Status on Blu-Ray?

[JKL2000]

So I wait as long as possible - till my Oppo DVD player dies - to finally get a Blu-Ray player, and I see there are still releases coming out in DVD only, not Blu-Ray. One I was hoping for is the upcoming live Steve Hackett release, but it looks like it's only coming out on DVD. So are there a LOT of releases still only coming out on DVD? Is there a good single source to find out what formats a "video" (concert, movie, etc.) is coming out in? I'd just like to try to get a handle on the status of the Blu-Ray format - if it's struggling at all, if maybe Blu-Ray releases sometimes come out later than the DVD format, etc. I was hoping at this point that anything that came out in DVD would also come out in Blu-Ray.

[rcarlberg]

Many questions have you. Patience need you. Happiness yours will be.

[JKL2000]

Can you please stop talking backward?

I'm not looking for a comprehensive answer from one person, just some impressions from people who've owned Blu-Ray players for a while now and buy Blu-Ray disks. Is there an abbreviation for that?

[rcarlberg]

BD (that's the abbrevo) seems to be released simultaneously (or nearly) on every major studio release but smaller independent studios maybe not so much. The additional capacity of BD makes it prudent to add a lot of content not possible with DVD, and some movies (like Avatar) take their sweet time coming up with the bonus features.

Going away? I doubt it. BD won the HD wars (over HD DVD) so it's the only contestant standing. And 3D video seems to be DOA due to lack of worthwhile 3D content.

[LASERCD]

In general music DVDs are a dying breed. Because of exhorbitant licensing fees, Blu-ray is out of the reach of most record labels - at least for smaller selling artists. IO has not dipped its toes in the Blu-ray waters yet. I'm a bit surprised they aren't with Steve Hackett. I would think he could sell enough to warrant a Blu-Ray release.

[rcarlberg]

Somebody said just yesterday that music DVDs have been killed by YouTube. I can believe it.

[Jubal]

Just for the record, most Blu-Rays WILL play regular DVDs.

[rcarlberg]

Just for the record, most Blu-Rays WILL play regular DVDs.

I think ALL of them will. They are not all "region free" however.

[nosebone]

You can get a new BR player for under $100 that also plays regular DVDs.

Problem solved!

[trurl]

Yep, just upgrade. As DVD retires more releases will be Blu-ray and if you own an HDTV you're screwing yourself not taking advantage of it. Heck, even if you still have an old CRT TV you'd see improvement in color saturation and lack of ringing/edge enhancement type artifacts even if you can't see the higher resolution so all things being equal I say take the plunge

[JIF]

I think ALL of them will. They are not all "region free" however.

Sorry for this stupid question, but what is "region free"?

[rcarlberg]

Sorry for this stupid question, but what is "region free"?

Most movies are licensed by region -- look on Wikipedia under DVD region codes -- in order to play movies outside your licensed market you need either a region-free or an all-region player. And I'm not quite sure why those exist, come to think of it. Maybe the movie studios aren't as powerful as they want to be?

[tom unbound]

Just bought Chris Squire's FOOW with the extra DVD --- and it was on PAL !?! The studio's plooking continues on a global scale.

(buy a player with an Internet connection. even the cheap ones come with it now)

[rcarlberg]

I ran across a used Blu-ray of Avatar today so I thought I'd try out the online extras, which I've heard from a couple of different sources are the most advanced yet released.

So okay, it has BD-Live features -- nine 2 to 3 minute videos you can either download or stream. Deleted scenes and "making of" stuff. That's cool. Unfortunately I think all of them (?) appear on the deluxe 4-disc DVD of the movie that I already have.

And it is V E R Y S L O W to load!!!

[trurl]

So okay, it has BD-Live features -- nine 2 to 3 minute videos you can either download or stream. Deleted scenes and "making of" stuff. That's cool. Unfortunately I think all of them (?) appear on the deluxe 4-disc DVD of the movie that I already have.

