Holy Moly Blu-Ray Disc Players below $300

I'd be careful what you listen to in this thread. I own the PS3 and use it for Blu-Ray and it looks and works phenomenally. None of the stuttering or "strange" playback issues mentioned. I also have the XBox 360 HD-DVD add-on and have had no overwhelming issues with that either. Sure the HD-DVD add-on isn't as great overall compared to the PS3, but that is only because of the slight differences between 1080i and 1080p, i.e. there is a slight loss of overall smoothness.

I wouldn't listen to anyone saying that "all" players from one camp or the others aren't good, or are garbage, or "insert blatantly prejudiced statement here." Those people are just looking to get people to buy the format they chose to buy.

Underneath all the bologna there is one major technological difference in the long term between these two formats. One has more storage potential than the other one when all things are equal (since they both can add multiple layers...). That format is Blu-Ray.

I dunno J- I'd be carefully taking too much from your posts frankly.

Most of the Blu ray disks are 25 GB, not the 50 GB disks with greater storage. The yield rates from the two ( and there are only two) 50 GB disk plants are very low, making it very expensive to produce 50GB Blu ray disks effectively, with signifcant transport/distribution costs leading to Blu ray subsidiary studios in Europe to produce Blu Ray only titles on HD-DVD in Europe.

In addition, there is a current Blu ray thread over at avs, contributed to only by Blu Ray owners, on Blu Ray disk rot, with pictures. It shows some blu ray disks getting all of these spots on them and talks about certain disks not playing after this disk rot.

In the end, the difference between Blu Ray and Hd-DVD is the shell that holds the video and audio code, and not much else. The HD-DVD shell is simply more stable, and a lot less fragile. The data on HD-DVD disks is embedded at a deeper depth and is more protected from playback problems.

Also, the HD-DVD player specs for audio and video are in place, so you know you can play an HD-DVD disk and listen to present audio formats no matter what player you buy on the HD-DVD side of the fence. You have no idea what you are going to get on the Blu ray side.

Its my understanding that Blu Ray is introducing BD-J coding language on their disks next year, to better enable the presence of interactive features ( thusfar absent on Blu Ray disks but present on many HD-DVD offerings). Are you sure your PS3 will be able to utilize this language and actually play the disks? I am not sure at all.

I agree that both Blu Ray and HD-DVD disks can look great. But I do prefer the more mature lower cost format to win or at least have some decent dual format options and since HD-DVD only has to survive to win and not really win, I don't see this working out for Blu ray at all personally.

Thats an opinion of course. But a lot of what I am laying out in this post is fact.

I dont think the optimal Hi Def Player exists yet, and 10 lumen technology on the plasma side ( my display tech of choice) isn't out yet either. When these two things occur, then its really time to jump on the Hi Def bandwagon. In the end, its still a bit early by about 18 months, assuming someone alreddy has a decent set up for standard DVDs in place already.

I've been in several big box stores over the last few weeks. Looking at 1080p panels for a friend. I have talked with several salesmen, all of whom approached me and were selling me on the "new" High-Def DVD.

There was not a single comment about HD-DVD. I couldnt even drag out a comment. All I heard was Blu-Ray, Blu-Ray, did I mention Blu-Ray.

I would agree with Jkalman's first line: "I'd be careful what you listen to in this thread.". That includes his post, Rysa4's post and what I have to say.

That being said, it has been mentioned by many that the PS 3 is the best Blu-Ray player. I have not seen it because I am very hesitant to put a gaming system on my main TV. I learned this lesson many years ago thanks to my children. They all have gaming systems in their rooms now, but not on the 'family' TV. As they are older now, maybe I will investigate this possibility. Though yes, I have had problems mechanically with first generation Samsung and Sony Blu-Ray players. Hopefully these companies are ironing the bugs out of this new technology.

Jkalman has a valid point that the Blu-Ray is the superior format as far as technology goes. Rysa4 also has a valid point about HD-DVD being cheaper. As VHS demonstarted years ago in it's victory over Beta (also Sony), cheaper generally trumps superior technology. Though this format war could easily turn into a SACD/ DVD-A war too, where both superior sides lose to an even lower technology (MP-3's).

So what's it all mean? Nothing really. There will always be new electronic gadgets and toys for folks to argue over.
IMHO the reason the prices on the hardware is dropping so low is because, not unlike computers, the folks in this industry realize the real $$$ is made in the software.

Cheers,
John

Thats an opinion of course. But a lot of what I am laying out in this post is fact.

Nope. Most of what you are presenting is hearsay.

Whether or not there are "not a lot of manufacturing plants yet" is really meaningless. You can always convert plants or build new ones as needed. The point is, Blu-Ray discs have more capacity per layer per side than HD-DVD. End of story.

I own over 50 Blu-Ray discs, and have rented even more than that. So far I have not seen any issues with Blu-Ray discs not working or not playing due to spots, scratches or whatever else. Besides which, ALL formats suffer from occasional bad batches. I've occasionally had to return regular DVDs over the years due to manufacturing issues. So far I haven't had to return any Blu-Ray discs, but I guarantee that all formats (DVD, HD-DVD, and yes, Blu-Ray) will occasionally have bad batches where something buggy happened while making the discs. The companies producing Blu-Ray discs use special coatings to make the discs scratch resistant as well, making the whole scratched-surface argument pointless IMO. Are you going to take care of your discs or use them as frisbees?

The Blu-Ray specs are in place as well. Blu-Ray is currently using LPCM, but can also use any of the DTS and Dolby standards. Your comment that "you have no idea what you are going to get on the Blu Ray side" is garbage. There are only so many audio standards out there for video discs and Blu-Ray is designed to be backwards compatible by making important older codecs mandatory. Blu-Ray players are designed to support at least the mandatory codecs, so you do not have to worry about being able to play audio or video. Audio is not and will not be an issue.

As far as PS3s working with BD-J (Java). They will work, all that is required is software/firmware updates to the PS3. Java is a programming language, so all it would require is an operating system (or operating environment, or user interface environment - i.e. an embedded software or firmware OS like every preprocessor and digital source unit already has) that can execute Java runtime code. You can run Linux on a PS3, and Linux runs and executes (as well as compiles) Java source code. I should know, I used to do a lot of programming in it.

Stop trying to scare people...

For anyone with any doubts check out the links, but please don't put stock in the bologna people perpetuate about either format:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hd-dvd