phatboy

I've buying up blu ray movies left and right with all the sales lately. Well I got to thinking, I'm obviously not going to upgrade every single dvd. But I'm having trouble deciding if I should upgrade some of my SE dvds. For example, I just got the 2 disc Serenity CE & the Planet Earth series. I'm sure the picture would be amazing but is it worth upgrading to a Blu Ray JUST for the picture? I'm guessing not all the speical features are always transferred over and it's not like the picture from the SD dvd is that horrible. How do you guys decide if it's worth it? Is it just on the picture alone?

edit: Crap, sorry , this is in the wrong forum...can a mod please move it?

darkside

A big thing is of course how much I like the movie. If it is something I picked up because the DVD was $5 I may only watch it once and just keep it on regular DVD.

Movies I love are must upgrades regardless of losing extras. Next though is price. With all the B1G1 sales and free discs I upgraded some just because it was so cheap. Buy the disc for $8 on Amazon sell the old one for $4 on Half.com and I am only out $4 on the upgrade.

Your question is mostly about extras and I will say this. If I really love the movie I will buy it to have it in HD and keep the regular DVD for the extras. I care less and less about extras though and rarely even watch them on most releases. For most movies I want AV over anything else and will gladly upgrade and sell the other version regardless of losing extras I may never watch anyway.

That said I still don't think it is okay for companies like Fox to charge $40 MSRPs for Blu-rays and then delivery few if any extras. If I'm getting a bare bones disc it would be nice if it was priced accordingly.

RichC2

Two considerations: 1) A movie I really love or watch a lot, 2) Substantial upgrade in a/v.

mzupeman2

As said by darkside, a big factor first of all, is if I liked the movie. If there was a special effects extravaganza but I thought it was complete trash overall as a film, I won't be biting.

Movies I do absolutely love will get upgrades as well. I had Pan's Labyrinth on DVD and when it just came out on HD-DVD, I had to bite. Love that movie.

Let's say a movie like Knocked Up for example, just a comedy no special effects or anything, I'm sticking with an SD release. No HD for titles that won't really make me go 'ooo' or 'ahhh'.

As far as extras go... if I do get an HD title I also like to have it in SD. I'm still collecting my SD because hey, you never know which format may go belly up in the long run. If an HD-DVD is a combo disc, I'll just buy that since I'm covered but... I'm personally not much of an extras man. I really only get the time to watch the movie, sometimes enjoy the commentary... but I hardly ever get the chance to really sit down and see hours worth of extras. So, my upgrading SD to HD is purely based on what I wrote above.

wergo

I'm going to upgrade every single one.

Just like I did when I moved from Betamax to LaserDisc and when I moved from LaserDisc to DVD. (And from vinyl to CD)

If I don't like something enough to upgrade, it's not worth keeping in the collection.

bareva

rent them first then decide if you want to buy them.

zombiezilla

When a universally accepted format arrives, I'll think about upgrading. Won't spend a friggin' dime until then.

Guy Gadbois

chris_sc77

I'll only upgade if they feature considerable New & exclusive specail features.
(i.e. the exclusive commentaries on Alexander: the final cut, Ocean's 12/13 etc.)
Otherwise standard DVD is what I choose and I dont need many movies in HD. I am fine with Reg. DVD.

bigE

You're preaching to the choir here!

Numes

What he said, with the addition that if the SD DVD I own is non-anamorphic, I will (obviously) upgrade to HD.

Also, I have stopped purchasing SD DVDs except for TV shows, etc... that would gain little with an HD upgrade (i.e. Seinfeld)

Darth Maher

I agree with this...

However, when I DO finally upgrade, I PLAN to only upgrade the movies that I REALLY love and stuff that looks considerably better. Of course, price will factor in as well. I would say that a really good sale accounts for about 30% of my DVD collection.

Tuan Jim

Yeah, definitely leaning towards HD-DVD right now (what with having an xbox 360 etc) - still haven't bought "Dune" (1984) on SD due to the multiple versions and then finally reading the excellent HD review here. Also interested in the Road Warrior and a few other "must-haves" for me -- still at the current price points, there are far too many SDs out there that I haven't picked up for me to start looking at serious money in a different format. Maybe by this summer.

maingon

If I love the movie and if its a type of movie that will benifit from PQ and lossless sound. and if it Has Jessica Alba, I will probably upgrade (EX: into the blue )

tomwaits

Slightly off-topic, but is there a site that details exactly which extras are included on various releases? I've been upgrading some titles to Blu-ray, but trying to avoid titles that have had any of the SD DVD extras removed. If the Blu-ray is a stripped down release, there will probably be a collector's edition later.

MTRodaba2468

That's pretty much what I'm waiting for.

