Home audio & video: IS BLU-RAY WORTH IT????
IS BLU-RAY WORTH IT????
by vaulting16 - 6/15/09 10:44 PMHello all,
I would like to know what you the readers think about buying blu-ray right now. I see that player prices have dropped and so have movie prices. My big question is should I buy blu-ray or is another format around the corner, laying in wait to knock off blu-ray? Let me know what you think about time frames for the new formats. Also, what do you think these formats will bring? Thanks!
There's ALWAYS something around the corner, hehe.
by ahtoi - 6/16/09 1:32 AM In reply to: IS BLU-RAY WORTH IT???? by vaulting16...and that's why I don't have one.
nothing will surpass Bluray for best PQ and AQ
by jostenmeat - 6/21/09 2:58 PM In reply to: There's ALWAYS something around the corner, hehe. by ahtoifor a very long time. It will be at least a decade. Life is too short for me to wait that long.
Nothing is right around the corner.
Now, there MIGHT* be dl's coming in the future, with extreme growing pains, even worse DRM issues, with failing limited bandwidth, but the PQ and AQ will be inferior. I'd bet a lot of money on that.
Blue Ray
by Engineering Man - 6/21/09 3:07 PM In reply to: There's ALWAYS something around the corner, hehe. by ahtoiI love my Blue Ray player. The main improvement that I noticed the most is the audio. Its hard to explain; the gain seems much higher and the overall channell separation and audio quality is superb to normal HD.
Just one thing stops me cold from buying a movie on BR.
by R. Proffitt
- 6/16/09 8:29 AM
In reply to: IS BLU-RAY WORTH IT???? by vaulting16
It's the DRM that gets updated from time to time and some title then stops playing.
This is the ONE THING that stops me cold from adding to my collection in BR.
Bob
Please Explain
by vaulting16 - 6/17/09 11:06 PM In reply to: Just one thing stops me cold from buying a movie on BR. by R. Proffitt
I don't quite follow... I am new to this idea.
Thanks
The DRM
by 3rdalbum - 6/20/09 3:57 AM In reply to: Just one thing stops me cold from buying a movie on BR. by R. Proffitt
There's one disadvantage with Blu-ray, and that is the DRM.
DVDs are easy to rip to hard disk for personal purposes - this is because the encryption on them was flawed and could be easily broken. Anyone who wants to make a backup copy or put it onto a media server can do this without trouble.
Blu-rays have much stronger encryption and supports "revoking" decryption keys. Each model of player, whether software or hardware, has a different decryption key. If one decryption key gets discovered and used in Blu-ray copying software, the AACS licensing association can revoke the key, causing it to no longer be able to be used to decrypt new Blu-ray titles.
Blu-rays released a couple of months ago cannot be decrypted to hard disk using commonly-available tools because all the discovered decryption keys have been revoked, and nobody has discovered any new keys.
In the extremely unlikely case that you'll never want to copy a Blu-ray to hard disk or to another Blu-ray disc for fair use purposes, there is still another potential problem with the DRM system. If the hackers discover the decryption keys hidden in your Blu-ray player and publish them, the AACS-LA will revoke those keys and your Blu-ray player will no longer be able to decrypt new titles until you connect it to the Internet to download a new key.
It could even be worse than that: Some players and PC drives can be "poisoned" by special instructions stored on commercial Blu-ray discs. The poisoning occurs when the AACS-LA finds that a particular drive has a a vulnerability to attack, so they put a special code onto the discs that will stop drives from authenticating new discs.
Paranoid science-fiction? I originally thought it was, but the AACS-LA has implemented poisoning for one PC drive that I know of (I own one). That's pretty bad.
You can update the firmware and decryption keys for these players by hooking them up to your network or burning the new firmware to a CD, but do you really want to be doing this every three months? (shortest possible period in-between key revokations).
Yes, Blu-ray gives you awesome picture and sound quality (on a decent TV, it's MILES better than an "upscaled" *snicker* DVD), but the DRM is a pain in the backside. I would recommend weighing up the pros and cons before buying. There is not likely to be a successor to Blu-ray any time soon, and as far as I know there's no new specification yet to be implemented in Blu-ray players that could cause compatibility problems.
The DRM is the real problem with Blu-ray and as soon as they can get rid of it, or as soon as the hackers can completely bypass the revocation system, we can all move forward and embrace the format. Until then, I have a love/hate relationship with Blu-ray.
Sci-Fi Fantsay
by gkamer - 6/20/09 7:25 AM In reply to: The DRM by 3rdalbumQuote:
"It could even be worse than that: Some players and PC drives can be "poisoned" by special instructions stored on commercial Blu-ray discs. The poisoning occurs when the AACS-LA finds that a particular drive has a a vulnerability to attack, so they put a special code onto the discs that will stop drives from authenticating new discs."
