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So, I was thinking about this this evening and I was curious. How close do you think we are to Blu-Ray being the only available option like it eventually happened with VHS and DVD. I know I have a PS3 but I have yet to buy a single movie on Blu-Ray because most of the movies I want are still $25-$30 and when you see so many DVDs at a bargain of $10 or less, including at times new titles, it makes it really hard to make the shift. What are your thoughts?

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Chewbekah ^_^

Currently Playing: Final Fantasy XIV: ARR, Attack of the Firday Monsters, Animal Crossing: A New Leaf, Lego City Undercover, Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Remix

Recently Finished: Fire Emblem: Awakening

Favorite Game: Suikoden III

Maybe Blue Ray will take over when the general consumer slump has returned to normal. Also I suppose HD TVs will have to be the norm for Blue Rays to be worthwhile. I really don't know.

The expense thing is always a pain but I'm sure if you were to shop online they could be a lot cheaper. There's a lot of used copies around the £5/$10 bracket. $25-30 is savage.

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

Well, VHS had a lifespan of over twenty years, and DVD was part of only about five of those. DVDs have been around now for going on fifteen, so maybe the time is closer to their demise than I would have thought before reading this thread and actually thinking about it.

Either way, I'm in the same boat with you. I've had a Bluray player in my living room for nearly two years now, and I own a whopping five discs for it - it's telling that four of them are ones that I got at 50% off or more (all on Black Friday sales); the fifth I received as a Christmas gift.

Part of the problem for me is that I have a hard time buying movies in the days of Netflix; with the ability to get the discs and not keep them forever, or, even better, to just stream the things, often in 1080i, it seems a bad use of money in most cases. Heck, I don't even get Bluray from Netflix, because they charge an extra $5 a month for it. My Bluray player does upscaling to 1080i - it's not perfect, but it will do for me since my TV isn't absolutely top of the line.

There will come a time when I want nothing but Blurays, I'm quite sure of it, and that time will probably even be before DVDs are dead. I can already see the chinks in DVD's armor; my DVD set of Futurama Volume 5, for instance, doesn't look quite right even when it's upscaled, and I mainly watch that on a HDTV that's only 22". That's frustrating to me, and it might mean that my unquestioned preorder for Volume 6 will be on Bluray, who knows. And, hey, there's finally a decent Lord of the Rings Bluray, so I'll need to have that at some point. And by Christmas this year I can all but guarantee you that there will be a massive all-Bluray jumble of all eight Harry Potter movies, and even at the insane price they'll cost, I'll very likely want it. Such is life!

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Fortunately there's a huge bonus that we get in the transition from DVD to Blu-Ray that we didn't have from VHS to DVD - the technology to produce Blu-Rays is able to produce DVDs at the same time. At a very low increased cost, manufacturers can produce a DVD alongside the Blu-Ray discs. What we're seeing a lot of now is combo packs - purchase the movie and get both the DVD and Blu-Ray disc together. This is a really convenient way for somebody who hasn't adopted the new technology to continue to buy new movies but not get left behind when they actually decide to move forward with Blu-Ray. From what I've seen, too, the combo packs aren't coming at a huge increase in price, either.

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Hey, put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me

Quote (Neal @ 23rd July 2011 10:06)

Fortunately there's a huge bonus that we get in the transition from DVD to Blu-Ray that we didn't have from VHS to DVD - the technology to produce Blu-Rays is able to produce DVDs at the same time. At a very low increased cost, manufacturers can produce a DVD alongside the Blu-Ray discs. What we're seeing a lot of now is combo packs - purchase the movie and get both the DVD and Blu-Ray disc together. This is a really convenient way for somebody who hasn't adopted the new technology to continue to buy new movies but not get left behind when they actually decide to move forward with Blu-Ray. From what I've seen, too, the combo packs aren't coming at a huge increase in price, either.

