300 Reasons to Go HD This Christmas Comments

OK Andy. I'm in.

I have a Sony KDL-32S2010 television and Sony RDR-HXD1065 to deal with DVD playback and recording. I am keen to upgrade to HD / Blu Ray, as there seems little point in having a television which is HD-ready, and would also like to see what DVD upscaling would do to my viewing experience.

I'm not too concerned about price and would be interested to hear what you - or anyone else who has an opinion - would do in my situation.

The Samsung BD-P1500 looks too tempting a deal to leave alone. It comes with two Blu ray titles: I am Legend and Ocean's 13.

Plus, if you get it at Amazon, you'll get another Blu ray title for free. It's a shame Blu ray films are still so expensive, though I don't suppose new releases carry too much of a premium over their DVD counterparts? They're all too expensive really, unlike the now defunct HD-DVD format.

Andy, why are you renting HD-DVD movies when you can probably buy them cheaper? Places like HMV are flogging them off for less than 3 quid. Sometimes you can get even the likes of 300 for peanuts. I think Transformers is still going cheap if you're interested. That's another good HD. special effects showpiece. I still wish HD-DVD had been incorporated into all current Blu ray High Def playback devices, just so people who've got HD-DVDs to play could safely do so without worrying that once their player packed in, that was it for their films also.

ive had a sharp 42 hd tv for over a year now and i was thinking the same thing hardly watch any hd material on it,ive got a pioneer 1080p upscaling player and it does make certain dvds look superb but only newer dvd titles,i wont buy a blue ray player until the discs come done in price they are just too expensive,i am perfectly happy watching up scaled dvds at the moment.

Okay, so rental places like Lovefilm are cheaper than buying HD-DVD even at £3 a pop but what if you wanted to watch the film more than once? Or lend it to a friend? Compared to Blockbuster and Blu-ray, many cheap HD-DVD titles cost less than their DVD equivalents and are far less expensive than Blu-ray. Yeah, it's been made obsolete but if you've already got an HD-DVD drive (or 2) then you should be okay for the foreseeable future. My comment about dual format HD players, still made by the likes of LG is a wishful thought since it'd safeguard people's existing HD-DVD collection. There are people who've collected a few film titles before Toshiba pulled the format, y'know. It'd be nice to think you could still get a player in the future that was compatible with HD-DVD. It isn't too much to ask, really, seeing as how you can get multiformat DVD players. The recordable DVD format war was an even bigger mess and pretty much looks set to become irrelevant as it too fades into history. Blu-ray's shelf life won't last either - it too will be superceeded.

As for two players cluttering up the living room? Eh? They're pretty small profile these days and considering most folk will have a dedicated DVD player or recorder (or both) plus maybe a VCR and even AV receiver, subwoofer or whatnot that's a weak argument for not buying HD-DVD titles. If anything, with them costing less than the price of a pint you're not going to be too out of pocket if in the end you can't play them back. Who knows what the future will bring?

I happen to have a £3k budget for an HD TV for Christmas - what is the best 50" my money can buy? And do January sales apply to electronics like HD TV's as well? Is it worth waiting?

Sorry. My first post was rather vague. I am looking for the best choice of Blu-ray player which will upscale my existing DVDs and, ideally, with a hard drive, if such a thing exists. Again, I'm not too concerned about price.

I presume that I will notice a significant difference between the result and what I am used to on my KDL-32S2010 and bog-standard DVD player. Sorry if this sounds cynical. It isn't; it's just ignorance.

HD has run out of steam a little for me. We have the same Samsung TV that was mentioned in the article, and we took out a subscription to Sky HD to compliment it. One year on, and I've now cancelled my subscription to the HD channels. The first month or so it was a case of "wow", and watching the BBC HD demo during the day just for kicks, but the novelty wore off after a very brief period of time, to the point where my enjoyment of HD content over and above SD content couldn't warrant the extra subs.

I'm not an A/V buff by any stretch if the imagination, but I believe that my apathy as someone who is fairly well clued up of technology may explain why take up is relatively low at the moment.

I have about 70 HD DVD's, 30 of which I got after HD DVD bit the bullet. I rented almost every HD DVD lovefilm have over the years and it's a pretty good way to get HD stuff. But I want Wall-E and Dark Knight so I had to move on.
Luckily, last week I got a Sony BDPS350 from Lasksy's 'one day' offer of £130 and I'm very happy with the purchase. My Toshiba EP30 is a fair bit bigger (deeper) than the Sony, the DVD upscaling is about the same but the Blu-Ray player is about twice as fast to boot and more responsive. So, since the player is profile 2.0, it's safe to say Blu-Ray has moved on.... apart from being multiregion for blu-ray titles.
From what I read before making the purchase, the Samsung 1500 has a few reliability problems, build quality issues and isn't as good as the Sony 350. So I would recommend looking out for the Sony instead. Although the Samsung looks a lot prettier. Definitely get the Sony if you can get it for £130. :P
Bush now have a Blu-ray player available in argos for £200, but I think that's a repackaged Samsung 1500, so it's probably a good idea to wait for reviews of that.

Ed, £3.00 isn't much for a high definition film is it? Even if the film turns out to be pants, there are avenues available for getting rid of it (Ebay, Oxfam, Game trade-ins, Car boot sales etc). You have as much chance of paying for a rental and getting poor payback, regardless of whether you researched the title in question beforehand and read a review.

Anyway, I have yet to really explore rental from online sources like Lovefilm. It looks good from what I can see. I guess the average price of a film rental depends on how many you watch then. No wait, if you choose a limited package, say 2, 3 or 4 titles a month then it works out at around £2.00 for each title. Granted you can watch what you want, the latest releases etc but as for moot points, we're talking about the difference of a quid at the end of the day really. Life's too short, mine's a Guinness. You're buying. :)

Ps. Andy, it was an interesting article so thank you for that. Hadn't thought about going for game rental so will investigate it perhaps, though maybe it's a better deal for those who own a console since the titles are a lot more expensive and (I haven't played a console for ages) the games may have a more fickle sense of appeasement if they're more arcadey than their PC counterparts? (So more chance of losing out financially if the game doesn't live up to expectations.) I'm probably just being old fashioned I guess since the Xbox 360 and PS3 have probably caught up with PC gaming a little. :)

Is the PS3 still one of the better Blu ray players then? Can it do all the stuff the Sony BDPS550 can for instance? I wouldn't mind a dedicated Blu ray player (not the Samsung one reviewed though, not if it's as buggy as people suggest it can be) but don't have an AV receiver so wouldn't know what the best deal was for someone in my position really. I have a Blu ray drive in my PC and a cheap HD-ready projector. Don't know how best to feed the sound. Is that the major differential with regards the PS3 and a dedicated Blu ray deck?

I recently upgraded my Sky+ to Sky+ HD (inspired from an earlier TruestedReviews article ), can't believe the difference in pucture quality. It even convinced me to hook up my surround system to the Sky+ HD box.

Hi Andy, If you get the chance watch it again with a good surround amp and speakers. The True HD sound track will blow you away.

Hmm, yes, good point, the time to go Blu is coming, January sales perhaps. I've picked up heaps of HD-DVDs on the cheap, but have almost finished working my way through them now.

Andy - if you loved 300, then you'll be wanting to get yourself a copy of Beowulf on HD-DVD - superb film.

An interesting article and continuing debate. I agree that both picture and sound are a vast improvement in HD.

I'm considering upgrading my AV amp to one that supports the HD formats. Regarding Beowulf, the film itself is ok but its soundtrack is immense. I'd recommend it for that alone.