Ok I've got the flat screen HDTV now, so my first thought is to consider how best to view my old DVD's. They actually look very good in an older basic Magnavox no-frills player I've been using for awhile, but I'm at least going to upgrade to a a newer regular DVD player with the upconvert thing and use an HDMI cable. That will keep me happy for now, but I like to always be thinking ahead, so my first question then is...If you play a regular DVD in a new Blu-ray player with an HDMI cable will it look better than it would playing it back on a regular DVD player with an HDMI cable? Next question....Is the motion picture industry going to eventually re-do everything that was ever made on DVD into a Blu-ray version? I see now that they are re-doing movies from the last twenty years or so but are they going to be re-issuing the older, classic movies in Blu-ray or is that not worth it to re-do an old movie like that? Finally what are some good, top-selling brands of Blu-ray players?
All blu-ray players will upconvert DVDs, so yes it will look better. I highly doubt that every movie ever put on DVD will come on blu-ray. Even so, some of the older movies do not turn out that great on blu-ray, so you don't need to replace all of your DVD's with Blu-ray discs. I haven't replaced any of my original DVD's, they look amazing when upconverted, I only buy newer movies on blu-ray. Some of the best brands, IMO, are Pioneer, Panasonic, and Sony. The Pioneer models are one of the most expensive, but they are also one of the best, but you can get just as good quality others, like Panasonic. I've heard good reviews on Oppo, but I haven't seen it in action yet. I recommend any of these players: Panasonic DMP-BD80 Sony BDP-S560 Pioneer BDP-23FD
But what about today's current lineup of standard DVD players. They all upconvert too. See what I want to know is...If you playback a regular DVD in a new Blu-ray player with an HDMI cable will it look better than it would playing it back on a standard DVD player with the upconvert thing and an HDMI cable?
It's about the same, I have both. Like branded SONY DVD and BD players. BD players are designed to play primarily BLU-RAY disc. The up-convert HDMI option built in is the same. Actually BLU-RAY players actually are built internally different than standard DVD players and are doing more work mechanically as the two players have different disc reading mechanisms to read either BLU-RAY or SD DVD. Some brand's like Oppo swear to have superior HDMI over other brands as their DVD standalone players are very pricey and region free.
I was doing a little shopping on Blu-rays last night. It kinda scares me to buy one right now when I hear stories about certain Blu-ray players won't play certain new Blu-ray discs or something like that. How can that be? Other problems I read about were certain players take a long time to load a disc and bring up the menu (Pioneer I believe). So I'm just not convinced yet!
This is true but keep in mind a BLU-RAY player is reading 50GB DL disc on average where a SD DVD(Standard Definition regular DVD)is only 8.5GB DL or smaller 4.7 SL. The structure of the BD disc are different. SONY PS3 is known to be the best BD player because of that systems ability to quick start with minimal cycling before start. I don't own a PS3 but I do have a SONY standalone BLU-RAY player. No worries though BLU-RAY has moved comfortably into the movie disc media market. There are 400 disc BD-Players and every major electronics brand has a BLU-RAY of it's own make and distributing. By black friday you'll have changed your mind.
One more question...How are the Blu-ray players on playing back standard DVD's? I heard that some blu-ray players will not recognize standard formatting on non-blu-ray discs
All blu-ray players should playback any "store bought" dvd. If your talking about burned DVD's, then the burned dvd has to be in the same region as your blu-ray player, and it should also be booktyped to DVD-ROM to ensure compatibility. When you buy a blu-ray movie, you most likely will find a little piece of paper saying that some discs may not be compatible with your blu-ray player. All you have to do is update your firmware and it will play. "New" blu-ray discs that have capacities over 50GB haven't been sold yet to consumers, and probably won't be for a long time, so no need to worry. I don't know how much the quality has changed on upconverters so far. But comparing a DVD on my Pansonic Blu-ray player, and my brother's Toshiba XDE upconverter, DVD's look a lot better on the blu-ray player then the upconverter.
Explain this "same region" and booktyped thing to me. I have several movies that have been burned onto to blank DVD's but I don't know anything about what region they from or if they are booktyped. They are just videos that I burned from AVI's.
If your uncertain of what some terms used are that's ok, just use the glossary section next time before asking: http://www.afterdawn.com/glossary/terms/region_code.cfm http://www.afterdawn.com/glossary/terms/booktype.cfm Depending whether your DVD's are in PAL or NTSC format, it may not play if the player is in a different region then the disc. For example, My blu-ray player Panasonic DMP-BD55, can only play NTSC DVD's and not PAL. My Xbox 360 is region free (all regions), meaning it can play both NTSC and PAL DVD's.
