I'm Backing Out of the Blu-Ray Format (For Now)

[Jeffredo]

I grabbed a Black Friday Toshiba BDX2000 for $80 at Amazon. It was an impulse buy, but I figured for the low price I might as well give BR a try. I have a 37" 1080p and thought I should make full use of its capabilities.

While the BR image quality is very good, I just for some reason hate the thought of getting into a new format. I have a huge library of DVDs, the Toshiba's upscaling quality sucks in comparison with my Oppo DV-981HD, BR discs on average seem to be about 50% more for new releases plus I buy a lot of "bargain bin" DVDs for $3-5 bucks. A quick check of my Netflix queue shows about half of the movies are on DVD only (still). Factoring those things in it just doesn't seem to be a good fit for me yet. I don't want to pop for a good player that can match my Oppo's SD-DVD upscaling (I figure that'll take a $200 investment at least) and the Toshiba is just a little too basic. I just sold it on Amazon for more that I paid, so I guess I'm good. Oh, and yes, my HDTV is calibrated (by color meter) and my vision is 20/20.

They say once you go Blu-Ray you never go back. I guess I'm that one in a million exception to the rule. Its just not compelling enough to start switching over. Maybe its my TV size. Maybe I'm just easily pleased. Maybe when/if my Oppo DVD player craps out I'll be more inclined to get a quality BR player. I suppose I could sell the Oppo for $125-$150 on eBay to defray the cost of a good machine (isn't Oppo supposed to come out with a less expensive Blu-Ray?). Hmm...