Sounds like my plan of attack.

I just purchased a Blu-ray player anticipating buying a 42" 1080 LCD t.v. in about a month. I have also bought a few Blu-ray discs on Amazon (they're incredibly cheap compared to stores or eBay) to have something to play on it. I have made the decision in advance to be extremely picky about my choices for Blu-ray movies. The criteria: It has to be a movie I will watch numerous times over the years; it has to be a film with images that will truly benefit from the upgrade (my first disc purchases have been 2001 and BLADE RUNNER. Genre films sporting wonderful effects would be preferable on Blu-ray, as would films of exceptional photographic quality, such as, say, THE DUELLISTS, BARRY LYNDON, THE ELEPHANT MAN, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, DAYS OF HEAVEN, etc.). I am not going to re-purchase movies that look perfectly fine to me when up-converted to 1080. Many - even most - films I own I'll be happy to keep as standard DVD's. I will be a tad less selective if the price of the Blu-ray discs goes down to about what standard discs cost.

I only buy BD now. Count me as among those with hundreds of titles I've never even seen. So for casual viewing I rent, if it's a title I want to own or upgrade it's Blu.

I only purchase Hi-Def for new titles now.

I am only buying Blu-ray discs at this time. If a movie only comes on Dvd then I will not buy it till it comes out on Blu-ray. If the cost is too high I will wait but still not buy the less expensive Dvd.

Not insane at all. I would be very annoyed watching a lowly SD if I knew there was a BD version I could be watching instead.

Price is a big factor now. If I can't get it on BD because it is not available or too expensive I usually rent. I'm buying less and less all the time. I will hope for a deal on the BD down the road. I probably will not buy on DVD either unless it is a TV series I don't need in HD and its much cheaper.

I haven't bought a BD in months and maybe only 5-6 this whole year. Too expensive with the war over.

I have stopped buying SD DVDs completely

I love reading these kinds of questions. I have over 1000 Standards and only 9 BR. I only buy Blu-ray when its a "Must Own" and a deal. For Example Mummy 1, 2 and Scorpion King because I was able to get them for 15.99 with a free movie to see the new Mummy.

However I still buy cheap $3 obscure titles from places like Big Lots or wait until I can get the SD from places like Blockbuster for 3 for $20.

I buy very little Newly Released because it makes me insane to pay BR prices and I cant enjoy buying a new SD even for $14.99 knowing I will watch it and then toss it on the shelf with the other 1000 DVDS.

So my obsession is so bad I almost thought of just dumping the Standards to get the new Blu- Ray at a 10-1 ratio so I dont have to go into my wallet anymore for this addiction I have.

I want BD to succeed, so I buy BD only. DVDs don't cut it anymore. It's not just the inferior video quality compared to BD, but Dolby Digital 5.1 doesn't hold a candle to lossless audio.

Many cases? Which websites?

I've done many comparisons between a dvd version of a movie and the BD counterpart and there's no doubt which one offers up the better picture. You start watching enough HD content and you'll quickly notice the fuzzyness and lack of detail that dvds have. How many comparisons have you made? Is picture the only important part of a movie? What about the audio?

From what I gather, you still don't own any sort of HD player. Is this correct? The tone of this sentence seems like you're trying to get people to avoid buying into BD.

Is price an issue regarding your hesitation to buy a BD player? The Panasonic DMP-BD30 and the Sony BDP-S350 have gotten terrific reviews. What is wrong with these units?

:up: same here
In fact I'm unloading a lot of SD titles to spun.com

This, exactly.

I just recently bought a Blu-ray player. I only own one Blu-ray movie at this time but I rent them from Netflix. The Blu-ray is nice but it did not completely knock my socks off. I have about 300 standard DVDs that I likely will not replace. I might replace a few of them if a nice enough of an edition comes out on Blu-ray. With the high prices of Blu-ray discs I have still been buying SDVDs. It does not upset me to watch them. SDVD was fantastic for me a year ago and it is still fine with me today. Once Blu-ray goes down in price then I will likely start dipping on that side more.

I've been buying new releases Blu-ray only if available, and re-buying old releases when the mood suits me. For instance I just picked up Hunt for Red October and Clear and Present Danger 'cause of the $19 price. I'm watching everything nowadays on my projector screen, and my Blu-rays look better than the standard DVDs at 92 inches.

Ever since I went high-def about a year ago, I pretty much completely swore off standard DVDs for movies....I believe the last film I bought on DVD was the Knocked Up 2-disc special edition, because the HD release at the time was robbed of more than half of the bonus features....thankfully, this will soon be redeemed by the fully featured Blu-ray release!
I will still buy DVDs for TV series though....I figure I probably won't ever see the day that something like 90210 makes it to Blu-ray...there wouldn't be any benefit to have a show like that anyway, since I don't think there is any way for them to improve the video quality and actually bring it to "high-def" based on the way it was originally made...