You make valid point about combo packs. I hadn't thought about that. However, that does bring to mind one thing that is kind of making me interested in starting with Blu-Ray is that those combo packs also generally come with digital copy versions you can download to your computer. This interests me because although our work computers have DVD drives, to run a DVD while working with all the applications, excel spreadsheets, and access databases, and PDF files I have open all at once, it would bog down my system to do so like no other. So I've been tempted to start getting some movies so I can put them on my ipod and listen to them while I work.

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Chewbekah ^_^

Currently Playing: Final Fantasy XIV: ARR, Attack of the Firday Monsters, Animal Crossing: A New Leaf, Lego City Undercover, Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Remix

Recently Finished: Fire Emblem: Awakening

Favorite Game: Suikoden III

Sorry, but I'm still clinging to the DVD; they are now about as cheap as VHS at thrift stores and the quality doesn't degrade. Just because something is old doesn't mean it's inferior (if that was the case then why are people still listening to records?).

I barely even started collecting DVDs... I still have a chunk of old VHS tapes sitting in a big box (many of them have aged well over the past 20+ years when my family bought them). I don't plan on getting rid of them because that would just be stupid... why would I want to trash away such precious memories of my childhood?

Also since most of my VHS movies STILL look good I can just preserve them on DVD -- much cheaper than having to pay an extra $10-20 for each movie but on a more modern format. I mean sure, HD movies look GREAT, but that's it.

I will only get a Blu-ray player once their prices go down so I can store more content on recordable blank discs. Piracy is the norm today and no one has money, so why not take advantage of Blu-ray? As long as I get to watch my movies, that will be fine. No bullshit, no problems by me.

Be right back now, cleaning my VCR heads.

What Allen Hunter said, minus cleaning VCR heads or willfully preserving a bunch of VHSes from my childhood--most of them have been trashed or reused for something else...except those videos of Mr. Wizard's World and 3-2-1 Contact, I believe. You can now get pretty much anything else via DVDs or torrenting. I think the sole exception is the old Saban dub of Gatchaman known as Eagle Riders--haven't been able to find that either way.

Back on topic though:

Quote (Allen Hunter)

HD movies look GREAT, but that's it.

Sums up my opinion on HD movies, 1080p, Blu-ray discs, and the like.

Not to mention that I am not a frequent consumer of movies and TV shows. My parents and I occasionally get DVDs for awesome classics (recently bought a copy of Lawrence of Arabia) or other things we really like (such as animé series that I get into at the rate of maybe five per year, less if I'm busy).

And on top of that, probably because
(1) I'm nearsighted,
(2) I've grown up on pixelated games, and haven't really gotten into genres where resolution is key (for example, I've only barely gotten into my first FPS game, that being TF2), and
(3) I've never had particularly high-res TVs or monitors at home anyway,
...I've never been a big fan or consumer of very-high-res graphics.

Notably, the thing with Blu-ray discs is that you not only need a compatible player--of which the first were five-hundred-ninety-nine-yoo-ess-dollars game consoles (though that number has since gone much lower of course)--but you also need a screen capable of displaying higher-res graphics, in order to appreciate their increased visual quality. This suggests to me that this is going to be the realm of higher-end, wealthier consumers, while the rest of us are going to continue buying DVDs that we can play in nearly any optical drive these days.

The main advantage I see to Blu-ray discs is not their offering higher-res visuals, but their offering craptons more space for me to store my crap. However, I don't think there exist Blu-ray-R (for lack of a better name) devices yet; please correct me if I'm wrong about this.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Quote (Allen Hunter)

Just because something is old doesn't mean it's inferior (if that was the case then why are people still listening to records?).

Comparing CDs to vinyl and VHS to DVD or Blu-Ray isn't exactly apples-to-apples, if you ask me. Vinyl doesn't really lack the fidelity of a digital disc, it's more along the lines of being a different kind of fidelity. You can't really say the same for a properly mastered VHS movie versus one on digital media. There are specific and clear losses in VHS cassettes, such as that the majority of them fall back on pan-and-scan for things originally shot in widescreen, and that at most they have flat stereo sound. In very old programs, you might not be able to get those things back even on a digital disc, sure, but it's a rule of thumb that you're going to get something truer to the original theatrical experience on a digital disc than you would an analogue tape.

