[Screwston]

Does anyone else watch blu ray movies? I bought a PS3 a few years ago but barely started buying them last year. The picture and audio quality is a lot better and smoother than regular dvd's. I'm surprised nobody really is crazy about them like me, especially people that have a huge movie collection. It's like comparing tapes and cd's.

This clip kind of gives you an idea, but you need to check one out on a flat screen with a hdmi cable and surround sound hooked up.

[w00t]

Yeah i love blu rays. Unfortunately they dont seem that popular.

I always rent them from my video store but they have only a tiny little blu ray section. They basically only get the new ones on blu ray and all the classics are dvd only. I never buy since i hardly ever watch a movie more than once.

[speakeasy]

Physical media is on the way out. Just as it is with music. We will just have movies on netflix which we stream or we will buy them digitally and stream them over the cloud server.

[PhilE]

Streaming blu ray quality has not been achieved yet. Dvd yea.... Blu ray no

[Screwston]

This is a good movie to get if you want to see the power of Blu Ray. You have to stick with movies that have good action and visuals. There's no point in spending more on dramas or comedies.

This BBC documentary is another one that looks pretty crazy.

[w00t]

I think you need to watch them on a bigass TV too. On my computer i cant tell too much of a difference. But on my bigass HD TV its a world of a difference.

My first bluray was Tropical Thunder and the quality blew me away. The fly over the vietnamese jungle and you can see every single leaf.

Blade Runner is also great for a movie thats about 30 years old, they did an amazing job reworking those old masters.

For older movies its hit and miss and depending on the master tapes they used. I bought the Bruce lee collection and the quality is total shit, its like watching a DVD. Apparently they used some real cheap master tapes back then and its impossible to squeeze more quality out of it.

[mental]

I watch Blu-Ray movies by connecting my pc to tv with a hdmi cable and then playing them from my pc. That way I don't have to buy the player.

[fkexpat]

Blu-Rays sadly are on the way out. High definition streaming is currently moving in. That's evident in the high definition displays that have been the focal point of the new versions of the iPad, Galaxy Tab, etc... Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon Streaming all offer high definition streaming, not to mention On-Demand services through Cable and Satellite.

[whosyourdaddy]

I've been watching Blu-Rays since they first came out. The sound quality is also MUCH better. But then again, I'm an audiophile/home theater buff- well used to be, I started to realize how expensive it is.

Blu-rays used to be much more expensive, like $30. Now they're cheap enough to buy.

Tips:

1. Oppo Blu-Ray player is one of the best out there. It also upscales your DVD's to low HD quality, but yes blu-rays are still much better.
2. Get a decent pair of speakers, preferably with a real stereo ampifier. Ascend Acoustics makes a great speaker for like only $348 a pair. They're good speakers. Of course, i can make recs for more expensive ones.
3. I think it'll be awhile before blu-rays stream. You'd need a T1 to be able to stream a blu-ray, plus i doubt you'd be able to get the full audio quality. Maybe in 7-10 years.

[SVK]

You can find tons of 1080p videos on YouTube and it's been there for a while (look at this video, make sure 1080p is set). Although it is true that the compression is much higher so there will be some loss of quality, if done right this is extremely hard to see in 1920x1080 resolution. Also, you can download full BluRay rips from the bittorrent sites. The full rips can be very big (sometimes tens of gigabytes, especially if it is 3D as well), but with a decent connection and good seed ratio you can download them in a matter of hours. I personally think it's unnecessary to download the full rips and prefer the re-packed, much smaller files around 1-4 GB. Shitload of stuff available, pretty much any BluRay that has ever been released. Even if the movie is only 720p and size under a gigabyte it will look much better than a DVD and will be downloaded in a few minutes. You can use a seedbox or bittorrent proxy to get around the copyright laws.
Also Netflix has most of their stuff in 720p and it looks pretty good (like HDTV or better). You have to have a somewhat decent connection though (stable 4Mbps or so) otherwise it will revert to lower quality.

(09-05-2012 11:35 AM)whosyourdaddy Wrote:  

I think it'll be awhile before blu-rays stream. You'd need a T1 to be able to stream a blu-ray, plus i doubt you'd be able to get the full audio quality. Maybe in 7-10 years.

I give it 1 year tops before Netflix starts streaming in full 1080p. Not BluRay per se, since the codecs used for streaming are always improving and are much more efficient (lower bitrate), but for a regular mortal the difference will be indistinguishable. 7-10 years is a VERY long time in computer technology/electronics. BluRay quality will be probably superseded by something better by then AND it will be streamed. 3D will be standard.

BluRay came kind of late to the game, physical media has been dying for a while now.

[Screwston]

I'm not impressed by the quality of streaming Netflix. It gets the job done but I've been spoiled by Blu Ray's.

[Screwston]

Fuck, this movie looks so good on Blu Ray. I wanna get Chronos on Blu Ray now. I don't even have a real nice tv, 40 inch Toshiba lcd that I got on sale a few years ago.

[Cr33pin]

I like Blu rays and have about 40 of them.... I dont buy them like I used to anymore tho. Only when I find some classics for 7 bucks at wal mart or something. I downloaded my first movie to own on xbox a few weeks ago (django unchained) I think that may be the future of buying movies.

[TheKantian]

1080 or bust. Some 720s are good though, but with others you can easily tell the difference between 720 and 1080.

[Screwston]

Over 800 blu rays for under $10


http://www.amazon.com/s.html/?_encoding=...slotter-20

[Parlay44]

Blu-ray is dead. Keeper movies I download h.264 720p or 1080p rips from Bittorrent.
I use XBMC to stream them from my pc to my TV via AppleTV. There's also a bunch of
add-ons for XBMC that neatly organize all the websites that stream media. You can watch
newly aired TV shows online usually 20 minutes after they've aired.

The new thing is 4k TVs and Blu-rays. 4000 lines of video instead of 1080. It's cool but
I don't see it lasting either. Streaming will wipe it out eventually.

[RexImperator]

Yeah I just saw a Samsung 4K TV in Best buy the other day. Impressive. If the displays are exceeding the media quality then the media's days are numbered. On the other hand, as the price comes down it will still be around for a while. A lot of people still watch DVDs or poor quality streaming video.

As with music after .mp3s/iPods took off, the convenience factor (i.e. portability, streaming, on-demand) has trumped the quality factor.