Is it actually time to buy Blu-ray yet?

[DBilodeau]

Heyall

I have been doing a lot of revamping to my entertainment setup. I have a 42inch panasonic plasma and a new sony surround sound system. I have an upconverting HD dvd player.

To be totally honest I dont think its terrible. I think its worst than HD cable but not so much that I cant enjoy movies.

So the real question - should I buy a blueray player. I really like the newer models with the internet options, etc. But most of the good players are around $300 dollars. Additionally I will have to pay netflix a few extra bucks more each month to get blu-ray disc.

I am definitely not crying about the money - but I dont want to waste money either. The way it seems from my noob perspective is that right now, half the movies I may want to watch are not in blu-ray. It looks like from netflix, I cant get a lot of newer titles yet either. So is it really worth it just yet?

I guess I feel like by the time the titles are all 100% in blu-ray (or at least close to that number) the players will either 1 be a lot cheaper or 2 a lot better in terms of functionality and operation. I fully understand that the video and sound will be significantly better than anything I have right now and I know that I am not maximizing my tvs potential.

With all that said - does the cost and availability of titles (netflix) really make it worth while as opposed to holding out for another 6-12 months? Maybe I am off and it will not even take that long.

Thanks! Look forward peoples thoughts.

[crazyBLUE]

First ~ Welcome to the forum DB !
Yes there will be A difference & personally I would not wait , but that is me !
I guess it comes down to how long you want to wait to enjoy the best picture & audio quality you can get !
Good luck deciding on witch way to go !

[Bad8511]

You have already waited too long. LOL. I just came back from BB, and they had a Sony BDP for $149. Pretty good if you ask me.

[Beta Man]

Well..... I'd have to point out that if you plan on waiting for pretty much every catalog title to be on Blu-ray, you're going to wait a LONG time.... there are over 900,000 titles on DVD, and studios can only put them out so fast.....

The number of releases is increasing though, so that's promising.....

Also... if you have netflix, first, the extra couple bucks is no big deal.... and secondly, you can get a Netflix-streaming player, so you can add "Play it Now" titles to your plasma and get that as a bonus (if you can't do that already I guess..... I personally don't watch anything on my laptop, and don't know where to begin to set it up so I can stream netflix to my T.V.)


Player prices will go down of course..... heck, you can get a DVD player for $20.... but when players were $800 in 1997, did you say... "Hmmm should I get it now, or wait until they're $50" For what you get, a $250 netflix capable player is pretty good deal, but it's your money of course.....

Do you buy movies, or strictly rent? Just because you get a Blu-ray player doesn't mean you should stop netflixing DVDs..... as you said, they still look really good, but wouldn't you want the option to have the best version available???

It's up to you, but if it's worth the money to you, there's no reason to wait.... You could always get one of the "cheapie" $99 players..... not a really big investment there......

Welcome to the forum.

[Anthony P]

I would say the time was 3 years ago. It looks a lot better and pretty much every new release comes out on BD. Yes not every catalogue movie is on BD (far from it) but this way you can look at new movies in much better quality and there are a lot of catalogue to watch. Once you buy BD you will most likely kick yourself for not doing it earlier. As for when 100% of titles will be on BD, that most likely will be never, the same way that 100% of movies are not available on DVD today, and definitely won't be close to that in 6-12 months. Yes players could (most likely) be cheaper, but in the end you can wait for ever for the day that price can't drop any more. Lets take it this way if I remember correctly DVD came out in 97 and in 05 DVD players had hit rock bottom (at least for cheap ones) at 20$. In 06 BD came out (and I guess in 05 no one knew that there would not be 15$ players, so you would have needed to wait for the next generation to buy your first DVD player, and never enjoyed DVD when it was in its prime.

[Afrobean]

There are a lot of quality players under 200 bucks, and if you hunt for deals, you should be able to go under 150, even for a quality player. I personally got a deal from Amazon on a name-brand (forget which, maybe Samsung...?) 2.0 player for about 125, and it supports streaming Netflix and Pandora music. All I had to do to get it that low was buy 3 movies I was planning on buying anyway at about 20 bucks a piece (when normally I could get the same titles for a couple bucks less). Saving it for a Christmas present for a family member.

But if you're weary of the pricing, aim for a deal, or go for a cheap-o 100 buck model from Walmart or Best Buy. And don't go for the most recent model either. It's not necessary. Go for the oldest model that has the features you want. If you want online extras, make sure it's profile 2.0. If you want streaming built in, make sure. Just don't go down to Best Buy and plunk down 300 bucks on the most recent model because it's not worth it.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by DBilodeau

So the real question - should I buy a blueray player.

First of all, welcome the community!

Second, yes, the time is right to enter the Blu-ray market! The prices are exactly where they need to be, so I would not wait any longer.

Welcome again.

Pro-B