With that said, I'd upgrade the movies that I enjoy the most in my collection.

Numes

Ok... A question for those of who are waiting for a universally accepted format.

Are you continuing to buy SD DVDs? Or are you holding off for the titles you want until the "universally accepted" format comes out?

Personally, I have no qualms with anyone waiting. Me... I couldn't wait. My DVD player died, so I bought and HD DVD player, and I really wanted Oblivion IV for PS3, so I got a PS3.

Personally, if my DVD player wouldn't have died, I'm sure I couldn't have held out for one format to win.... but if I had, I would have waited to buy any new titles until they were released on HD, so I'm curious what those who haven't gone HD are waiting for (if anything)

Mikael79

I, for one, am still buying SD DVDs, although I'll admit that my pace has slowed down quite a bit. I'm rooting for HD-DVD to win the battle, but I just can't put my money into it yet.

Once a clear winner has been crowned, I'll move into the High-Def disc market, but I'm not going to fully replace my SD-DVD collection with the new format. It'll mainly be me buying new releases, upgrading my favorites, upgrading poor SD transfers, and maybe some of the epic films that would really benefit from the increased resolution.

Tuan Jim

Most of what I'm picking up at the moment is probably never going to come out on HD - HD-DVDs will just be icing on what's already in my collection - although the preferred viewing experience for some of them.

dvdcompare.net includes comparisons for HD titles as well.

thomkai

Not too many HD movies yet, but so far I've only replaced the first four Harry Potter movies and Blade Runner (and the SD DVD I have was 4 or 5 dollars at wal-mart). I don't plan on upgrading for many movies, especially not comedies, since I think those will show the least boost.

For me it's price: with DVD, I would pay (and still do) no more than $10 for a really nice special edition of a movie; HD I consider SE; $10 is the new breaking point for me. Amazon has made this simple.

I wanted to wait for a winner, but am now glad I didn't. The competition between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD is what's driving some awesome sales right now, and even if a third format appears, my old discs will still play and I doubt I'd have to upgrade Potter a third time. There are also BD/HD-DVD internal computer drives for about $300 now; I'm sure if we see another format we'll see a player with them all (or I'll just have two drives in my computer).

asianxcore

1) How much do I like the movie?
2) Is the movie a huge upgrade on HD? (A/V wise)
3) If there any additional extras, will I bother to watch them?

Usually I try not to upgrade discs because I'd rather spend the money to get a movie I don't have. I'm happy to say out of my small collection of 30+ HD/BD discs only 4 were upgrades from previous SD copies.

redcat

I just bought an HD player from amazon since it was $178 plus the 10 free movie deal, but my plan is to mainly just get rentals for now. I don't plan on doing any double-dipping, and I'll only buy the HD version of a new movie if the price is low enough. I just don't buy as many movies anymore, so the urge to go crazy buying new HD discs should be easy to resist.

acubfaninmd

I first had to get a hdtv before i could start upgrading my sdtv. I just got the HDTV now i need to decide which format to go with. I may just get a PS3 for the blu ray and a Toshiba A3 for hd.

nateman

For some reason, I really hope HD DVD wins the format war.

I know this is an extremely stupid reason for why I want it to win the format war, but HD DVD sounds much better than Blu-Ray. I've also been impressed that they've released curtain titles with HD DVD on one side, and the SD DVD version on the other. Sony hasn't even tried (probably because they're ahead in sales) that yet. I've seen samples of HD DVD discs, and I've found (it's just my eyes opinion) the format to have a slightly better picture than Blu-Ray. The prices on stand-alone players for HD DVD have been more reasonably priced than Blu-Ray stand-alone players.

Also, unlike Xbox 360, Playstation 3 has pretty much been a big advertisement of Blu-Ray. The Blu-Ray playback on the Playstation 3 is pretty damn good, but its supposed to be a gaming system, not a $499 Blu-Ray disc player. I think it was a smart move by Microsoft to sell the HD DVD player as an add-on. I know it might seem like a rip-off for having to buy the add-on, if you want to play HD DVD discs, but considering a lot of people who are buying the system don't have an HDTV, it's a smart move. People shouldn't have to pay for something they don't want.

That's pretty much what I'll be doing, once/if ever one new format is set in place.

I collect a lot of TV on DVD titles, and most of them will never come out on HD DVD or Blu-Ray.

mzupeman2

Shows also like The Sopranos or something may benefit from being on HD, Heroes too. But if they start releasing TV shows on DVD like oh, I don't know, animated shows that already look stellar on SD, I definitely won't be upgrading that. So I certainly don't see myself replacing all my SD content either once a format winner is announced. There's also certainly movies that wouldn't benefit that greatly from an HD transfer.