Blu Ray or Oppo?

Vman71 - What player/s have the silicon optix reon/realta processor chip? Tks.

There's a good argument to be made that the whole HD-DVD "craze" will never actually catch on. Indeed, could be argued that Toshiba made an excellent business decision by bowing out of the war of attrition and ceded to Sony an essentially phyrric victory. Blueray, since winning, really hasn't done much. I'm convinced, and I admit that it is noting more than my opinion and somewhat impressionistic, that HD video will indeed shift to an online delivery format in the relatively near future, and that Blueray will relatively quickly become obsolete. Personally, I have a relatively large DVD library, and have decided not to invest in Blueray at all. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to very badly and patiently awaited the resolution of the format war. But now that it's over, the next format revolution looms way too close on the horizon for me to jump into the last one.

That said, a Blueray player will reportedly do real nice upconversion on its own, so there's no real loss on that front if you need the new new thing. But so will the Oppo. I simply won't invest in Blueray software, so I have no use for a player. I bought the Oppo. Your mileage, however, will certainly vary.

What Mezmo said! That's exactly what I'm talking about. Hasn't anybody noticed that once Toshiba pulled HD DVD off the market, the buzz about hi-def video optical disc has DIED! UltimateAVmag.com has not reviewed a high-rez video disc player since December 2007, and that was a review of the top end Toshiba HD DVD player!

As long as the format war was going on, it kept the buzz alive in the public market. Best Buy and Circuit City had stacks of both types of players and hi-def displays of each format's movies, and they were price-cutting to stir up the competition.

But once Toshiba pulled out, the buzz died and rather than rushing to buy Blu-ray players, people turned to cable programming and downloads to get their hi-def content.

This month's Home Theater magazine had an article about this very phenomenon. Since Toshiba pulled out of the race, the sales of Blu-ray players (not counting Playstation 3's) has gone DOWN!

The triumph of Blu-ray is not a sure thing.

Oppo and Playstation3, covers all bases. The Playstation beats any other blu-ray out there. The station enables software updates, nothing else does. So, your set to go, for a long time. As for the 'not a sure thing', who do think will put $10 billion into an alterative at this point? Only Microsoft has that kind of money and they a betting on an on line approach.

As for the 'not a sure thing', who do think will put $10 billion into an alterative at this point? Only Microsoft has that kind of money and they a betting on an on line approach.

You're assuming somebody will put $10B into it and I'm saying they won't. Sony is playing with themselves again and the buying public's mind is wandering.

There was never a burning interest (except with us cinephiles) for a really high-rez video disc format. Much of the buying public thinks DVD *is* HD, and a lot of the so-called HD programming on cable is really upconverted 480p.

1080p Blu-ray fed into a 1080p display IS stunning, and noticeably better than typical resolution in a movie theater, let alone standard def DVD, upconverted or not. The public needs to be shown that there's a difference and that the difference matters. That window of opportunity is disappearing fast, and people will settle for cable HD and upconverted std-def DVDs.