So... before the Warner announcement I had already decided that HD-DVD was the way to go, and even the "which Toshiba ?" question was simple -- save for an XA2, and if I didn't save enough get one of the less expensive but still excellent players.

If I go BluRay I don't even know where to start. I would be looking for a BR player which could also upconvert standard DVDs pretty well. I have a 720p projector which takes HDMI in (and apparently likes to be fed 720p rather than doing the conversion itself) and an HK630 receiver which does not take HDMI in and presumably can not decode some of the newest audio formats even with a firmware upgrade.

Do the BluRay disks also have soundtracks in older DD/DTS formats which can be used with slightly older receivers, or is there a way for the player to resample down to DD/DTS so that I can at least get DVD quality audio over a digital link ? Or do I finally need to get out the crimper and make up a 7.1 analog RCA cable ?

Any suggestions for players to look at ? I skimmed the new stuff announced at CES but nothing jumped out as being wonderful with the limited details I had time to read. Budget under $100 if possible, of course

Wait... Wait until the next generation players. Not only should you find better prices, but better features and functionality. Remember, Blu-Ray players are about 1 generation behind the HD-DVD ones, so still a little on the "buggy" side. Not that there aren't good Blu-Ray players, but when people are saying that the PS3 is the best player, that is saying something about the others.

The new Panasonic 50 sounded quite good. Is it out yet?

I agree with Nickbuol, you should wait a little bit. Unless you're also a gamer in which case I would recommend the ps3. It's a great blu-ray player and decent dvd upscaler (to my eyes it looks great, but I don't have any other upscaler so I can't say how it compares to others). Also is does output in DD and DTS, which is good since I don't have a newer receiver.

All in all I'm very impressed by it and I recommend it, except if you're not into gaming and/or if you need to control it with a universal remote and don't want to use one of the IR hacks out there to make it work.

I find it interesting that people on the boards are suggesting waiting. Anyone that spends time posting here is more likely to be towards the cutting edge, but even us early adopters suggest waiting on Blu.

It makes me think that much more that the PS3 is really the only thing driving their sales, and that the Blu format would have lost out if Sony hadn't put it in the PS3.

Yep, and vice versa, I don't think they would have sold many ps3's if it weren't for the fact that they're a great blu-ray player. After all the ps3 game selection isn't up to par with the XBOX360.

I have no doubt it would have been entirely different if Sony hadn't used their Trojan horse. They used the strength of their PlayStation brand to get Blu-ray into the hands of consumers, and while its sales have been dismal compared to their expectations, it certainly worked to defeat any standalone player penetration from HD DVD's side. HD DVD has done remarkably well considering this fact, and considering all of the fence-sitting that this whole war has inpsired.

I'm not that surprised. Buying an HD-DVD player seemed like a no-brainer -- the players were good, prices were good, and media prices had come down to the point where buying standard DVDs hardly seemed to make sense.

I can't help thinking that this is all a mistake -- that PS3 sales are distorting the numbers but are not really representative of the number of owners who will buy BR disks in any kind of volume. I guess the question is whether the HD-DVD camp can survive through the panic.

I was kinda tempted to stick with HD-DVD out of spite and just boycott Warner

The PS3/Blu-Ray combination really helped to "drive" up the numbers of Blu-Ray players sold since they are counted in the numbers. Most of what I've ready say that a majority of PS3 owners only have 1 or 2 Blu-Ray movies (Spiderman is most likely one since it came bundled with most PS3's of late), but they aren't buying additional titles.

Sony knew that they HAD to push a Blu-Ray drive with the PS3. It is helping them in the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war, but is hurting them to the extreme in the gaming arena. So was it a good idea for Sony to push Blu-Ray so hard with their PS3? A lot of "experts" say "no"... Going from #1 to #3 in the console game war is a HUGE loss. Plus to add insult to injury, Sony lost a lot of money on both the PS3 and the Blu-Ray drive that they put into the machines just to make that drop.

Back to the question at hand, though, there are Blu-Ray players on the horizon that should be a significant jump forward in stability and features for Blu-Ray to get them to where HD-DVD drives are at, which aren't perfect, but for a short wait...

But yes, if you are a console gamer, and don't have the #1 or #2 console (which if you don't would make me question if you are a console gamer or not), then go for the PS3. It is like getting a gaming console and for a small extra fee, getting a basic, but pretty good, Blu-Ray player as well.

I'm waiting for a combo drive at this point, and I am hoping to wait a year or so before getting it so that the costs are down.

I'm kind of surprised how Blu-ray's movie prices seem to have gone up recently. Now a lot of them are ending up the same price as combo format HD DVDs, for no discernible reason. Blu-ray may prevail over HD DVD, but they're sure not going to make a dent in normal DVD for a long time if they can't get the price of the movies down.

John,

A great BR player should: 1) extract raw 1080P/24 data on the disk and force a 1080P/24 output 2) up-convert SD reasonably well 3) decode ALL audio formats and convert them to Multi-channel PCM via HDMI 4) utilize good DAC’s and output 7.1 channel analogue 5) be network upgradeable 6) have fast start up times and disk load times 7) not buggy

Currently, none do all well. There are several that do MOST well, but there is always a sacrifice.