Well, it was all exclusive content at the time it first came out BDLive is really slow- it's not bad on a PS3 (which is what I use) which, afaik, still functions as about the fastest and most advanced BD player you can get. But I couldn't imagine dealing with that on a cheap player or slow internet connection. Apart from Avatar and maybe a couple others (and I couldn't tell you at the moment what they were) BD-Live has never been a feature with anything remotely resembling any relevance for me.

[rcarlberg]

Apart from Avatar and maybe a couple others BD-Live has never been a feature with anything remotely resembling any relevance for me.

Well one can hope for future relevance.

[Azol]

If you do not have any Blu-ray discs, you do not need a Blu-ray player. As simple as that.

The point is - most DVD and Blu-ray discs are worldwide (region-free) nowadays, but you may have some older DVDs that are restricted to some specific region (Japan, for example). If your current DVD player is locked, say, to Region 1, you are able to watch DVDs that have same region 1 coding only, plus region-free ones of course (you can find the code in the back of the DVD box). If you do not require multi-region support, you have less to worry about - just upgrade to Blu-ray player anytime you want.

But the point is - new Blu-ray players are harder to make region free - sometimes it requires a hardware upgrade! Plus, you have to make them region-free separately for DVD part and Blu-ray part, i.e. it may play DVDs from all regions, but still be locked for single Blu-ray region (because the DVD and Blu-ray have different region coding: region 1-5 and 0 (worldwide) for DVD and Regions A, B and C for Blu-ray).

Sounds pretty complicated - I cannot comprehend what was the idea behind this monstrosity. On the other hand, I haven't encountered region-restricted Blu-ray yet, all of them were region free. Just watch this region info when purchasing discs and vote with your wallet!

[rcarlberg]

If you do not have any Blu-ray discs, you do not need a Blu-ray player. As simple as that.

And just to reiterate your point, the difference in picture quality between a DVD and a Blu-ray, now that I have one of each of Avatar to compare, is real but incremental. Not night and day. It's like the difference between most CD remasterings, or the difference between a 2012 and a 2013 car. Small tweaks, slight improvements. Side-by-side comparisons will show a difference, but unless you compare side-by-side you'd never see the differences.

I buy all of my Blu-ray Discs secondhand, so the extra list price doesn't phase me. But I'd have serious difficulty justifying the extra expense if I bought only new.

[trurl]

And just to reiterate your point, the difference in picture quality between a DVD and a Blu-ray, now that I have one of each of Avatar to compare, is real but incremental. Not night and day. It's like the difference between most CD remasterings, or the difference between a 2012 and a 2013 car. Small tweaks, slight improvements. Side-by-side comparisons will show a difference, but unless you compare side-by-side you'd never see the differences.

I buy all of my Blu-ray Discs secondhand, so the extra list price doesn't phase me. But I'd have serious difficulty justifying the extra expense if I bought only new.

What are you watching on??

[rcarlberg]

most DVD and Blu-ray discs are worldwide (region-free) nowadays...

I haven't encountered region-restricted Blu-ray yet, all of them were region free.

I questioned this, and the answer turned out to be a bit more nuanced.

As with the implementation of region codes for DVDs, Blu-ray Disc players sold in a specific geographical region are designed to play only discs authorized by the content provider for that region. This is intended to permit content providers (motion picture studios, etc.) to do effective price differentiation between regions. According to the Blu-ray Disc Association, "all Blu-ray Disc players...(and) Blu-ray Disc-equipped computer systems are required to support regional coding." However, "Use of region playback codes is optional for content providers..."[143] Some current estimates suggest 70% of available [movie] Blu-ray Discs from the major studios are region-code-free and can therefore be played on any Blu-ray Disc player, in any region.[144]

Movie studios have different region coding policies. Among major U.S. studios, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, Sony Pictures, and Walt Disney Pictures have released most of their titles region-free.[145][146][147][148][149][150] MGM and Lions Gate Entertainment have released a mix of region-free and region-coded titles.[151][152] 20th Century Fox has released most of their titles region-coded.[153]

The Blu-ray Disc region coding scheme divides the world into three regions, labeled A, B, and C.

Region code Area
A Includes most North, Central, and South American and Southeast Asian countries plus Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, and Korea.
B Includes most European, African, and Southwest Asian countries plus Australia and New Zealand.
C Includes the remaining central and south Asian countries, as well as China and Russia.

