dvd choices

[kenmore212]

whats the general feeling regarding the difference between High Definition and Blu-ray dvd players ?. Should we hang on till the time arrives when there is going to be just one system.

[tickledtrout]

Just been announced in the last few days that the big name production companies are releasing on blu-ray only.

[kempie]

http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9056898

[vehelpfulguy]

As has been said, it looks like "Blu Ray" might win.

Having said that I am not convinced that for most people it is the right time to jump in to HD.

Years ago, before we had home video taping, the arrival of VHS and Beta was such a breakthrough that it had to suceed.

The same with the arrival of the original DVD, it was such an improvement over tapes that we all jumped at the chance to use them.

But the leap from DVD to high definition is not that great.

UK DVDs are 576 lines, and high definition DVDs can be up to 1080 lines.

But many high definition TVs sold in the UK are not 1080P capable, and can only show 768 lines.

So anyone without a 1080P TV will only see an improvement from 576 lines to 768 lines which hardly seems worth it.

Particulalry with the price of players, and of the disks themselves.

Let them fight it out and we can all join in in a year or so, when the winner is more obvious and the price has come down.

[vehelpfulguy]

It might be worth asking this in technology as well.

As you would expect, lots of technical experts hang out there.

[kempie]

vehelpfulguy - Surely the 768 lines mentioned in your reply should actually be 720 lines.

[kempie]

...having re-read your answer I now understand it to mean the use by TV manufacturers etc. of WXGA as the native viewing area as opposed to the 'lesser' HDTV standard of 720p.

Heaven knows why they even thought that using WXGA would be a better alternative to 720p since the downscaling of 1080p required to achieve 768 lines will produce an arquably worse picture (albeit slightly larger) than that required for 720p.