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

[CorporalCaptain]

Yeah, I'll probably get rid of my DVD's when I have to get rid of my VHS tapes and LP's. Which will mean that the executor of my will will take care of it. Or, I'll have a Media Purge Weekend, or MP3, if you see what I did there.

Relatively speaking, the most obsolete media that I own are my 5 1/4" floppy disks, followed by my audio cassettes, and then the 3 1/2" "floppies" I suppose. For anything else, given that they are holding up, and that new equipment can still read and play/use them, obsolete isn't a word that describes them.

 

[RoJoHen]

If you still have a functioning VHS player and don't mind the horrible quality of VHS tapes, fine. If you still have a DVD player and want to watch your DVDs, fine. Nobody is saying to get rid of the stuff.

I switched to Blu-Ray 5 years ago because I had neither a functioning VHS player or a functioning DVD player, and it seemed like the thing to do.

The future of media is going to be streaming and cloud storage anyway, so all this arguing over discs is just silly. Even with my Blu-Ray player, 99% of the stuff I watch is on Netflix Instant Streaming.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It's also a question of content availability. Certain tapes, etc. are quite literally irreplaceable. Rest assured, it will all degrade in time....

 

[MacLeod]

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.

Why do you need two players?, a Blu-ray player will play DVD's just fine. The only reason to possible have a seperate DVD player is if it's region free and you have some non local region discs.

 

[RoJoHen]

I think the point he's making is that his DVD player still works, so he doesn't see the need to spend money on a Blu-Ray player.

 

[jayceee]

I switched to Blu-Ray 5 years ago because I had neither a functioning VHS player or a functioning DVD player, and it seemed like the thing to do.

The main reason I moved on to bluray several years ago, was due to my old dvd player dying one day.

At the store I noticed the bluray players on the shelves (next to the dvd players) were less than $100, and that many movies I was interested in were already showing up in the $5 bluray cutout bins. Stuff like Total Recall, Terminator, Fifth Element, Rambo, Cobra, Rocky, James Bond, etc ...

 

[RoJoHen]

Yeah, Blu-Ray is now just as affordable as DVD was. Sometimes cheaper.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I think the point he's making is that his DVD player still works, so he doesn't see the need to spend money on a Blu-Ray player.

That's not what I said.

 

[RoJoHen]

Nor were you the one being quoted.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

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.

Why do you need two players?, a Blu-ray player will play DVD's just fine. The only reason to possible have a seperate DVD player is if it's region free and you have some non local region discs.

What do you do if you have two TV's? Am I allowed to keep my DVD player for my shittier TV until it dies, or do I have to buy Blu-rays all around?

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Yes, you must be upgraded.

It's also a question of content availability. Certain tapes, etc. are quite literally irreplaceable. Rest assured, it will all degrade in time....

Aside from the "feel" of the sound of vinyl, you could rip your records & tapes with the proper connection to your computer.

I've done both via an I/O bay that came with my sound card.

 

[jayceee]

Yeah, Blu-Ray is now just as affordable as DVD was. Sometimes cheaper.

Definitely

Overall though, I still purchased a lot more dvds than blurays over the years. Even starting from a relatively clean slate. (I only had around two dozen or so dvds over most of the 2000's decade).

This is largely due to most of my collection consisting of tv show season sets and numerous movies and cartoons which will most likely never see a bluray version in the near future.

The only way I would double dip on a tv season set from the 1970's or 1980's, is if there is an extensive restoration done on the episodes. (This usually means scanning in the original film at a higher resolution and editing together the episodes again, along with redoing the special effects. For example, similar to what was done for the Star Trek TOS and TNG blurays). In contrast, a simple upscale of the sd versions of the episodes would be a complete total waste of time and money.

At the present time, my "holy grail" bluray catalog release would be an extensive restoration of the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica season set. (Awhile ago they released on bluray the movie version of the first three episodes edited together).

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

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.

There are so many better ways to experience film
http://www.in70mm.com/
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingts1.htm
http://www.toddao.com/
http://www.straight8.net/

 

[jayceee]

In spite of the questionable rewatch value of numerous tv show season sets, so far I have only double dipped on:

- Firefly
- Stargate Universe (season 1)
- first few seasons of Fringe

In the case of Firefly, I found the bluray set for around $11. It's one of the few tv shows that has a lot of rewatch value for me. (I paid more for the dvd season set a few years earlier).

I liked the first season of Stargate Universe. I've watch it several times already. At around $18, the bluray version was an instant impulse buy for me. (Another one where I paid more for dvd version several years earlier). If they ever release season 2 on bluray, I would double dip on it too. Though I thought season 2 was somewhat weaker than season 1.

In the case of Fringe, I thought the bluray versions looked a lot better than than the dvd version. Much more vibrant colors and better audio, especially during the faster action scenes. These I picked up as impulse buys for around $15-$16 each about a year ago. (Also ones where I paid more for the dvd versions, several years earlier). Definitely worth the double dip upgrade.


In general for current tv shows, it seems like bluray is popular with sci-fi, fantasy, action and some cable shows. As a big fan of such genres, I thought moving on to bluray was definitely worth the "trouble".

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

^ Is Firefly a true re-master?

 

[Harvey]

The visual effects were rendered in 480p. The rest is 1080p HD.

 

[jayceee]

^ Is Firefly a true re-master?

The live action video footage looks like it's 1080p.

For the special effects, it's not obvious whether it is 1080p or even 720p.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

But if Harvey is correct and the FX were 480p and they haven't been completely redone, they would now be 480p upconverted.

Because the FX wouldn't have been done on film the way (hopefully) the live action stuff was.

So did they remaster the live action footage & keep the original FX or did they upconvert everything?

 

[jayceee]

But if Harvey is correct and the FX were 480p and they haven't been completely redone, they would now be 480p upconverted.

Because the FX wouldn't have been done on film the way (hopefully) the live action stuff was.

So did they remaster the live action footage & keep the original FX or did they upconvert everything?

Hard to say for sure, without doing any direct dvd vs. bluray comparisons across numerous scenes. As far as I can tell, the scenes which didn't have much special effects, looked like they were 1080p resolution.

One would have to do many more comparisons of the effects heavy scenes, to see whether they are indeed 480p (or 720p).

Though I wouldn't be surprised if the live action footage was done at 1080p, with the lower resolution special effects upscaled independently and overlaid onto the 1080p live footage. (This assumes Joss Whedon actually put in some additional time and effort specifically into the hd version).

 

[Harvey]

I was under the impression that the series was mastered in 1080p, but the visual effects were mastered at 480p to save time and money. So, the Blu-Rays aren't "remastered" in any sense -- they're just what the series originally looked like in HD.

Not 100% sure, though. To be honest, my Firefly Blu-Rays are still in storage, along with most of my other belongings. Perpetually moving sucks.