Good point, with the $8 I save buying the Chungking Express BD at Amazon I would only have to buy a few hundred more copies and I will have saved enough to purchase that new home theater so I can actually see a difference!

It's sort of difficult to compare types of films available on both formats when one has been out for 11 years and the other 2.5 years.

Still using DVD? Of course! Of the 1,000 of so best films of all time, perhaps 25 of them are out on blu-ray.

If you love film then you have to "use" DVDs.

Not knocking mindless entertainment and mainstream films, I buy them too, and usually in blu-ray now.

Being a big TV show guy, I still have a lot of DVD boxes I still need to get...I'm not in a rush to switch over. Do I want to someday, sure. But I don't want to have to rebuy all the movies I'd love to see in HD, just the ones most important to me.

What are you using for a display now?

You don't need a "new home theater" - just a decent display. It helps to have good gear that can take advantage of the lossless audio, but since most buy into Blu-Ray for picture quality, if you have any kind of 1080p display you already have what you need to see the difference unless your settings are not correct or there's some other inherent flaw with the display.

Love the upconvert, but Blu-Ray can really be much nicer at times.

I sold off a bunch of SD titles I realized I would no longer watch, and used the proceeds to pick up a Sony Blu-Ray for relatively cheap on Thanksgiving. That way it was almost like getting the player for free.

I don't envision forsaking SD anytime soon, especially with the nice boost of upconverting, but there are certain titles that BD really makes look impressive.

And yes, I had dabbled in HD-DVD waters last year, and like Blu-Ray, found the improved picture quality on titles like Blade Runner or Transformers to be quite stunning.

So, for now - for me, it's both. With the majority still tilting toward SD by a wide margin.

Yes. I just bought Sopranos: The Complete Series because there is no (and most likely won't be) a BD release.

Wow...this thread title isn't elitist at all, eh?

Here's a fact - a lot of the things I have picked up recently and will continue to pick up aren't blu, and I have yet to pick up a PS3 yet anyways. Certain things like Wall*E would have been nice, but the standard disc is of such high quality and upconverts so well that I'm not sure I care (plus, I wasn't buying a player right now just for that). There are too many things that probably will never be on blu (Golion/Voltron, Black Lagoon, most of the Miike library, NHL sets, etc) that I'll still be buying on standard def.

Even when I do get my PS3 early next year, I'm sure the only Blu titles I'll buy, much like I did with HD-DVD, will be ones that I feel benefit from the format the most. For example, Animal House doesn't interest me in HD...because it's not about that. The DVD looks good enough, and upconverts okay...so screw it. The new Batman? I probably won't pick it up until I have Blu, much like I've done with Spiderman 3. Then there's the issue of Foreign releases...most of what I want barely comes state-side anyways, and I'm not sure I see a Blu release of something like, say, Guns & Talks happening, or even if it does, I'm not sure I can see spending near $30 for it, you know?

Bottom line...certain releases? yeah, HD all the way. Others...meh.

i still love and buy dvd's. . .i cannot justify spending an extra $10 or more to watch billy madison in hd. there are certain movies with excellent special effects that i spend extra on blu ray but with the exception of those, i am happy with dvd's. . .

I'm not really trying to start an argument over what kind of set up one needs in order to see the difference between Blu-Ray and DVD. I know Blu-Ray is better. I would LOVE to be able to make the jump. In fact, I've even been trying to convince my fiance that it's ok to put home theater equipment on our wedding gift registry. I was just a little miffed when Pro-B claimed that DVD Collectors were the ones still buying DVD and that true Cinema Aficionados only accept Blu-Ray. It's like when someone in the David Lynch Box-Set thread made the claim that anyone complaining about spending ~$100 for a set which includes roughly 20% new material is not a true fan. The fact is, I don't have the money to upgrade and I won't for quite awhile. And pointing out Amazon's ridiculously over-priced Chungking Express DVD is not going to change that. Of course, I'm also ignoring the fact that 99.9% of my favorite films have yet to appear on Blu-Ray. But that's another topic altogether.

Oh, and for the record, 480p w/tv speakers is how I roll.

Oh goody, another "if you don't do what I believe in you're not a real fan" type post.

Maybe you didn't intend it to sound that way, but it comes out a lot like the people that use the "you're obviously just not smart enough to understand it" line when someone dares say they didn't like Arrested Development.

I fought off Blu-ray for a long time. I liked HD more for a number of reasons, but my first and foremost was because Sony always finds a way to shoot themselves in the foot with their insane love of proprietary tech.

Unfortunately, Sony forced the Blu-Ray player on PS3 buyers, then turned around and used the number of PS3 units shipped to stores as their claim of how many more Blu players were in households. Sure, the majority of those units were just collecting dust on the shelves at the time, but studios believed Sony and went exclusive with Blu Ray, thus driving the final nail in the coffin of HD.