So, if I read this correctly, what you're saying is if hackers find and use the decryption key on my player, through no fault of my own, and without any legal recourse, they can send a huntand destroy command out to destroy my hard drive? And you know this because it happened to you? Sorry, dude, I have to call B.S, on your post.
Sadly they are stumbling on DRM.
by R. Proffitt - 6/20/09 8:19 AM
In reply to: Sci-Fi Fantsay by gkamer
Read http://forums.cnet.com/5208-13973_102-0.html?threadID=346751&tag=forums06;forum-threads and yet again the efforts on DRM are hindering them from delivering a working product.
That is, instead of working on "making it work" they continue to direct the efforts to making it barely work.
I haven't heard of any poison feature (nothing but banter) but I have seen players "update" and then stop playing discs that worked fine before the update. And without the update some new title won't play so if we buy into BD we are at their mercy.
Bob
firmware updates are not mandatory
by chrisr67 - 6/20/09 6:13 PM In reply to: The DRM by 3rdalbumIn regards to firmware updates, you don't have to burn them to CD everytime you want to update your player. The easier way is to copy it to a USB flash drive. It takes all of 2 minutes!
I've had my PS3 for 2 years and have only updated it 3 times with the latest firmware updates. It's not like your blu ray movies won't play if you don't update your player. It's not mandatory that you update your blu ray player every time a new update is available.
To those of you "on the fence" in regards to purchasing a bluray player, I say go for it! You can get an excellent bluray player now for under 150 bucks and the picture and sound quality is much better than standard DVD's. Even "upscaled" dvd's. The blu ray format is here to stay folks. Nothing is going to replace it for at least the next decade, so while technolgies do advance every 6 months, you won't have to worry about your bluray player being obsolete for quite some time.
Firmware updates are unavoidable.
by R. Proffitt - 6/21/09 5:02 AM
In reply to: firmware updates are not mandatory by chrisr67
Look in our Samsung forum about playback issues. It appears that too many devices are going to market with bugs that only the firmware update can fix.
Then another title comes out and you need yet another firmware update.
Reality is that while this is not mandatory, some content won't play without it.
Bob
What size TV do You have??
by givemeaname - 6/16/09 9:30 AM In reply to: IS BLU-RAY WORTH IT???? by vaulting16Part of up grading is having the right sized TV & not sitting way too far to see any diffrance.
I been BluRay for a few years.. been through hell with my one Samsuck player (I have 2 Samsungs). I got a panasonic bd80 a few months ago and it is night and day from that to that one Samsuck. I only had to do one update and that is when I got it, the samsungs I have done a few updates in the sametime frame.
For another format, it's going to be years (15-20+ years), mostliky a spinoff of BluRay using 200gig disc but will only happen when 4k TVs come out in the masses, it would be backwords conpatable too.
Yes, if...
by bearvp - 6/16/09 9:41 AM In reply to: IS BLU-RAY WORTH IT???? by vaulting16Upgrading to a Blu-ray player is worth it if you have the following:
- A HDTV of 40" or larger (50" or larger is best)
- A quality surround sound system that can take advantage of the DTS-HD/TrueHD sound formats. To me, the upgrade in audio quality is the best feature of Blu-ray over DVD. A HTIB surround sound system won't cut it very well to appreciate the HD audio formats.
HD audio
by JeepMysteryProb - 6/18/09 6:18 PM In reply to: Yes, if... by bearvpBlu-ray players now have onboard decoding for these formats, so if you don't have a up to date receiver, the player can send a compatible decoded HD audio stream to it. By doing this you get the benefits of HD audio. Although this is a solution, it should remain a temporary one; as for the player decoding the HD audio is not quite on the same level of quality as you HD audio capable receiver. Anyway, both work.
My 2-cents
by Dan Filice - 6/16/09 10:45 AM In reply to: IS BLU-RAY WORTH IT???? by vaulting16As others have stated, if you have the right equipment to highlight the benefits of Blu-Ray, then you will totally enjoy the new format. Obviously if you have a 20" TV with standard video connections, then don't bother. The good thing is that Blu-Ray players are backward compatible and they upconvert. I love the HT experience, and to me, the stunning picture and audio quality is well worth the investment. Yes, you need to update the firmware once in awhile, but no big thing. A friend who has a Samsung BR player couldn't play the new James Bond movie "Quantum of Solace", so I bought it from her. It plays fine on both my PS3 and Panasonic BD35, but I've kept up with firmware updates. One cool thing about BR discs is that they have "Smart Menus", where during the middle of playing the feature, you can call-up the menu and change settings without the need to completely stop the movie (such as changing to the "Director Commentary" mode).
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