In circumvention of region coding restrictions, stand-alone Blu-ray Disc players are sometimes modified by third parties to allow for playback of Blu-ray Discs (and DVDs) with any region code.[154] Instructions ("hacks") describing how to reset the Blu-ray region counter of computer player applications to make them multi-region indefinitely are also regularly posted to video enthusiast websites and forums. Unlike DVD region codes, Blu-ray region codes are verified only by the player software, not by the optical drive's firmware.

Region coding has several purposes, but the primary one is price discrimination, i.e., allowing the manufacturer to charge different prices in different regions: there is great disparity among the regions of the world in how much a person is willing to pay for a DVD. Price discrimination is especially relevant to DVDs as their marginal cost is relatively small, allowing the distributor a great deal of flexibility in pricing.

Another purpose is controlling release dates. A practice of movie marketing threatened by the advent of digital home video is to release a movie to cinemas, and then for general sale, later in some countries than in others. This is common partly because releasing a movie at the same time worldwide can be prohibitively expensive. Videotapes were inherently regional since formats had to match those of the encoding system used by television stations in that particular region, such as NTSC and PAL, although from early 1990s PAL machines increasingly offered NTSC playback. DVDs are less restricted in this sense, and region coding allows movie studios to better control the global release dates of DVDs.

One other purpose of region coding is to prevent release of movies that could be offensive in such regions for cultural, religious, and political reasons. Region coding helps prevent release of such films in sensitive territories.

Finally, the copyright in some titles has different owners in different territories. Region coding allows copyright holders to prevent a DVD from being purchased from a region from which they do not derive royalties.

[nosebone]

And just to reiterate your point, the difference in picture quality between a DVD and a Blu-ray, now that I have one of each of Avatar to compare, is real but incremental. Not night and day. It's like the difference between most CD remasterings, or the difference between a 2012 and a 2013 car. Small tweaks, slight improvements. Side-by-side comparisons will show a difference, but unless you compare side-by-side you'd never see the differences.

I buy all of my Blu-ray Discs secondhand, so the extra list price doesn't phase me. But I'd have serious difficulty justifying the extra expense if I bought only new.

Like with remastered CD's ,you have to do your homework before buying a BR disk.

Some titles aren't worth the upgrade and some are.

This depends of course, on how much you love the movie.

For example, the BR of Jaws is extraordinary in its detail.

They cleared up and tweaked each individual frame of that film.

On the other hand the details between the Dvd and BR of The Godafather(s) are not significant enough to upgrade.

[rcarlberg]

Well of course the high-definition video is only as good as the master. Jaws (1975) is a 2.35:1 anamorphic Panavision shot with Arriflex 35-III cameras. The Godfather (1972) is 1.85:1 spherical format shot with Mitchell BNCR cameras (don't be impressed, I had to look up the details).

Hi-Def 1920x1080 video isn't going to make an old movie any sharper. TCM is doing some wonderful things restoring old classic movies (and unfortunately colorizing some of them, up until recently anyway) but there's no advantage to a Blu-ray of a 1950s movie over a DVD (720x480) -- aside from the possibility of adding online content.

Which almost nobody seems to be doing.

[trurl]

there's no advantage to a Blu-ray of a 1950s movie over a DVD -- aside from the possibility of adding online content.

Oh. My. God. *lol* I wish I had some time to delve into this one... maybe later! Suffice to say I would consider this an absolutely literal equivalent of someone say the same thing about not upgrading from an 8-track to a HiRes disk of something recorded in the 50s. Or even a regular cd to a HiRes disk or even vinyl, if that's your thing.

[philsunset]

but there's no advantage to a Blu-ray of a 1950s movie over a DVD (720x480) -- aside from the possibility of adding online content.,.

My eyes tell me a totally different story. I have a number of silent films from the 1920s on Blu-ray that are better than the DVD versions. Some are absolutely stunning.

[rcarlberg]

Or even a regular cd to a HiRes disk or even vinyl, if that's your thing.

Read my sig file.