Quote (Allen Hunter)

I will only get a Blu-ray player once their prices go down so I can store more content on recordable blank discs. Piracy is the norm today and no one has money, so why not take advantage of Blu-ray?

Excellent justification. Really, with all the money you're saving by pirating everything, you should be able to afford Bluray now.

Quote (GMH)

Quote (Allen Hunter)

HD movies look GREAT, but that's it.

Sums up my opinion on HD movies, 1080p, Blu-ray discs, and the like.

OK, so, what is it exactly that SD content does better than HD, then? What exactly are they supposed to do besides look great?

Quote (GMH)

And on top of that, probably because
(1) I'm nearsighted,
(2) I've grown up on pixelated games, and haven't really gotten into genres where resolution is key (for example, I've only barely gotten into my first FPS game, that being TF2), and
(3) I've never had particularly high-res TVs or monitors at home anyway,
...I've never been a big fan or consumer of very-high-res graphics.

OK, I'll give you #3. If you don't have anything that supports resolution higher than standard definition, then yes, the quality of HD will be lost on you, but that's a given. However, pretty much any computer monitor you get today will do at least 720p in theory(that's only 1280x720!), and your next TV almost certainly will do the same unless you buy second-hand. As for #1 and #2, though, I'm right there with you. Heck, I've probably been nearsighted for more years, AND I have had more years of being exposed to standard-def content (implied by your reference to "pixelated" games). I'd be curious as to why we would have such similar experiences but yet I have no problem at all consuming HD content almost exclusively.

Quote (GMH)

Notably, the thing with Blu-ray discs is that you not only need a compatible player--of which the first were five-hundred-ninety-nine-yoo-ess-dollars game consoles (though that number has since gone much lower of course)--but you also need a screen capable of displaying higher-res graphics, in order to appreciate their increased visual quality. This suggests to me that this is going to be the realm of higher-end, wealthier consumers, while the rest of us are going to continue buying DVDs that we can play in nearly any optical drive these days.

I think that was true when Bluray was new. I paid less than your number for my player in 2009, and that was actually part of a full surround-sound-in-a-box setup. 5.1 surround, Bluray, iPod, and software to stream Pandora and Netflix for less than the original PS3. Doesn't play games, of course, but that's not the point of this thread. If you want just a BR player, they're not all that much any more. You're right, you do need a HD screen to send them to, but if you're getting a new TV at all, there's virtually zero chance you're getting one that can't do it. Now, if you're buying lots of movies and such, your point does make sense then - the movies themselves still cost quite a bit more if you don't bargain shop. But just for the hardware, it's not nearly as bad as you might think.

Quote (GMH)

The main advantage I see to Blu-ray discs is not their offering higher-res visuals, but their offering craptons more space for me to store my crap. However, I don't think there exist Blu-ray-R (for lack of a better name) devices yet; please correct me if I'm wrong about this.

Not only are they out there, they cost much less than my first CD burning drive that I got in 1999.. Heck, even the media isn't all that bad; I was paying more per disc than that for DVD-DL just a couple years ago. Makes me pretty certain that my next machine will definitely have a BR burner - CoN backups weigh in at about 3.5GB apiece and are run every two weeks, and that adds up.

All in all, I can understand wanting to avoid HD for financial reasons, if that kind of entertainment isn't a priority for how you spend your money. That's respectable to me. I know that if I didn't already have so much stuff, I wouldn't be in the market for any right now for financial reasons myself. But I'm utterly perplexed by the notion that it's somehow worse than technology that is decades old.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Quote

Excellent justification. Really, with all the money you're saving by pirating everything, you should be able to afford Bluray now.

I know you were replying to Allen Hunter here, but I'll reply to this anyway: pirating entertainment isn't exactly "saving" money; for some people it's more so "acquiring stuff you couldn't afford in the first place".

