What made you upgrade from SDTV/DVD to HDTV/BD?

[Jonathan Grynspan]

(Or individually, or however you did your upgrade?)

Or, put another way, what ruined standard def for you?

For me, it was watching Planet Earth on Blu Ray on my friend's 40" Sony set. The detail and scope made my jaw drop. I went home and tried out the DVD on my 29" CRT, and knew immediately that I was going to be eating cat food for a while so I could fit some new purchases into my budget.

[Uniquely]

I've always been somewhat of an early adopter, of course finances didn't really support it until I got older.

I got my first HDTV back in 2001; a 42" Sony Grand Wega LCD RPTV. The only real HD content available to me at that time was WMV HD movies from my PC. When it became apparent to me that my local Mediacom wasn't getting HD content any time soon, I switched to DirecTV in 2004. It was still early for even DirecTV. I had to pay $400 to get the HD box, and there were maybe 10-12 channels in HD. When HD media came out, I went with the HD-DVD add-on for the 360. That was very early in the format war and there was no indication of who would win it, but the add-on made the most sense for my household because I had two 360's, each on an HDTV, so I just had to plug the add-on into the USB port on each 360 to be able to enjoy hd movies in either room; no fiddling with AV cables behind the tvs. I went blu as soon as it became apparent that they were going to win the format war.

[Propellarhead9]

The current Gen of game consoles is what made me upgrade

[kingofgrills]

Although I wanted HD for a few years at that point, the announcement of the upcoming PS3 pushed me into the HD era. Having the ability to get a next-gen game machine that also acted as a Blu-ray player was huge. I designed my home theater room around the PS3.

[sinister184]

PS3 lead to buying a new TV, which lead to buying new speakers, which lead to buying new everything.

[crazyBLUE]

For me it was Just seeing one A few years ago ! so I bought A 42" plasma Witch after A while just seemed small so I just bought A bigger one !
Now I am really happy with what I have !

[Blu Titan]

I upgraded my tv first from 1080i to 1080p and I knew that Blu-ray was the way to go. When I initially decided between Blu-ray and HD DVD, I looked closely at: studio support (Blu had the edge), Capacity and bandwith (Blu again), Protective coating (Blu), PS3 playable (Big Plus for Blu), and finished specs (HD DVD). The choice was clear...my plan was to rent only and not buy anything until the "format war" was decided. However, once I got into it I purchased over 100 BD movies in the first six months of owning my 60GB PS3.

[Jonathan Grynspan]

Originally Posted by sinister184

PS3 lead to buying a new TV, which lead to buying new speakers, which lead to buying new everything.

Hah! Sounds familiar--just sub in Xbox instead of PS3 for me. :P

[K_Williamson42]

The amount of time I spend in front of the tv watching movies and sports.

[Infrared Sight]

I wanted a bigger tv so I got a 50" Panasonic Plasma. I made sure to get a 1080p because the format was was going strong and HD was where it was at. I knew that DVD was going out and I wanted in the HD world. Slowly I have got the hd dvd format, followed by the blu-ray disc format, and now I am upgrading my speakers from a htib to Polk Audio. Never thought I would have this much in so short of time to tell you the truth. I am amazed.

[ambientcafe]

Bluray is the current plateau in a series of progressing video formats that were initially necessitated by my use of large, front projection setups, starting in the early 90's. Let's see, it started with SuperBeta, then Laserdisc, to dvd, then HDDVD, to present day.

[wesnah]

My girlfriend moved into her first apartment(2/2007) and needed everything. Furniture, TV, etc... to start her life. She decided if she was going to buy stuff it may as well be good. So when we went looking at TV's (BestBuy) she was going to get a 37" HP (LCD 720p) for $879. We saw a 42" Plasma (Maxent 1080i) for $999 and decided on that. Got the HD channels from Comcast and a PS3(12/2007) and have not looked back. Sold the Plasma (gaming reasons) for $500 a year later and brought a 60" Mitsubishi DLP(1080p) for $1000. And we couldn't be happier.

[genkifd]

moved out with my partner and we need a tv, and more research i do more i get into it - so end up spend far more than i watned but at least i am very happy with my system

[SkillzthatKillz]

bought my 1st HDTV (52 inch RCA RPTV) back in 2001 when my local cable company first got HD channels. Main reason for going HD at the time was for sports, because once you see a sporting event in HD you can't go back. Bought a PS3 (40GB) in December of 2007 and started buying Blu's/PS3 games right away.

[Travis]

Seeing The Fifth Element on a Bravia.

The nail in the coffin for SD was hearing The Godfather trilogy was coming out.

[prerich]

Sports in HD (Super Bowl, College Football, NBA, Hockey) and watching the Imax films that came out in WMV-HD (Before BD or HD-DVD). High Def format players were just a logical add-on when they came out (via PC first of course ) .

[Beta Man]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Grynspan

(
Or, put another way, what ruined standard def for you?.

Standard Def. isn't "Ruined" for me.... I still greatly enjoy it.

I was an early adopter of DVD (Late 1997) and I really enjoy films, so it was only a matter of time.....

My father-in-law bought a 37" Aquos and decided it was "Too Big" so he gave it to my wife and I..... we had it for a little over 2 years before it ever received it's first HD content, and that's when I got an HD DVD player, and Blu-ray player within 2 days of each other.

Since then, I've bought a 32" for the bedroom just because it takes up less space than the perfectly fine 32" CRT we had, so it's going into a "Play Room" to play DVDs of god-awful sing-alongs and grown men dressed in over-stuffed animal suits all day long for the kids.

Then, unlike the DVD days, I wasn't content just buying the media, so I got a projector, and upgraded pretty much everything else too.

I think finances are the biggest reason I made the jumps though, although I've always been an early adopter.

EDIT:

Finances and priorities have greatly changed though..... so it's a good thing that I built a little setup while I could!

[melbye]

My girlfriend demanded

[FlipperWasIrish]

This is easy for me, around 2002 I had an injury to my left eye which caused my vision to go from 20-20 to 20-100 in it. At present, it floats between 20-40 and 20-60.

Anyway, I LOVE movies and sports and was at a local TV store in late 2002looking for a DVD player to give my sister's family and saw HDTV for the first time. A college football game was on and I just want WOW!!!

Then I saw a movie on the HDTV and again went WOW. I took a trip to the casino that night and won 5K on a slot machine and Sunday I went in a bought a 7K SONY 42" plasma which I love to this day. On Monday I said what the hell and dropped 1K on a basic surround sound system (that I replaced 3 years ago with a better one).

Without HDTV for me TV would be less enjoyable.

By late 2007 I was set with two SONYs (42" and 40") and two PANY Blu-ray players and a nice surround sound system (Maranetz) in my living room.

HDTV is AWESOME!!!!

[CRAW]

My old Sony AVR died, and I finally got into the digital age w/ a Elite VSX-01TXH AVR, then I found out I was losing my job, and got a healthy severance package. This allowed me to get a KURO and a PS3 - the rest is history. Now I "need" some new speakers, of course.