First off I've been an early video adopter for SuperBeta,Laserdisc,DVD, HD-DVD, and now bluray... and it was always a requirement to upgrade because of my large displays from projectors.
I own an AppleTV also, a MacMini, and some high end PC's and the appletv's picture is subpar (pretty good for convenience versus quality) to a DVD played on my Theta Compli player when it's displayed 103" on the wall at 13' seating position. The HD versions from the Apple TV are more like DVD quality, and the soundtracks are good but still inferior. If I had a 52" tv then it might not be as big deal...
I just got my Oppo Blu-Ray Player yesterday and build quality is impressive and the lighted remote is the BOMB!!! Can't say how it looks yet because the input board on my Projector decided to stop working and here I thought it was my Sony PS3 which is actually fine... I hated the remote on the PS3 anyway for bluray.
I think Bluray will fail or not be successful as DVD was because people won't pay $25-50 for a movie that's really not that good.... and like people have mentioned I'm not that crazy about re-buying my collection for the 4th time... in each media... DVD is good enough with a killer scaler or an amazing upsampling player unless is a scifi action flick, then I want more. But I have bought about 30 bluray's to replace my DVD's for the extra quality and resolution. Plus even with $200 Bluray players it's the media that drives the demand and people are quite happy with DVD quality or DirectTV video quality. The only real demand for HD and what drove it faster into the mainstream was SPORTS!!! I'm not a huge football fan but WOW those camera's are amazing....
I agree that AppleTV or some sort of Hulu will be the way of the future, I stopped buying DVD's at around 500 because I'm sick of trying to store them... Some of the HD-DVD's and Bluray's sound superior to the DVD counterparts on my Theta Casablanca III, but then again you couldn't hear much of a difference on my buddies high end Denon Receiver... so it all depends on context.
Plus as we watch blockbuster's physical stores shut down, and people's demand for the $1 rentals in store, or the On-Demand Cable, AppleTV, and Sat at $2.99-5.99 a movie from the convenience of your couch. the physical media will start to be reduced in consumption.
I'm also worried the music industry is going down the same path where you sign up for a music service that lets you listen but not own low end quality rips... there are some high end downloads coming out but only NIN provides true high resolution recordings (bluray or HD-DVD, or FLAC) for mainstream music (other than classical recordings)... This trend of subpar music is distrubing, then again a top40 artists recording is so compressed I wouldn't want to hear it at a higher resolution.."How about we fix the mastering problems...." to give us dynamics no everything always loud...
I own an AppleTV also, a MacMini, and some high end PC's and the appletv's picture is subpar (pretty good for convenience versus quality) to a DVD played on my Theta Compli player when it's displayed 103" on the wall at 13' seating position. The HD versions from the Apple TV are more like DVD quality, and the soundtracks are good but still inferior. If I had a 52" tv then it might not be as big deal...
I just got my Oppo Blu-Ray Player yesterday and build quality is impressive and the lighted remote is the BOMB!!! Can't say how it looks yet because the input board on my Projector decided to stop working and here I thought it was my Sony PS3 which is actually fine... I hated the remote on the PS3 anyway for bluray.
I think Bluray will fail or not be successful as DVD was because people won't pay $25-50 for a movie that's really not that good.... and like people have mentioned I'm not that crazy about re-buying my collection for the 4th time... in each media... DVD is good enough with a killer scaler or an amazing upsampling player unless is a scifi action flick, then I want more. But I have bought about 30 bluray's to replace my DVD's for the extra quality and resolution. Plus even with $200 Bluray players it's the media that drives the demand and people are quite happy with DVD quality or DirectTV video quality. The only real demand for HD and what drove it faster into the mainstream was SPORTS!!! I'm not a huge football fan but WOW those camera's are amazing....
I agree that AppleTV or some sort of Hulu will be the way of the future, I stopped buying DVD's at around 500 because I'm sick of trying to store them... Some of the HD-DVD's and Bluray's sound superior to the DVD counterparts on my Theta Casablanca III, but then again you couldn't hear much of a difference on my buddies high end Denon Receiver... so it all depends on context.
Plus as we watch blockbuster's physical stores shut down, and people's demand for the $1 rentals in store, or the On-Demand Cable, AppleTV, and Sat at $2.99-5.99 a movie from the convenience of your couch. the physical media will start to be reduced in consumption.
I'm also worried the music industry is going down the same path where you sign up for a music service that lets you listen but not own low end quality rips... there are some high end downloads coming out but only NIN provides true high resolution recordings (bluray or HD-DVD, or FLAC) for mainstream music (other than classical recordings)... This trend of subpar music is distrubing, then again a top40 artists recording is so compressed I wouldn't want to hear it at a higher resolution.."How about we fix the mastering problems...." to give us dynamics no everything always loud...