If you can put 1 – 7 in order of importance to you, I’ll rank the players currently available for you. On the horizon, the Panasonic BD 50 looks as if it will be the player to buy. Denon also has two BR players coming to market very soon. Unfortunately, they are very, very proud of them. One will even come with the Silicon Image Realta chip set, which is arguably the very best chip available for SD scaling and deinterlacing.

I think they may have actually sold more PS3's if they weren't also blu-ray players. Adding Blu drove up the cost and delayed the release of the PS3, which is a big part of why it dropped to #3 in the game console arena.

They could have done an add on drive later, ala M$, but then they wouldn't have had the Blu ray penetration they were looking for.

>>But yes, if you are a console gamer, and don't have the #1 or #2 console (which if you don't would make me question if you are a console gamer or not), then go for the PS3.

Yeah right. I work for ATI (now AMD). We did the graphics cores for Wii and XBOX 360 -- NVidia did the graphics core for PS3. You think I'm gonna buy a PS3 ?



>>1) extract raw 1080P/24 data on the disk and force a 1080P/24 output

That's an interesting point -- I haven't seen much mention of 720P/24fps -- wonder if there is such a thing ? Seems to me that downconverting BR to 720p would be something I need, since the Z4 seems to do a slightly ratty job of up/down-converting HDMI inputs.

>>I'm kind of surprised how Blu-ray's movie prices seem to have gone up recently.

I was also wondering why the BR prices seemed to be so high. HD-DVD prices had come down to the point where it didn't seem to make sense to keep buying SD DVDs, but at twice the price I'll keep buying DVDs for a while longer.

Get back to work! We need our 3900s and 4000s, STAT!

That's true... Also I still think that the lack of focus on the game selection is hurting them. I bought the ps3 primarily for its blu-ray capability and occasional gaming, but if it were for just gaming I wouldn't have bought it.

The reason a forced output of 1080P/24 is desirable, is it ensures the MPEG decoder on the player extracts the full data that is stored on the disk. If a display does not accept this (by means of handshake issue or other), the player will pull the interlaced 1080i data of the disk, then scale it to the display’s resolution. You loose a lot of pixel information when this happens. A forced output ensures that the decoder pulls off all the data and lets the display scale as needed.

I’m pretty sure that your projector will accept 1080P/24, which you want. Then let the projector scale that data to 720P.

Just so you know, there is currently NO BR players that internally decode and convert ALL formats to multi channel analogue (if that is what you are looking for). The Panasonic BD 50 and the upper end Denon both have pre-release information saying that they will have this function. The upper line Denon has an MSRP of $1999. I think the BD 50 will run about $600.

I seem top remember hearing the Denon also being SACD/DVD-A and using all the top line DACs, REON etc, to try to justify the cost.

The new Denon will use the Realta HQV video processor which is supposed to be a step up from Reon, Denon is also coming out with a $999.00 version that won't decode the sound formats internally but will send through bitstream, it also will not have the Realta.

That was it the Realta, I thought I was off on that, Thanks for the correction.

I am looking forward to the little brother, as the 3808 can do all the audio and will save me some bucks...sort of.

It seems to me many that post here would be interested in the new audio formats as well as getting a high def picture. I decided my jump to HD movies was going to have to to allow me to get these new audio formats with my current receiver-a Denon 3805. I love this receiver, but it doesn't have HDMI. After reading a blue million posts, I learned that the only way to do this was to get a player that would send the signals through analog to my Denon. That placed me firmly in the HD DVD camp with the A35. Over Christmas I had the Toshiba 35 in my Amazon checkout box three times but thankfully never pulled the trigger.

Now that it has become obvious that the likely winner of the format war will be Blu, I've shifted my attention to that side. I'm sure someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but there doesn't seem to be any players out there that will do this (yet).

So I have now turned my attention to the new Panasonic BD 50 which is due out this spring. It will apparently send the new audio formats through analog. I know there is a Denon player that will do what I need, but it's too expensive for me. The price of the new Panasonic has not been announced, but many believe it will be in the $500 range- still too much for me, so I will likely wait until the fall or black Friday to make the jump to High Def DVD.

Seems to me the BD 50 is the logical choice for someone who does not have an HDMI receiver, but still wants the best possible audio and video.

I am sure that by next Christmas time there will be a number of new players to chose from.

I went with the Samsung BD-P1400. It decodes all of the new formats except DTS HD MA. There is some talk that an upcoming FW update may allow it to decode DTS MA, but who knows. It is 24fps capable, but FW V1.2 broke that, it should be fixed soon. I'm pretty happy with the unit so far.

I think i'll rent 3:10 to Yuma tonight for the 7.1 PCM soundtrack.

I have to say I am disappointed there isn't a better Blu-Ray option right now. My Toshiba A2 has performed flawlessly over the last year and I don't regret the decision to buy it for one minute.

Warner going BD only is disappointing but if I have to, I'll own two players to get both formats. I don't like Sony and all they're proprietary products, but it does look like HD-DVD is not going to win the war. What I don't get is why Universal and Paramount are still siding with HD-DVD? Do they know something we do not? Maybe both will announce the move to BD in the next few months and that will seal the deal. If that is the case, Toshiba will probably make a dual format player to appease HD-DVD owners.

I guess we have to wait for the next generation players.

Greg

The A3 is on sale for $130 with 7 free movies at Tiger Direct if you still want to support HD DVD instead.

The Sony PLaystation 3 is already HDMI 1.3