Blu-Ray Affordability Watch

I posted it somewhere else (which movies did you see 2009)

I had for a lifetime a copy of the Good the Bad and the Ugly on DVD. Simple VCR quality copied to DVD.

one day, i red that the movie was totaly remastered and put on Blue Ray. No directors cut, but an a-sto-ni-shing quality never ever expected, still giving me the chills. (close ups of Eastwood and the 2 others are a MUST see comparison with the DVD version)

Why do we buy movies anyway and not renting them? coz we think they are so good they deserve a place in the DVD library yes?
Well, the best of the best, i purchase them on Blueray, the mainstreams… i wait untill they are 199 0r 299 after a few months.

I have to buy a new electric shaver tomorrow so I have to hold off on purchasing any luxury items.

Dunno. I’ve never bought one. I have a few that people have given me or burned for me, but I’d no more think of buying a movie than fly in the air. Once you’ve watched it, that’s it, surely? I mean, that’s why I don’t watch the TV – when’s the last time you turned on the TV and found a movie you’ve already seen? Feck! Turn that goddamn thing OFF!

LOL physical media.

Please tell me where you can get them for 199-299, I have never seen them for less than 600-1000 here, and even discounted in the US they are usually $15 or so - NT450+.

[quote=“sandman”]New releases? Tons. But all just the usual shitty Hollywood blockbusters, as far as I can see. I’ve yet to see a Blu Ray disc in my shop that I’d want to see, and they have a whole wall of them now.
I don’t even know if my TV is up to Blu Ray in any case – a 42 inch Panasonic Vizia of some sort with all kinds of bells and whistles. Not much point, though, if there’s nothing to actually watch on the thing other than Nicholas Cage and Beloos Weelis.[/quote]

Ah. If they put the Criterion Collection on BluRay then maybe…

Please tell me where you can get them for 199-299, I have never seen them for less than 600-1000 here, and even discounted in the US they are usually $15 or so - NT450+.[/quote]

Not the Bluerays la ! I mean the mainstream DVD’s being put on sale at 199-299

Thus, there are two DVD stores on the back of Bade road whom provide better prices thru a 2+1 for free deal.

I rediscovered what is watching a movie since I bought a nice TV and a BR player (i.e a PS3), the difference between a DVD (especially when it’s upscaled…) and a BR (especially movies shot in IMAX such as Batman) is freaking huge to me.

I usually don’t buy BR/DVD (except few that I really like Star Wars, Godfather and Amelie Poulain), I rent them to my local store, there is plenty of choice.

OK, since DVD player is about to go kaput -well, it is 3/4s kaput already- I have been looking at this thing, especially since the video store i go to has a nice arrange of Blue ray movies, and I just saw that they have Star Trek TOS in Blue Ray format. :discodance:

Costco has a nice set with audio -4 speakers and one control unit- at a “will be eating 40nt bientangs for 6 months to pay this” kind of price. Actually, almost the same as my trustworthy DVR… in its heyday.

On the other hand, there are LG and Phillips Blue Ray players at 8K or 6K, depending.

I only have to figure out which one plays along with my CRT TV. :smiley:

I finally broke down and bought one. I got a Sony for 6,200NT. I don’t have any discs, but I rented three this weekend: A Clockwork Orange, Kick Ass, and Star Trek. I like the quality, I just got a new 28 inch monitor, so I have HDMI for the cables. I got a box to switch between TV and computer. It evens lets you do the picture in picture, so you can have computer and TV at the same time. I bought a little amplifier and hooked up a pair of Infinity speakers that I just had laying around. I used to use them as the back sound in the 5.1.

All set up real nice. Last night I was watching my fantasy football team while streaming the games. Until I got too sleepy.

I am looking at getting a Blue Ray PLayer (but not a PS3 coz I got a 360 already)
The Sony BDP-S580 looks good to me so far but I’d like to know what others have, LG? Samsung? or the 580.
How is the loading speed? quality? Does it have Wifi? etc…
Thanks for any imput.

The one I got was Sony BDP-S370. It seems to load slowly. It doesn’t remember where you left off the last time you turned it off. It doesn’t have WiFi but it has a internet socket on the back. And a USB on the front. Other than that, I am happy with it.

Yeah, I am glad you mentioned that. It’s another thing I have heard of. Some player don’t remember where you left off.

I bought a Sony BDP-S360 probably about a year ago (NT$9000). I’m happy with it, but I see that the S370 sells at Costco for less than NT$6000.

The S360 doesn’t have an eject button (You mean I actually have to get off the couch?!), but other than that, it’s very decent.

shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=stor … _NO=AFAD2T
Seems like you can pick up some “cheap” models for under 4k now…
The 3D ones are nice and expensive though, at 10k and up…
LG seems to be a good choice for anyone wanting to watch “internet content” as its players play DivX and MKV files…

@ Mcoy and MP: I got the Sony BDP-S580. I am very happy with it and it has an eject button :slight_smile:
However I got a bit of a headache regarding playing video files via the USB port. I want to play some .MKV files 720p or 1080p,
I understand that the player only recognize FAT32 systems, but since these system don’t allow files bigger than 4GB and those .MKV files are minimum 5.5GB, it ain’t working. Is there a work around that? Do I need to format my small USB key (16GB) as a NTFS? would that work?
How can I play those .MKV files?
Thanks
Edit: Is it possible to make this player region free?

you can buy a WATCH that measures blue ray affordability? that’s amazing.

Is it a Swatch?

It’s a problem I’ve had. There’s a couple of ways around it.

You can use a program called mkvmergegui. That will let you split your large files to 4GB. Reformatting as NTFS won’t work. Your player won’t recognize it.

You still might not be able to play all codecs. There’s limited codec support on most standalone devices. You should be fine for 720p scene rips of Tv shows and the like but there’s a lot of less standard encodes that aren’t supported. For example a lot of 1080p stuff uses DTS audio which isn’t supported by most devices.

So your next option up is to buy a media player box like the Western Digital TV HD or something. There’s plenty around. They’re usually around 3000-5000 or so. You plug in a portable hard drive or flash drives, connect it to the TV via HDMI and it’ll play anything you throw at it. I’ve heard great things about various brands, and might get one sometime soon myself.

For making it region free, this is done through entering codes via the remote. Google for unlock codes.

Thanks very much bu lai en.
I found this as a work around e-Fun box but all info is in chinese. It’s 2600 NT$ near my place. how does it compare to WD TVHD?

[quote=“igorveni”]Thanks very much bu lai en.
I found this as a work around e-Fun box but all info is in chinese. It’s 2600 NT$ near my place. how does it compare to WD TVHD?[/quote]

I’m not really an expert on these things, but it seems to have the important formats and codecs - all the usual ones, including DTS audio, FLAC audio (if you want to play lossless compressed flac audio files this could be great), Blu Ray folders and iso. These haven’t always been supported by media players.

It seems to have two USB ports, which is probably a minimum - one for your big external hard drive and one for lash drives. But they are 2.0. If other players have USB 3, that might be worth considering (but I’m not really sure about that).

The clincher will be what the OSD is like. When I’ve seen these things discussed online one of the main gripes or praises seem to be about how easy/hard this is to use (and the remote control). But I have no personal experience with that. Anyway, if you buy it online, you can always return it if you don’t like it.

Brian