were around when DVD vs Divx hit about 10 years ago at the beginning of DVD. Now THAT was a battle...


The advantage of having both is that we don't have to wait for the STTOS episodes to be remastered for Blu-ray, etc. Plus, some discs that were mastered for HDDVD need to be re-mastered for Blu, thusly incurring more delays with movies you may want sooner. So I guess it all depends on whether you want to wait for those movies on HD to be redone on Blu, for those movies that are currently out.

BTW, the Season 2 of ST:TOS was canceled because Toshiba was sponsoring the conversion, BTW. Sucks, but what can you do?

Thanks for the update on the ST:TOS Duane and here are a couple article that confirms that bad news. I'm sure that Blue Ray will pick this up once Paramount commits to the format.

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I imagine they'll definitely retool them quickly, they want to get that income stream started as soon as possible

It is pretty impressive how quickly the HD-DVD fall came after the first domino began to topple ...

Has anybody heard anything about how many and which companies have already agreed to make just blue ray? A few months back, I had heard that there were only a few, but now I have heard that ALL the companies had agreed. I haven't read anything about it. I would think that there are many people who don't want to pay the extra $10 or $15 to have blue ray.

Trish

Trish -

I think pretty much everyone is BluRay at this point. I never got a sense that there was a $15 price difference between the two when they were both out? They were both side by side on the shelves and had the same price tag. Are you talking about real store prices, or about potential prices based on technologies?

We had several threads here talking about the BluRay / HD-DVD wars and the news announcements as BluRay was dying.

Here's one of the articles -

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Thanks, Lisa, for the links and the update. It's good to see that the decision has pretty much been made. We like to play our PS3 and sometimes watch blu-ray videos, so it looks like we are part of the 3/4 blu-ray population.

The $10-$15 difference I was talking about was between blu-ray and regular videos. When we got the HD TV and PS3 for Christmas, I wanted to get my family a blu-ray video. The Spiderman movie had just been released and was showing on all the new HD TVs. I found a Spidermand video for about $16. I was happy until I talked to a salesman about what clarity we were going to see, just like in the store. He told me that was because they were playing "blu-ray" Spiderman. I was shocked that the price was going to be $29. That was what I was talking about people not wanting to pay the difference all the time.

There will be many movies that we will buy that won't be blu-ray because we won't care about the sharpness as much as the price. Luckily we will still have the choice of regular or HD.

Trish

Oh I see! Well when DVDs came out they cost more than VHS so to me it's natural that high definition DVDs are going to cost more than normal resolution DVDs. You figure video games cost $60 so a BlueRay DVD is still a bargain in comparison

We have really stopped buying DVDs at this point. We have too many, don't watch them anyway, and just NetFlix things we want. That way we see them and send them back. With NetFlix you can get anything you want in 2 days, and many things you can download immediately. So our list of bought DVDs is *very* low in the past year.

That being said I do have for example the Lord of the Rings trilogy all on DVD - both the original version and the extended version. So some things I do buy.