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Topic: Blue Ray player price differences

Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

Posts: 2738
From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 12-28-2008 06:18 PM

What exactly is the difference between Blue Ray players that is on sale for about $200.00 and one as high as $300.00? Also, will Sony keep changing the Blue Ray specs whenever they want? I recall my brother's player could not play a new BD disc because it was encoded with the latest specs which his machine did not have due to the fact that it was not a current model.. The only way the disc would play was to program the machine with the latest firmware from Sony which he did. If the player will need upgrading with the latest firmware from Sony, will it be safer to buy a Sony player rather than another brand to avoid any hassle upgrading the machine with the latest specs?

-Claude

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 12-28-2008 06:28 PM

I don't know about all brands of Blu-ray players supporting ongoing upgrades, but Samsung and Sony do for sure. I would assume others must have similar upgrade paths. Every BD disc I've bought has included an insert saying "You may need to upgrade your player's firmware in order to access all the features of this disc" or words to that effect. There are also players that are "BD-Live Ready" that require a firmware upgrade to activate that feature.

I believe the pricing is mostly determined by:

Whether the player is a Tier 1 brand like Sony or Samsung or some lower tier brand like say Best Buy's Dynex house brand, or Sylvania, just to name a couple;
Whether it has support for BD-Live (or is at least BD-Live Ready);
Whether it has internal decoding of the more advanced audio codecs like Dolby TrueHD, which some players can't do internally, need an external decoder like an A/V receiver with that decoding built-in.

As far as picture quality, there's probably no real difference between any of them. Bobby and Joe will probably tell me I'm wrong about that though. [Big Grin]

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Paul Mayer
Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under!

Posts: 3836
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: Feb 2000

posted 12-28-2008 09:00 PM

Generally you get more output choices too as the price/features level moves up.

The Panasonic that I was looking at about a month ago was being blown out at Fry's this last week (remaining in-store stock only) for $199. That model didn't have HDMI outputs - only analog component, S-Video, and composite. Same with the audio - decoded analog L/C/R/LS/RS/Sub (no CS) but no digital outs. The next model up in the Pany line provides HDMI and separate digital outs.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 12-29-2008 07:02 AM

That's pretty strange for a BD player to lack HDMI output.

Regarding picture quality, I'm not sure if there is a significant difference between the latest generation of player models. Reviews seem to favor the Panasonic players (the DMP-BD35 and DMP-BD55). The Playstation 3 does a very good job.

Profile 1.0 players (that lack Bonus View or BD Live support) should be completely gone from store shelves soon. I'm kind of surprised they stuck around this long.

If you have a lot of money tied up in a receiver that's just old enough to have missed out on features like HDMI and those next generation surround formats it may be worth it to spend the extra $100 on a BD player featuring internal decoding and multichannel analog output.

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Mike Heenan
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1896
From: Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 12-29-2008 08:43 AM

Even if you upgrade the firmware to the latest specs, it doesn't seem to help on some discs. Like for instance I bought my dad a Sony player (the model # escapes me at the moment) last year, and the new Bond discs don't work in them, so I upgraded the firmware and while it loads faster, the movie won't start.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 12-29-2008 10:16 AM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Profile 1.0 players (that lack Bonus View or BD Live support) should be completely gone from store shelves soon. I'm kind of surprised they stuck around this long.

Dude! Its because Blu Ray isn't selling! Don't even try to fool yourself into thinking it is.

No matter what version you upgrade a version 1 player too it isn't going to decrease boot up nor load times.

Player prices around here are all over the place starting at 199.00 going all the way up to 299.00 for the basic Sony player. Sears had the highest after xmas "on sale price".

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 12-29-2008 10:45 AM

Aren't Blu-ray players selling more than DVD players in Japan already? Why yes, they are!

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 12-29-2008 11:23 AM

Actually Blu-ray recorders are selling better than DVD recorders in Japan. The Japanese are all about optical disc players that record rather than do the read only thing. Either way, it's still very positive news for Blu-ray on that front.

Sales of standalone Blu-ray players saw big gains during the Thanksgiving day week. The players ranked in the top 5 of most sought after items. With marketing data narrowed to HDTV owners, Blu-ray players were the most desired item for Christmas presents.

Let's not leave out The Dark Knight selling 600,000 copies on Blu-ray in its first day of release, beating the previous first day sales record of 260,000 of Iron Man.

Blu-ray is steadily gaining in popularity. Meanwhile, HD-DVD still remains to be a dead format. Internet movie delivery is hardly going anywhere at all either. The bandwidth toll gates being put up by telcos and ISPs are sure to have a chilling effect on that market for quite a while.

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Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

Posts: 2738
From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 12-29-2008 01:20 PM

In actuality, I am very happy with the existing DVD format but what is irritating me the most is the studios lame brain policy in favoring the Blue Ray format with more extra features such as HOW THE WEST WAS WON with the SmileBox version on the HD disc only. Fox will do the same with THE ROBE in March with tons of extra stuff that will not be on the regular DVD. I am usually not interested in extra features on a DVD and because of the lack of time , I do not bother to watch them most of the time but I wanted the extra feature on HTWWW and that was the reason I bought the BD version in addition to the standard version of the MGM western. It is for the same reason, I want the BD version of THE ROBE. Hopefully, I should have a Blue-Ray player in March in time for 1953 classic CinemaScope epic with all of the cool extra features. By the way, I bought and saw THE DUTCHESS on standard DVD last night and it was gorgeous with fantastic photography, music and a great story. The picture quality was almost like film and I kept wondering why I am being forced to stop using my very expensive Denon DVD player that features SACD audio playback and invest yet again in another expensive player like Blue-Ray.

