To Blue ray or not

Posted by: Jonathan Gorse on 23 February 2009

Well, my existing Harman Kardon DVD player has become so recalcitrant that I am now forced into an orgy of cleaning and scrubbing every disc to get it to play at all so I have spent the past day or two investigating a new player.

I find myself struggling to justify going Blue ray at this time because I use an Infocus Screenplay 5700 projector which is superb on standard DVD and I have a large - circa 400 titles standard DVD collection many of which are simply not available on blue ray.

The cost of discs is so widely different that even if I can get the titles I want (which I frequently can't) I simply cannot justify the price premium. An example of the most recent discs I have purchased is instructive:

The Champions ITC series boxed set (am I the only one who is now in love with Alexandra Bastedo!)
Swallows and Amazons
The Survivors original TV series boxed set
OMD Architecture and Morality live
The Norman J Warren collection

Not one of these is available on Blue Ray. So I have ended up going for the recently discontinued Arcam DV135 which I'm sure doesn't even come close to a Naim DVD5 but I'm sure will be better than the Harman by some margin.

My point is this - the way I see it, if people like us (who are by definition interested in maximum quality) aren't upgrading to Blue Ray en masse then I'm not sure Blue Ray's position in the market is assured even now.

This saddens me, because I find myself supportive of any technology which should fundamentally improve quality, yet I'm not sure the economics of it stack up yet. Maybe Naim are right not to have produced a Blue Ray player just yet - thoughts?

Jonathan

Posted on: 23 February 2009 by SC
Jonathan - I believe BD is here to stay. The format war is now history and I just cannot see the industry coming up with another format and starting all over again after this amount of time and money invested...

From what I have seen of BD, when done right, it looks stunning, and actually, the biggest gains are in audio, a huge difference over standard Dolby and DTS...Hence my big gripe with the current status of the AV2....

Naim right not to produce a BDP yet...? Hmmm....Really not sure about that. History repeating itself ? How long was the DVD5 in coming, and how much did it cost when it did ? And by that point, it was already looking long in the tooth spec wise....Scaler anybody ? Yes, it was and still is quality, but.......

I'm really not sure I buy the argument of waiting for a format to bed down....Sure, something brand new, lets let it sort itself out (BD v1.1 vs 2), but once it's pretty clear it's here to stay, I'd say it's wiser to get onboard sooner rather than later.....

I now have a 50" Pioneer plasma, just itching for the right BDP and processor....I would love this to be Naim, I really would, but I, and others, have a real feeling Naim's priorities are far away from AV these days.......

Steve.
Posted on: 23 February 2009 by Jonathan Gorse
SC,

I take your point about the quality - I too have been bowled over by Hi-def when I have seen it and I'm certain you're right that Blue ray is the established standard for high definition. I'm not sure it's going to supplant SD though.

I think part of the problem is that I would need to replace the player, the projector and the av amp to get any benefit from BD and the results offered by the resulting system would be worse than my existing one when playing my existing DVD's (scaling).

It's not an easy sell is it? That's where the PS3 scores - it's cheap and it gets you into BD with added benefits of all the games so I could be tempted by one of those!

Jonathan
Posted on: 24 February 2009 by SC
True...

It will take some time and won't happen over night....I guess it's like VHS to DVD all over....

But the industry will force it, then everyone has to follow.....

I remember Apple stopping floppy disc-drives on their computers...Everyone was up in arms...But it forced everyone to finally go without them....Same with USB....They are now doing the same with their display connector....Sometimes, someone has to play a merry tune at the head of the line..... Winker
Posted on: 24 February 2009 by Occean
I have also taken the PS3 Bluray route. Amazing piece of kit. Once my Bluray collection get's large enough (currently a massive 4!) I will upgrade to an appropriate bluray player with onboard decoding to feed my AV2.

While there are good audio benefits to be had (and I would not say no too!) *I believe* the difference is much less than the HD video improvement (isn't it something like 80% of your brain for video and 20% for sound when watching a movie)

Personally if movies you want to buy are on Bluray, maybe you should invest now as in the future you may regret it. And I personally am not going to re-buy my back catalog (with a few exceptions LOTR and Starwars!)
Posted on: 24 February 2009 by pjl
Jonathan,

