Blu-ray is still a loser.
First, I assume every body saw the announcement today from Toshiba that they are raising the white flag and shutting down their HD-DVD format:
Toshiba Quits HD-DVD, Sony’s Blu-Ray Wins
That said, is Blu-Ray really a winner? I am not referring to fact that eventually downloading will take-over (downloading a 10GB HD movie still takes many hours over 1Mbps), but I am referring to fact that the standard DVD format still looks great if you have a DVD player with up-sampling technology.
I am a gamer and have eyes that are very sensitive to resolution, I totally see the difference between standard TV broadcast and HD TV broadcast, that is definitely worth it.
But it is very rare that I see a movie in Blu-Ray (on my PS3) which I think is far superior than a standard DVD with up-sampling (on the same PS3 btw). Only one movie impressed my eyes a bit in Blu-Ray format, and that was Crank. Even then, the difference was not so great to the extent that I would feel bad watching the standard DVD version with up-sampling.
What up-sampling does is increase the standard DVD resolution from 720×480 (NTSC) to the true HDTV resolution of 1920×1080p (note that smaller HDTVs run at 1920×1080i which “fakes” the 1080 by interlacing the odd and even lines). So the up-sampling is effectively expanding every 1×1 pixel from the original DVD resolution to roughly 2.67×2.25 pixels in the HDTV resolution by interpolating the possible values between the original 1×1 pixels. For a stationary photo the eye might notice the degraded picture and aliasing jaggies after this process, but for a moving picture it is very hard for the eyes to catch that.
In summary, don’t run out and buy a blu-ray disk player (unless you need a PS3 
), getting a normal DVD player with up-sampling is just as good and you will have more choices at Netflix/Blockbuster.
– amr
Best upscaling DVD players: OPPO 981 (HDMI) and 971
Comment by Ya-Bing — February 21, 2008 @ 9:29 amAAA:
Where do you think Google’s market cap will go in the next two years? Do you see them dropping to $80 billion?
Comment by Debbie Booze — February 22, 2008 @ 8:51 amyou sir, are a crazy man. regular dvd (even upscaled) looks terrible next to high def. upscaled dvds make my eyes bleed and i die a little inside when i watch them on my HD set. blu-ray and hd-dvds (*cough cough* i own both *cough*) give me a happy warm feeling when i view movies in all their glorious, glorious splendificality.
on new years day my friends and I had a movie marathon during which we watched all four lethal weapon movies. the only one we were unable to get in HD format was lethal weapon 3. when we put that third movie on, two of my friends broke down in tears and another one screamed and jumped out the window to his death.
in summarry, hd rules.
Comment by jake — February 25, 2008 @ 8:50 pmerr… that was supposed to be “in summary”. meh, close enough.
Comment by jake — February 25, 2008 @ 8:51 pm@Jake, A Lethal Weapon marathon? Oh I get it, being New Years’ all the dentist offices were closed so you couldn’t get a root canal.
Your pomposity about regular DVD vs HD DVD is only outmatched by your cinematic tastes. Now if you said it was a Die Hard marathon it would almost be understandable.
Comment by sjgmoney — February 26, 2008 @ 6:22 ami actually wanted to do a die hard marathon instead, and was overruled by my buddies. maybe i need new friends. i own the “die hard collection” on blu-ray, and you can pry it from my cold dead fingers. in my opinion, it is a better set of films.
that said, the lethal weapon movies totally rock. perhaps you are unaware that the original lethal weapon came out a year before the first die hard? if you don’t think john mctiernan is a huge richard donner fan, you need to go back and do some homework.
or maybe you’re just getting too old for this &#%*…
-jake “your diplomatic immunity has just been revoked” r
Comment by jake — February 26, 2008 @ 10:05 pm“in summarry, hd rules.”
Pretty much but even HD has its occasional warts.
Comment by Barb — March 13, 2008 @ 7:07 pm