Now, sadly, it seems I'll have to get a Blu-ray player, not only because eventually it looks to become the industry standard, but also because my other interest outside of collecting my favorite films / shows is getting bonus material - and we're starting to see Blu-ray releases advertising exclusive extra features. Bah.

I'll probably get my player in the form of a PS3, since I'd end up getting one anyway when the new Final Fantasy game comes out.

Yeah, that is really offensive and (most importantly) completely factually incorrect.

Inetvideo was selling some BR titles for $4.99 last month.

Wal-Mart has some stuff for $10 now.

edit: Just saying prices are coming down to something more reasonable. Lately at Circuit City, a 3 disk dvd version of a movie has been costing as much as the regular BR version.

Sums it up for me, too.

Here's my deal. I got a Blu-ray player on Thanksgiving for $179. I own 3 Blu-rays discs and a little less than 1000 DVDs. I have no intention on upgrading even half of that amount.

In the past year, I have cut my DVD buying drastically mainly due to budgeting. I don't think that it will increase significantly with Blu-ray now. I doubt I'll buy any new titles on DVD except for TV shows (that probably won't get a BD release) and I will probably buy Blu-ray titles when there is a sale or when I HAVE to have an HD version of a movie. I'll continue to enjoy my current DVD collection as I continue to (slowly) upgrade to Blu-ray for certain titles. Right now $30 a title is still a little steep.

What I don't plan on doing at all is double/triple-dipping on DVD re-releases unless there is a really good reason to do so (F13 3-D). I'll usually wait until they are released on Blu-ray to dip again (BTTF).

Pro-B, I never really got into the HD debate that you are "famous" for here, but to be honest, the little that I did read made me think that perhaps people were being too harsh on you. Many of your posts were intelligently written, and seemed somewhat accurate or even balanced.

But my God man, that pile of BS I just quoted has got to be a joke.

I still buy normal DVDs. Don't own a Blu-Ray player (or disks) and have no desire currently to get one. DVDs look nice and crisp on my TV so why should I spend 2x the cost for the same movie or over $200 for a player when I still enjoy normal DVDs?

I have thousands of DVDs and still buy DVD exclusively. I mostly watch older films (pre 1980), and genre titles. Most of them are not being released in hidef, and even if they are the upgrade in pq is not worth repurchasing something I already own.

I see many (not all) enthusiasts of BluRay being more tech-freaks than movie-freaks. They want the latest and greatest technology so they can ewe and ahhh at all the fine strands of hair and pores they can see on their mega-sized TV sets. Movie-freaks get excited about Budd Boetticher box sets.

I am - and I have no interest in Blu.

I own thousands of movies. If it's a new title and it's on BR, I'll probably get it unless they price it crazy like Sony did with Spider-Man 3(over $60 or something close to that) and there's no sales to bring it down.

When it comes to upgrading from my DVD, I'll only do it if I like the movie enough to do it. I usually keep the DVD still because not all the features are on the BR, even though BR has all that extra space it could put them on. The Spider-Man trilogy is the biggest and worst offender in my collection.

I love my PS3 as a media player and plan on getting a second for my bedroom. It supports more files than my Philips player and I don't have to transcode files to it like my Tivo makes me. It also supports my jap music better than my Tivo if the titles and album are written in moon language.

Since it plays BR, I'll also buy them. If that format fails, I can still use it as an upconverting DVD player and it'll still do all the other stuff I want it to do.

BD is still to expensive to me. I'm still a DVD guy.

Well dang, I guess this whole time it's the plastic discs I loved, and not the movies on them! Time to buy a new TV, new player & new sound system! So what that my bills/loans/mortgage payments take up nearly all of my paycheck each month; I can't have that stigma of being simply a "collector" hanging around my neck!

I love the movies, I do, but I really wish I knew earlier that the format they're viewed on determined how much I love them! I never would have bought all those crummy dvds in the first place!

I havent jumped into Blu Ray and wont until its absolutely necessary and they stop making standard dvd's..I have trimmed down the DVD's I own to about 300 and my priorities have shifted 45 and married is not the same as 34 and single and I'd rather spend $ on my wife and trips together..I do wish the 2 forums were separate so the Blu ray people could avoid standard DVD info and the reverse...I had a Samsung 1500 for 2 hours on Black Friday and my standard discs loooked awful even with the settings correct...took it back and here is where Ill stay.

This is the post I responded to:

with this:


Perhaps I am reading it incorrectly, however, there is a clear line dividing collecting DVDs from collecting BDs. Well, I am sorry for disagreeing with the poster but, from my perspective, his message places an emphasis on differentiating the two, not mine. My philosophy on collecting films has always been justified by locating the best releases for the films I love, regardless of the format. It has been something I've followed for years, before SDVD, and most certainly well before BD. Hence, the reason why I would research different SDVD releases (different regions), etc. BD is the natural supplement if you collect films. Nowhere in my reply did I state that one has to exclude the other. The rest I stand by, if you are a cinema aficionado there is no way you could pass a 1080p version of The Third Man. It is just that simple!!

Feel free to disagree.

Pro-B