Now that Blu-ray has been declared the 'victor'....

[Andrew]

How quickly are you likely to buy into this format?

Also, bearing in mind the comments from overseas with regards the two different specifications of Blu-ray, will you buy into the current spec players now and upgrade later, or wait until the spec 2 machines are available in South Africa?

Those who have already bought HD-DVD players - how will this affect your future outlook/attitude towards the A/V industry with regards new products? By having these format wars, are they ultimately shooting themselves in the foot by creating a growing distrust in the industry?

[kay]

PS3 is the only BD player that makes sense now. Not only is it the cheapest, but it also supports BD profile 2.0 and will continue to be upgraded for the forseeable future. I don't mind current player prices, but I can't justify the price difference given what software costs. I think DVD's in the R70-140 range have spoilt us It will be hard to swallow parting with R250 per BD title...

[Ian]

I agree 100% with Kay until the software price become reasonable I'll be staying with my upscalled SD DVD's
Cheers Ian

[oradba69]

Will music be made aavailable in BD or is it only about the visual whoohaa?

[Gerhard]

I'd first like to see what material is released here and how much it'll cost.

[Dolby]

The initial cost of the player can drop by 50% and I won't be interested right now. The reason - apart from software - is needing a 720/1080 panel to get the full benefit! These cost 4 x more than the player itself. The actual machine is just the start of your expenses!

[kay]

Will music be made aavailable in BD or is it only about the visual whoohaa?

There is a huge potential for better-than-CD-quality audio coming from BD titles. I doubt we will see any audio-only releases, but if mastered properly, concerts and live performance titles' quality could benefit tremendously.

[joel]

I have a Dolby sampler which has a couple of Dolby Digital Plus tracks and some Dolby TrueHD tracks. The disc is titled The Sound Of High Definition.

This would seem to indicate that music will be available on Bluray and in higher quality.

Question is, whether production quality will be up to scratch? 

[Prince]

I have a Dolby sampler which has a couple of Dolby Digital Plus tracks and some Dolby TrueHD tracks. The disc is titled The Sound Of High Definition.

This would seem to indicate that music will be available on Bluray and in higher quality.

Question is, weather production quality will be up to scratch? 

-another question would be whether it will be affordable to the masses???

-in short I don't think so...

 

[Andrew]

Overseas reports indicate that initially, Blu-ray players wil lremain pretty high in price as the Blu-ray lot try and recoup their losses. After that prices should start coming down. But then consumers are warned not to be duped into buying Spec 1 players... Makes one wonder at times whether a lot of these companies view the consumer as little more than a convenient cash cow to dump their products on. How does that make you feel, as consumers? 

[Dolby]

Often had the feeling with electronics, tbh

[kay]

Prices are still going up it seems:

Pricewatch - Sony, Sharp and Panasonic Blu-ray players continue to climb an upward price slope as demand has increased and competition decreased in the high definition video market, TG Daily found. Samsung's BD-P1400 and LG's combo player, however, have settled down and are moving back into more favorable price territory.

Source. The PS3 has done the same locally - though that's probably more to do with the Rand exchange rate

[Prince]

Prices are still going up it seems:

Source. The PS3 has done the same locally - though that's probably more to do with the Rand exchange rate

the Blu-Ray cost recovery exercise continues...

 

[Soundworx]

I'll wait a least a few years for the price and spec wars to settle down before I will go blue ray.  The other side of things are the non-availability of DVD audio and SACD titles off the shelf like normal CD's and DVD's. The same with blue ray titles...  will the local video rental keep titles in blue ray? for example

And for some reason I'm not that comfortable buying SACD/DVD audio etc over the net if I han not listen to it.