Any films where you'd rather have the DVD then Blue-Ray?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

If a bluray release is an upscale of the dvd version, then I won't bother wasting cash on the bluray if I already have the dvd version. (Alleged cases of this are Farscape, the first four seasons of the revived Doctor Who, etc ...).

Remember what I just said about upscaling. Don't ever believe anyone who tries to use that word as an excuse that it somehow makes something into HD, because it doesn't work that way. If you are watching a DVD on a high definition set, and there ISN'T a tiny postage stamp sized image in the middle of the screen, then you are already watching something upscaled - even if it looks like the standardest of standard definition DVD. All upscaling means is that the image fills the screen. That's IT.

 

[zakkrusz]

-Any that feel I will travel with, because my laptop only plays DVDs.
-Any Series or movies I buy from Australia or the UK, because I can only watch things from other regions on my computers with DVD players and region-work-around software.

So basically I always look for combo packs since I can play the BDs at home on the BD player and take the DVDs with me if I want. If I can only choose DVD or BD and there is no combo pack I'd usually go with DVD since that will play on everything.

 

[jayceee]

Remember what I just said about upscaling. Don't ever believe anyone who tries to use that word as an excuse that it somehow makes something into HD, because it doesn't work that way. If you are watching a DVD on a high definition set, and there ISN'T a tiny postage stamp sized image in the middle of the screen, then you are already watching something upscaled - even if it looks like the standardest of standard definition DVD. All upscaling means is that the image fills the screen. That's IT.

Even worse is how the upscalers on many bluray players are largely garbage.

The only semi-tolerable upscaling I've seen so far, is connecting the computer to my big screen hd tv and using Media Player Classic with madVR. Not as good as a real native 1080p source, but somewhat better than most built-in upscalers on many bluray players.

 

[bigdaddy]

I have watched things in HD and really the difference difference between VHS and DVD is so much larger than the difference between DVD and BR.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

To turn this topic on its head, I have bought SD material upscaled to Blu-ray. The main reason for that is the whole NTSC-PAL thing, NTSC with its interlaced format is bad enough, but converting it to PAL adds another layer of crap, whether it's the ghosting and low resolution from a standards conversion, or PAL speedup with higher pitched audio or improperly applied pitch correction.

So SD material at the correct 24 fps in progressive form is already a big step up from DVD. Then you have the deeper colour rendition of Blu-ray, and you get practically no visible compression on a decent transfer, as compared to mosquito noise and break-up around fast motion on DVD, so for certain titles, especially animation, SD material upscaled to HD looks fantastic. But I make no excuses that it's suddenly HD because of it.

 

[jayceee]

The few other times I turned down the bluray version in favor of the dvd version, are the following case:

1 - The bluray packaging completely damages the discs that they are unplayable. Severe cases are semi-permanent or permanent warping of the discs due to lousy packaging design.

2 - A multi-season tv show released one or two season(s) on bluray, and discontinued the bluray version for subsequent seasons. Especially also if the particular bluray season sets were also still "sky high" in price at the time (several years ago) compared to the dvd version's price.

For the second case, this is the main reason why I didn't bother with the bluray versions of tv season sets like: 24 (seasons 7 and 8), Burn Notice (season 2), NCIS: LA (season 1), Damages (season 1), Flashpoint (season 1), Lie To Me (season 1), White Collar (season 1), etc ...

 

[JarodRussell]

blu ray, or rather 1080p is clearly the superior format. The video and audio codecs are better. The image resolution is higher. DVD, or VHS duh, is clearly the worse form of presentation.


The only time I choose DVD over blu ray is when some edition isn't available on blu ray. Let's take the TMP Director's Edition as example.



btw, I can't wait for the remastered THE ABYSS blu ray. The original DVD wasn't even anamorphic, holy crap. Hopefully, it will also be the extended Director's Cut.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

For the second case, this is the main reason why I didn't bother with the bluray versions of tv season sets like: 24 (seasons 7 and 8)

Those blu-ray sets cost less than $30 each.

 

[Kemaiku]

Since the vast majority of my collection is DVD, and I don't really want to pay a huge amount of replace all of it, it's staying DVD for the time being.

 

[jayceee]

For the second case, this is the main reason why I didn't bother with the bluray versions of tv season sets like: 24 (seasons 7 and 8)

Those blu-ray sets cost less than $30 each.

This was specific to the time period around 2009-> mid-2011.

When I was interested in 24 several years ago, the blurays were still around $50 or $60 at the time. The dvd sets tumbled to $15 or $20 at around the same time.