I am in a similar position to you in that I have a fairly large collection of DVD's and a Screenplay projector. When I sold my DVD5/AV2 (another story!) I had to make the decision as to whether to buy a Blue Ray player or not. In fact it was fairly simple for me. Being a particular fan of older film and TV material (eg. 60's and 70's films, Avengers, Sweeney TV etc.) I already have most of the stuff I want on DVD. I probably buy no more than one or two recent films a year, as I have little interest in these. I would not consider replacing my existing collection with Blue Ray discs, even if all the material eventually becomes available. So I stuck with standard DVD and bought an excellent Pioneer player. If I were more interested in current cinema then I would have gone Blue Ray, no question. Having said this, I do question the position of Blue Ray in the market. I have a sneaking suspicion that it may simply continue to exist alongside standard DVD as a minority format rather than replacing it, in the same way as SACD does with CD. One also has to ask how far are we away from hard disc storage of movies, or indeed solid state storage? Obviously the disc manufacturers/distributers want us all to jump on the Blue Ray bandwagon, and replace all our existing collection. As we did with the change from VHS to DVD. I seriously doubt if the public will swallow another format change so quickly and readily.

Peter
Posted on: 24 February 2009 by Jonathan Gorse
Peter,

Your tastes in movies and TV sound very similar to my own and you have evidently come to the same conclusion. Have you incidentally explored the excellent britmovie forum?

It's superb and apart from enthusiasts of British cinema and TV there are quite a few actors/producers etc drop in from time to time.

I feel the future may well prove to be streamed video on demand and I'd like to think that this may enable much of the material that is currently unavailable on any format to one day be available via download simply because the distribution costs should be so much lower.

Jonathan
Posted on: 24 February 2009 by Adam Meredith
Just removed your active link but will be over there myself.

I find British cinema badly supported in the mainstream so there may be much of interest.
Posted on: 24 February 2009 by pjl
Jonathan,

Yes, the Britmovie forum is excellent. I absolutely love old British films from the 50's, 60's and 70's in particular. Watched "The Sound Barrier" again the other day. "The League of Gentlemen" is also a favourite of mine. Just working my way through "The British Comedy" box set and have got "Strongroom" (been waiting for ages for this one) on order. I have had the "Norman J Warren" collection for ages - brilliant!

Peter
Posted on: 24 February 2009 by Stuart M
quote:
Infocus Screenplay 5700

This does not support HD, I used to have one of these and loved it till it's power supply failed Frown

Ive now an Infocus IN82 which is great on all my sources.

Until you get a 1080p projector it's probably not worth investing in blue ray unless you want to purchase disks now to use in the future.
Posted on: 24 February 2009 by PJT
Jonathan, why do you fell you **HAVE** to replace your projector and DVD's???
All Blu Rays should upscale DVD's, so you can keep your DVD's for when you do get a HiDef monitor.
And as for the projector - have you seen the difference a HiDef source makes? My SD Runco gives a fantastic picture when fed HiDef. So much that the HiDef freeview is way superior to DVD.

Try a BluRay at home - you may be very pleasantly surprised.
Posted on: 25 February 2009 by Jonathan Gorse
Adam,

You're so right about british film being so badly supported by the mainstream - I find myself hiring and buying so much more 1960's and 1970's British material because it has so much more depth than much modern material. The lates Bond was a case in point I fear - it relied on action scene after action scene and where the heck was the plot? Where were the great adversaries for Bond? I saw nobody with the gravitas of say Curt Jurgens, Christopher Lee, Donald Pleasance etc.

I think you will find much to enjoy at Britmovie and a great deal of informed discussion from some truly knowledgeable people. It has certainly pushed me to discover a wealth of wonderful films.

(I have just ordered the ultimate Hammer 21 disc box-set to keep me in late night viewing after the wife has gone to bed for a while!)

Best,

Jonathan
Posted on: 25 February 2009 by pjl
Jonathan,

If you enjoy the Hammer films you may like to investigate the Amicus box set if you don't already have it. On the whole I personally prefer Amicus over Hammer as the films tend to have more contemporary rather than gothic settings, which I find makes them more unsettling. Many of the personnel, actors, directors etc. are of course the same. Two of my favourite Hammers, "Dracula AD1972" and "The Satanic Rites of Dracula" are sadly not in the box set you mention. Anyway, I'm sure it will give you hours of fun! Apologies Adam for turning this into a film discussion thread. I promise I'll stop now!

Peter
Posted on: 25 February 2009 by Jonathan Gorse
Peter,

Many thanks for the tip - Amicus sounds just the sort of thing I like although I'm struggling to find it in stock at a sensible price - £149 for 5 discs from Amazon!

Brg,

Jonathan
Posted on: 25 February 2009 by Flame
Buy bluray Smile
Posted on: 28 February 2009 by Symonds14
SC,
If yopu are still looking, the two Pioneer BD Cinema systems are now available. I will be ordering the LX01 or LX08 BD Cinema system soon (birthday pressie to self). I too have a 50" Pioneer KLP500A plasma which is stuning in itself.
Carl