-Claude

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 12-29-2008 01:49 PM

BD players outselling DVD players? Duh! Why would anyone buy a DVD player today? It's obvious that you want to have BD capability if you can. It's just that people who are happy with DVD are not going to leap out and do it. But for people without DVD capability, well,
BD makes a lot of sense. (Yes, it's an extra $150. But still.)

What struck me, in my meager post-Christmas shopping, was that there were quite a lot of titles available in retail stores only in BD. I suppose this is because they had sold out of the SD versions of those titles, and perhaps that is a uniquely post-Christmas phenomena, but it looked to me like BD was getting more and more popular. (On the other hand, I spend very little time in retail stores, so what do I know? [uhoh]

)

--jhawk

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 12-29-2008 02:06 PM

The basic problem facing DVD is that it isn't high definition. That one aspect alone has the DVD format ultimately doomed in the long run.

No one is being forced to give up existing DVD players and DVD movies. Hollywood studios will still keep releasing new movies on both DVD and Blu-ray for at least a few more years. It took DVD until the middle of this decade to cause Hollywood to stop releasing new movies on VHS. DVD to BD will probably have a similar, long term transition.

DVD-only players and DVD/VHS decks will disappear faster since any Blu-ray player can play DVDs. As player prices continue to drop (and they have dropped a lot this year alone) that will allow Blu-ray players to muscle DVD-only devices off of store shelves.

quote: Claude S. Ayakawa
I am very happy with the existing DVD format but what is irritating me the most is the studios lame brain policy in favoring the Blue Ray format with more extra features such as HOW THE WEST WAS WON with the SmileBox version on the HD disc only.

The situation is not one sided. Quite a few Blu-ray movie releases have lacked extras included on the DVD version. Resevoir Dogs is one that comes to mind. The BD is missing a lot of stuff featured on the 15th anniversary DVD and that's largely due to the BD version having a single layer 25GB disc.

For some newer releases, the BD version may offer more extras in part because of the higher price. Certain extras, particularly any Bonus View or BD Live based material isn't designed to work with DVD at all.

I looked at some screen shots of the "smile box" BD based version of How the West Was Won at the DVD Beaver web site. I think viewers would be missing out on a lot of detail and aspects of acting performances by watching that version in the limited resolution of DVD. Not only does the "smile box" version need to be seen in high definition, it needs to be viewed on as large a TV screen as possible.

Other classic films, like The Searchers, play much better on Blu-ray due to the greater number of large master shots and general lack of close ups. The acting performances come through better while they would be blurred on DVD.

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Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

Posts: 2738
From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 12-29-2008 02:42 PM

Yes, I agree that High Defination is the future and DVD will eventually become obsolete like laserdiscs but as long as a lot of people such as myself are happy with the standard format, I think the studios should consider releasing DVDs with the exact content in both standard and high definition. In the case of people like yourself who now have blue ray, you will still be able to buy and play standard DVDs with your player when it include extra program material that are not included in the high definition version. Unless I invest in a blue ray player which I intend to do, I am not be able to play and watch all of the special feature that was included in the blue ray version of HTWWW and will only be included in HD version of THE ROBE with my existing standard DVD player. yes, it is indeed one sided in favor of people with blue ray players

-Claude

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 12-29-2008 03:29 PM

Movie studios have to make some tough decisions specifically on a title by title basis when it comes to deciding what extras will be included on the Blu-ray version and what will be offered on the DVD. It's not very simple to make both versions identical.

Some of the extras from a Blu-ray version of a movie may not even work at all with DVD. Picture in picture commentaries, certain in movie menu functions and certain kinds of scripting and branching methods cannot be duplicated on DVD.

The limited disc capacity of DVD is another problem. The extras from one Blu-ray dropped down to SD quality video may still require a package of 2 or more discs. The studio ends up having to charge more for that version and then typically still release a single disc DVD version as well. Not every title is worth that complication and expense.

How many people will watch the extras on a DVD version of a movie versus people who have the Blu-ray version? Many casual movie viewers who are satisfied with DVD may not give a hoot about extras. Blu-ray is doing more to appeal to the enthusiast crowd. DVD releases are also stuck is a serious deflationary price spiral. You don't have to wait long at all for a DVD release to get really cheap. It's nice for the consumer, but it isn't great for a studio's profit margin.

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Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

Posts: 2738
From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 12-29-2008 04:07 PM

All of the special features found on the single disc edition of BARAKA was ported over to the standard DVD. So that the regular DVD has the best picture quality,
the movie itself was on one disc and the special features was on a 2nd disc. Because they did this, the price difference was just about the same for both versions. I had no problem with this when I purchased both versions. I wanted to watch it right away and that is the reason I got the standard version and not wanting to take the chance of it's availability when I get blue ray, I decided to get the BD at the same time.

Yes, I understand that there are certain exclusive features of blue ray that cannot be included in the standard version and I can easily get by without them. I was only referring to program material I want that was going to be exclusive to the BD version only. Yes, I want the best picture quality possible on my DVD and if it will require an extra disc and a higher price to get the same program content on the standard version , most people like myself will be happy to pay it.

-Claude

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 01-08-2009 10:01 AM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Quite a few Blu-ray movie releases have lacked extras included on the DVD version.

Well of course! That way in a year or two, the studio can come out with a "special edition Blu-Ray" that has all those features, for a few dollars extra of course.

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