I buy (I wait for sales), or get review copies of BD titles I don't already have.
I upgrade IF, the DVD has a crappy transfer, non anamorphic, etc... or the film is one of my favorites. Otherwise, I don't have an issue with watching DVD's on an upconverting player. The reality is that I only really care about technical details and head to head comparisons when I have to review a film. Otherwise, I just sit down and enjoy it.

I built up a small library of hidef titles when the deals were good (and from mail-in rebates). I have 25 free titles. I got 40-50 titles on the holiday BOGO and ended up paying $7-10 for those titles after price corrections or credits/trade-ins. I've purchased a small number of catalog favorites since then. I love them picture and the great sound from these titles. WOW.

Recently, though, I've found that on my display (1080P Plasma 42") at my seating distance (5'-6'), good SD DVDs look fantastic upconverted.

Now, there is a simple plan -- don't buy Blu-ray yet. Wait for lower prices. There are some exceptions to this, but the list is literally two movies currently announced. Besides these two titles, I'll rent or buy SD DVDs to feed my habit.

Because of my set-up, I've even went and picked up about five SD DVDs of movies that were released or likely to released on Blu-ray. The pricing was killer, like $3-5, for a SE or CE edition. For me, I will recoup that small bit by reselling and taking advantage of holiday sales or dropping prices over time. I expect to resume some purchasing in Nov-Jan timeframe when I hope for excellent sales.

-beebs

I am not totally convinced Blu-Ray is going to dominate the market anytime soon, unless they reduce the prices of the players and discs very soon.

DVD's only started outselling VHS in 2002 and people have invested too much money into DVD's to replace them. How many more times do you really want to buy the Star Wars trilogy?

The jump from VHS to DVD was huge. DVD had a much better picture, better sound, small CD-sized discs, extras, chapter stops, they are durable, don't require rewinding, and it was affordable to the masses. After 20 years of the VHS, people were ready to switch.

Blu-Ray offers a better picture and sound. If you own a 42"+ screen with 7.1 surround sound in your living room, you'll notice a difference. The rest of population will not justify spending thousands of dollars more for something a little bit better.

If pristine picture quality is a factor, why are the studios complaining they are losing billions of dollars from crappy-looking downloads that are supposedly destroying the movie industry?

If they package all films in a DVD/Blu-Ray combo and price them as DVD's, I think Blu-Ray has a good chance.

Until then, I have a feeling Blu-Ray may become the modern Laserdisc. Loved by videophiles but too expensive for the average Joe who is accustomed to buying DVD's at $10 a pop and a player for $39.95.

Easy for me, like others, I don't buy regular dvds anymore. Haven't for quite a long while.

I simply wait on the BDs. If it's a title I want, when it hits $10-$15 somewhere I'll pick it up. The most I've paid for a disc in the past 1.5 yrs was 300 on HD-DVD new-release for $22.xx...it was my favorite mediocre movie in years and I really wanted it.

I just won't pay more than $15 for a title. My wife isn't as picky, she'll pay $30 once in a while, but she's been selling off a lot of her 1000+ DVDs to pay for her discs.

I don't buy new release movies any more. I just wait for the BD price to drop. I've bit on a few new-release catalog BDs this year (like Gattaca...$15 AC @ buy.com...)

There's also movies in my collection that I don't like enough to upgrade. I paid like $3 each for the Rambo movies. I don't like Rambo enough to spend real money on BDs.

I'm going to follow this as we just got a Blu-Ray player last week. Right now I have it hooked to the new Sony LCD but I'm going to move it to the larger room and RPTV. Allot is going to ride on...

(A) - how well the SD-DVD's look upconverted to 1080i
(B) - how they compare to the BD disc that'll be at 1080i since the RPTV max is 1080i
(C) - how well the new Dish HD channels look compared to DVD's

We got a (3) pack of free BD movies and they did really look good on the new LCD. The player and movies will get more use though with the RPTV and plus a btter sound system.


Kenny J

I'm getting more and more picky. With so much coming out, I never have time to watch them anymore. Why pay $25 when it will be $15 in 2-3 weeks on eBay?

Given an option on a movie or TV show that I must own, always BD with few exceptions (namely lackluster transfer and/or audio). In that case, I don't purchase, I rent and wait on the eventual upgrade.

I don't actively buy SD releases any more. Perhaps if the price is ridiculously low or the title is extremely rare, I'll bite the bullet and purchase a DVD. Also, any full screen releases that I need will do just fine with regular DVD. Other than that, I need everything in the best quality available to me.