Quote

OK, so, what is it exactly that SD content does better than HD, then? What exactly are they supposed to do besides look great?

Uh, I dunno? Do correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that the advantages are that video content can be shown at higher resolutions due to the increased amount of space. So there's higher resolution and more storage space. Higher res is good for making things look better/sharper, yes, along with (I presume, as I don't have much experience with this) improving the experience of some games that depend on higher-res graphics, such as FPS games. And larger storage space comes into play when you use it to store things other than movies.

Quote

OK, I'll give you #3. If you don't have anything that supports resolution higher than standard definition, then yes, the quality of HD will be lost on you, but that's a given. However, pretty much any computer monitor you get today will do at least 720p in theory(that's only 1280x720!), and your next TV almost certainly will do the same unless you buy second-hand. As for #1 and #2, though, I'm right there with you. Heck, I've probably been nearsighted for more years, AND I have had more years of being exposed to standard-def content (implied by your reference to "pixelated" games). I'd be curious as to why we would have such similar experiences but yet I have no problem at all consuming HD content almost exclusively.

I only cited my nearsightedness because my mom complains about my nearsightedness every time I overlook something in my physical environment that she expected me to notice and do something with.

As for my second and third points, what I mean is that I don't really have much demand for higher-res graphics, between not watching much TV or movies, mostly using only 768-pixel-height laptop screens, and not being much involved in FPS and WRPG games (which are the two genres that come to mind when I try to think about what genres have the greatest demand for higher resolutions).

(My computer is also incapable of running very modern games. I bought Hydrophobia: Prophecy on Steam during the summer sale, and my computer can't run it at full speed even on the lowest settings. So even if I wanted to play higher-end games, I don't have the capability to do so.)

We do have a...probably 32-inch (not exactly sure how big it is) TV at home, which we bought several years ago. I don't use it for much, and we have it mostly because we were forced to get a digital-signal-capable TV. I don't know what it's maximum display resolution is, but it's at least 768 pixels high since I can get that when I plug my laptop into it. I don't think it's an HD screen, though, since HD screens were the craze only a few years after we bought this TV.

By the way, thanks for pointing out a distinction that I hadn't been aware of. I thought that 720p was standard-res, but a quick Wikipedia search tells me that it's actually 576 or 480.

Good to know that blu-ray players are not that expensive anymore (I fully admit I don't follow this stuff at all) and blu-ray burners exist. You're right, though, that I haven't made any forays into this newer technology in part for financial reasons. For now I can still pick up cheap stacks of DVD-Rs during the occasional Office Depot and Staples sales, and my computer and my parents' computers can read and burn DVDs but no farther than that. That said, even if I had more money this isn't the first entertainment item I'd spend it on; I have mostly indie games on my Steam wishlist and the Wii has far more games I'm interested in than the PS3 does.

No, I don't think the newer technology is worse. In fact, I appreciate how it has even higher data density.

That said, I am a bit afraid that it'll obsolete lower-resolution video formats, the way widescreens have fully superseded 4:3 screens such that no one makes 4:3 computer screens anymore and I have to depend on the thankfully-present Windows 7 "fit" feature for wallpapers rather than just cropping everything to 4:3 and telling WinXP to "fill" or whatever it was.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

I was reminded of the lack of necessity of choosing between the formats again just recently, as it turns out - it seems like a great number of new releases are now coming in the aforementioned Combo Packs now, as well as separately.

If you get a movie the week it's released on disc, a lot of the major retailers will give the combo pack for relatively next to nothing, when you consider what you're getting from it. A few weeks ago, I picked up Bridesmaids during release week, and I paid only $20 at Best Buy for a combo pack including the movie on DVD and Bluray, as well as a digital copy that could be downloaded and put into iTunes or just played separately. We've used the DVD already, but not the BR or digital versions, but to have access to all three for just $20 seems like a pretty amazing deal, and it will probably go a long way over time to lowering the Bluray barrier to entry for a lot of people.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?