Blu-Ray

[Razor X]

I just bought a Blu-Ray player with some of my Christmas money.  The picture is phenomenal; I don't think I'll ever watch a regular DVD again.   

For those of you who have Blu-Rays, do you have to update your firmware often, or is it just something that needs to be done to take advantage of some of the interactive features.  I don't care about the interactive features very much; I just want to enjoy movies with the best possible picture quality. I don't have an internet connection in my living room where the player is, so I'll have to do it with a USB flash drive when it needs updating.

I'm also wondering why some of the movies are still in a letterbox format.  I just finished watching The Dark Knight -- some scenes were letterboxed and others took up the full screen.  I thought letterboxing was only used to fit a rectangular picture onto a non-HD television screen.  Does anyone know about this?

[warhawk]

hey razor:  glad that U R enjoying your blu-ray.  i'm doing my BEST not 2 purchase one because i have so many dvds.  do U really think its worth it?  blu-ray movies R very expensive compared 2 the dvds.  i'm sure i'll eventually buy one but 4 now...i'll stick with my dvds.

WARHAWK

[D.A.L.U.I.]

What brand did you get, I got a Sony last Christmas--it is incredible.  I had one problem recently the trailers for coming movies played fine, but no movie, the whole screen w/ play, features etc. was missing.  I assumed it was a bad disk, but it turns out that sometimes a glitch will show up, then all you do is disconnect the power and reconnect and it reprograms. 

GREAT picture, and it has improved the plain jane DVD performance too.  This is a real gut buster because it's so easy just to slip in another movie and skip the gym, particularly on weekends .
Now another thought entered my twisted mind, could it keep a guy from shaving???  We'll have to watch out for that.

[andrew]

hey razor:  glad that U R enjoying your blu-ray.  i'm doing my BEST not 2 purchase one because i have so many dvds.  do U really think its worth it?  blu-ray movies R very expensive compared 2 the dvds.  i'm sure i'll eventually buy one but 4 now...i'll stick with my dvds.

WARHAWK

Warhawk - Many of the blu-ray players will upconvert standard dvds to close-to-blu-ray quality when connected through an HDMI cable. If your TV doesn't have an HDMI port you can use an HDMI-to-DVI cable.

[warhawk]

hey andrew:    ... U R making it difficult on me.  like i said... i'm trying NOT 2 purchase a blu-ray but i know i'll eventually get one (just not right now).  it's just a matter of time.

WARHAWK

[Bensen]

cool razor, i seen a cluy-ray movie some days ago, it's really cool.
thought the stuff is really expensive, i think.

[Razor X]

The prices on the disks are starting to come down.  I bought a couple of movies that were in the $20 to $25 range.  It's a little more expensive than the standard DVDs, but not outrageously so.  I just purchased seasons 6 & 7 of Smallville for about $35 each, which is about what I paid to get them on regular DVDs when they first came out.  I just sold the DVD versions on Amazon so I can use the proceeds to pay for the upgrade to Blu-Ray.

Saintc, I got a Samsung because that's the same brand as my TV.

[andrew]

hey andrew:    ... U R making it difficult on me.  like i said... i'm trying NOT 2 purchase a blu-ray but i know i'll eventually get one (just not right now).  it's just a matter of time.

WARHAWK

Actually I'm with you Warhawk.   I was going to replace our TV and DVD player when we moved into our new house, but bought more furniture instead.   Our 51" rear projection TV is fine for now, but I probably will get a blu-ray player sometime in the next 6 months.

[Razor X]

Actually I'm with you Warhawk.   I was going to replace our TV and DVD player when we moved into our new house, but bought more furniture instead.   

Some people just can't get their priorities straight.   

[Tyler]

Hey Razor, I noticed the same thing about Dark Knight.  It's the only Blu-ray film I noticed that on so far. 

[calbito]

Hi RazorX,  Regarding the letterbox issue, the reason there is still a letterbox frame around some movies is that there are at least 3 versions of widescreen format currently in use.  The most common in the US is American Spherical, which is 1.85:1 (picture is 1.85 times as wide as it is tall), and is made by taking the standard 1.33:1 frame (old TV shape) and masking off the top and bottom.  The second most common is Anamorphic (sometimes mistakenly called Cinemascope, which is an obsolete proprietary anamorphic process) which has a 2.35:1 ratio, and uses a special lens to horizontally compress  the image.  The third, rarely seen in the US, is European Spherical, which is like American spherical except they crop less of the picture, giving a 1.66:1 ratio.  For some unfathomable reason, the designers of HDTV opted for a ratio of 1.78:1 (a.k.a. "16 by 9") which doesn't fit anything!  However, for the American Spherical format, the image can be cropped a tad and will fit with very little picture loss.  Anamorphic, OTOH, would lose too much image if cropped to HDTV specs, ergo the letterbox.  Of course, older films came in a wide variety of formats as the widescreen technology was sorting itself out, some as wide as 2.55:1.  This is probably way more than you wanted to know, but I always like to dig deep into things. 

[Razor X]

Thanks, Calbito.

[Bensen]

sorry, but i couldn't resist 

[SlickEric]

RazorX, what will you do with all your old DVD's?
Are they compatible with your new Blu-Ray player?

Ha Ha! Very funny, Ben32!

[Razor X]

RazorX, what will you do with all your old DVD's?
Are they compatible with your new Blu-Ray player?

Ha Ha! Very funny, Ben32!

Yes, they're compatible.  However, I did just buy seasons 6 & 7 of Smallville on Blu-Ray and sold the DVD versions on Amazon.