Blue Ray or High-Def

[guado]

Blu-ray is the way to go.

If your looking for a player, you might want to consider a PS3 for one. I believe it is still one of the cheapest players on the market and it is one the best you can buy. Plus you can always play some games on it!

Yes but a Stand alone blu-ray is soo much better.

[Mizicke5273]

Not really. The PS3 is one of the best on the market. Only a couple are just as good or a little bit better. Most anything in the same price range isnt as good as and doesent support 1080P.

[spiffykyle]

If you have to go with a Blu-Ray player, I second the PS3.

However I'm not going either way right now. Soon enough the players will go dual format and then drop in price.

Eventually people won't even remember this format war. A lot of home entertainment systems have some type of computer involved (I have an old PC with MCE on it). Soon there won't be a need for a wall of movies in your house, just an inconspicuously placed computer. High definition movies will be downloaded and stored. Soon enough the technology will be here to allow for a high def movie to be compressed, without quality loss, into a manageable size. The high demand already for online movies is driving a push for higher bandwidth to the home. Give it a year or two and it won't matter what kind of player you have.

I currently use Netflix and their "instant view" feature is great, mostly for TV series. Give it time and you'll be able to get full on 1080p content over the internet.

My $0.02

spiffy

[ralford]

Haven't jumped on the hd/br wagon yet. Gernerally, the deciding factor is when and what is finally available in the rental market. I think Blockbuster (big around here) has decided to support blue-ray. Should also check NetFlix, now that I think of it.

Cheers -

Rusty

[Mizicke5273]

Netflix offers both formats where available. If a movie happens to be on both formats they offer all 3 then, including DVD.

[Mizicke5273]

If you have to go with a Blu-Ray player, I second the PS3.

However I'm not going either way right now. Soon enough the players will go dual format and then drop in price.

Eventually people won't even remember this format war. A lot of home entertainment systems have some type of computer involved (I have an old PC with MCE on it). Soon there won't be a need for a wall of movies in your house, just an inconspicuously placed computer. High definition movies will be downloaded and stored. Soon enough the technology will be here to allow for a high def movie to be compressed, without quality loss, into a manageable size. The high demand already for online movies is driving a push for higher bandwidth to the home. Give it a year or two and it won't matter what kind of player you have.

I currently use Netflix and their "instant view" feature is great, mostly for TV series. Give it time and you'll be able to get full on 1080p content over the internet.

My $0.02

spiffy

Actually you can get a compressed HiDef movie with barely any loss in video quality using the h.264 codec packed in an MKV container. Although you might get a loss of audio quality though. This is all in an 8 GB file, so its pretty good right now.

I have most of my media stored on my server which currently totals around 2TB of data. Im in the process of switching around some of my PCs to hook up one to my TV, so I can start to stream video over to it.

And I have netflix for all my sd movies.

[cigar no baka]

If you have to go with a Blu-Ray player, I second the PS3.

However I'm not going either way right now. Soon enough the players will go dual format and then drop in price.

Eventually people won't even remember this format war. A lot of home entertainment systems have some type of computer involved (I have an old PC with MCE on it). Soon there won't be a need for a wall of movies in your house, just an inconspicuously placed computer. High definition movies will be downloaded and stored. Soon enough the technology will be here to allow for a high def movie to be compressed, without quality loss, into a manageable size. The high demand already for online movies is driving a push for higher bandwidth to the home. Give it a year or two and it won't matter what kind of player you have.

I currently use Netflix and their "instant view" feature is great, mostly for TV series. Give it time and you'll be able to get full on 1080p content over the internet.

My $0.02

spiffy

I also have Netflix and I love it. Never done instant downloads as I won't watch movies at my PC, but damn they sure ship fast. 90% of the time, i ship my DVD's back today ,and 48 hours later I have the next ones on my list in my mailbox.

Ken - I have to echo what most if not all of the others are saying. Its' pretty clear that HD DVD has lost the war, and Blue Ray will be the winner from everything I am reading. I've been following pretty closely the ongoing war as i want to stay out and not buy until one format wins.

[Kenyth]

Blu-Ray is a bit better in the storage capacity sense, but soon all players will support both formats. Kind of like DVD-R, DVD+R, DVDxR, DVD/R, DVD to the third power of R, etc.

How many people know and truly care about all the differrent DVD formats? Not many! They all work, and 99.9% of modern players/burners are compatible with all the different formats and auto detect them, so it's a moot point. It's completely invisible to the end user, except for the letters on the blank media.

I'm just waiting for the first affordable non-copyright protection enabled BR burner to come out along with 100mbit home connections, so we can hear a whole new generation of wailing and teeth gnashing from content providers about piracy.

[Mizicke5273]

Youll be waiting a few years for 100mbit connections to your house. Although it can easily be done with fiber today, just not the need for it by most people. I could definitely use it but the majority wouldnt need/want it. Now on the other hand OC 768 is something worth waiting for though. Do a Google search on "optical carrier" and youll know why.

[Smoked!]

Youll be waiting a few years for 100mbit connections to your house. Although it can easily be done with fiber today, just not the need for it by most people. I could definitely use it but the majority wouldnt need/want it. Now on the other hand OC 768 is something worth waiting for though. Do a Google search on "optical carrier" and youll know why.

This is a useful thread. Good content. I'm often at least one generation behind when it comes to upgrading home or personal technology. No surprise there. How do these formats stack up on a price/value matrix?


So, Mizickie, is this what you're referring to with optical carriers? How do you process that much data?

Each channel is 51.85 Mbps. An OC-3, for example, has 3 channels adding up to 155.52 Mbps. Currently, Cisco CRS-1 System features OC-768 line cards. These cards are priced at $2,000,000 USD each.