At this point, I'm not going to bother buying the bluray versions of 24 seasons 7 and 8. I've seen both seasons two times already. It doesn't have much rewatch value for me at the present time.


Nevertheless, these days current tv show season set blurays tumble to around $20 after a year or so of release (or sometimes earlier during black friday or xmas). No need to wait several years anymore.

 

[jayceee]

To turn this topic on its head, I have bought SD material upscaled to Blu-ray. The main reason for that is the whole NTSC-PAL thing, NTSC with its interlaced format is bad enough, but converting it to PAL adds another layer of crap, whether it's the ghosting and low resolution from a standards conversion, or PAL speedup with higher pitched audio or improperly applied pitch correction.

So SD material at the correct 24 fps in progressive form is already a big step up from DVD. Then you have the deeper colour rendition of Blu-ray, and you get practically no visible compression on a decent transfer, as compared to mosquito noise and break-up around fast motion on DVD, so for certain titles, especially animation, SD material upscaled to HD looks fantastic. But I make no excuses that it's suddenly HD because of it.

Such pal vs. ntsc conversion botch jobs is the main reason why I look for the dvd versions which best reflects the original video (or film) source.

For numerous UK tv shows which were originally done at PAL specifications, I usually avoid the ntsc dvd versions released specifically for the american market. Frequently such American versions, seem to be botched up pal to ntsc conversions. Instead, I order the british pal dvd versions and watch them on my computer connected to the large screen tv via hdmi.

 

[JoeZhang]

Since the vast majority of my collection is DVD, and I don't really want to pay a huge amount of replace all of it, it's staying DVD for the time being.

I've never understood this to be honest? Where does the idea if you start buying blurays you have to replace everything you already own come from?

 

[RoJoHen]

Since the vast majority of my collection is DVD, and I don't really want to pay a huge amount of replace all of it, it's staying DVD for the time being.

I've never understood this to be honest? Where does the idea if you start buying blurays you have to replace everything you already own come from?

Yeah, this makes no sense. Blu-Ray Players will play your DVDs just fine. No need to get rid of them.

 

[jayceee]

Since the vast majority of my collection is DVD, and I don't really want to pay a huge amount of replace all of it, it's staying DVD for the time being.

I've never understood this to be honest? Where does the idea if you start buying blurays you have to replace everything you already own come from?

If I had a large dvd collection back in 2006-2007, initially I would probably be annoyed at the prospect of "replacing" my entire collection again with the bluray (or hd-dvd) versions.

This might not be comprehensible to other people, but I always had an "all or nothing" mentality when it comes to things like this. (It took me a long time to partially get over it).


In my case, I only had around two dozen or so dvds over the entire 2000's decade. Most of them were dvds from the late-1990's or early-2000's, which I hardly ever watched. (Mostly stuff like Star Trek movies, The Matrix, rock concerts, Terminator, Total Recall, etc ...). With many of the bluray versions of the same titles showing up in the $5 or $6 cutout bins, it was a no brainer for me to upgrade these particular dvd titles to the bluray versions. (I paid more for the dvd versions back in the early-2000's, than the bluray versions).

 

[JarodRussell]

I only buy blu rays of films I don't own on DVD.

For Lord of the Rings I'm going to make an exception soon.

 

[Kemaiku]

Since the vast majority of my collection is DVD, and I don't really want to pay a huge amount of replace all of it, it's staying DVD for the time being.

I've never understood this to be honest? Where does the idea if you start buying blurays you have to replace everything you already own come from?

Well it's the impression I got from the pages of people calling DVD dead and implying you should just ditch them all.

So, I buy the player, buy blurays from now on, but keep my existing DVD collection which looks exactly the same on one?

Now I have a half-and-half, one side costing me more for little discernable difference, two players, two collections. I just don't see the point.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

^ People passing judgment on how other people spend their own money is lulzy.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I have the opposite attitude: I gladly replace my DVDs with Blu-Rays (or, nowadays, with iTunes Store-bought HD versions) whenever possible.

 

[Kemaiku]

^ People passing judgment on how other people spend their own money is lulzy.

I know, all I said was I plan to stick with DVD, think I'd said I was planning to burn businesses down by some peoples responces.

 

[RoJoHen]

DVD may not be dead, but it's certainly dying. Stores around here barely even stock DVDs anymore. Best Buy has 4 rows of Blu-Rays and only 1 row of DVDs. If you don't have Blu-Ray, your movie options are extremely limited.

Nobody said you have to ditch your current collection, because they'll work just fine in a Blu-Ray player, but at some point the technology will be obsolete.