With all the deals to be had on Black Friday this past November, I couldn’t help but be tempted to finally jump into the Blu-ray format. Ever since HD DVD fell by the wayside earlier this year, I had been resigned to simply watching movies on DVD as I had been for the past decade. I had placed my bet on a fledgling technology and simply lost out, so in a fit of disappointment, I found that I was fine with kicking it old school for the foreseeable future.
There was the matter of the investment I had already made into HD DVD, including the add-on for my Xbox 360 (which at the time was the cheapest way to get into the format) and a growing collection that stopped at 35 titles. Maybe more importantly, there were the underlying principles behind the rival HD formats and their backers–Toshiba and the HD DVD Consortium versus Sony and the Blu-ray Disc Association. In my mind, these corporate giants were slugging it out for different reasons and ultimately, I think the interests of Hollywood and Silicon Valley won out over that of consumers and end-users.
While that aspect of it all is probably the hardest pill to swallow, I’ve been able to look past it and consider what’s really the heart of the matter–being able to enjoy movies in high definition again. There was simply no other choice for building an “ultimate” collection of movies that didn’t revolve around (or at least involve) Blu-ray.
I’d told myself that I would eventually make the leap to Blu-ray when prices came down to a reasonable level, and the fact that it had taken well over six months for the prices of players (I’m talking competent players, not those bare-bones models) to come down to the $200 range was longer than I had expected. As I’m sure many had hoped, the decrease in prices was welcomed with open arms as the 2008 holiday season approached. With that, I started to take note of what players were shaping up to be the best value and what sort of features were going to be important for my setup.
Shopping for a decently-priced unit on Black Friday wasn’t half as difficult as I thought it would be, so that took a lot of grief and hassle out of the decision. My only concerns revolved around finding a reliable, upgradeable unit, which meant a brand name player that was network capable and Profile 2.0-ready. The most obvious option would be the PlayStation 3, I suppose, but I wasn’t interested in another gaming console and unlike in 2006, the PS3 was no longer the cheapest Blu-ray player on the market. My feelings about Sony as a company in general had initially pushed me to look at a unit made by Samsung or Panasonic, but the more I thought about it, I came back to a Sony unit.
For all the fanfare touting Blu-ray as the best thing since DVD nearly ten years ago, there are those who would have you believe that traditional optical media is on the way out for good. I’m not one of ‘em, but I’m not blind to what’s been happening on the digital distribution front either. I’ve seen how services like iTunes, Netflix and Xbox Live have all been angling for a share of digital downloads and streaming content over the internet right into the living room, and while they’re all relatively small beans in comparison to DVD retail sales, the potential to turn media consumption on its head in the coming years is absolutely there. Investing into yet another optical media format might not be a bad move right now, but that might change in the future. So, here’s where my new thinking came into play–who would most likely continue to support and build upon Blu-ray until the very end?
Like I said, settling on the Sony BDP-S350 was about as easy as I could have hoped for.
After downloading nine(!) firmware updates and picking up a USB flash drive due to the lack of any on-board storage, I now had a Profile 2.0 Blu-ray player that could match the PS3 (and sadly, the very first HD DVD player that hit the market in 2006). I immediately went out and bought a few titles to start off my collection and ordered a couple more online at bargain prices. That was a couple of weeks ago.
Now I’m already up to 10 titles, including Iron Man, Cloverfield, Top Gun, Superbad, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Patton, The Shawshank Redemption, Kill Bill Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 and the title that’s probably going to give the Blu-ray format the kick in the pants it’s needed for the last couple of years, The Dark Knight. In fact, I’m betting that The Dark Knight will do for Blu-ray what The Matrix did for DVD back in 1999, which is push player and disc sales through the roof.
With player prices finally hitting the sub-$200 range, quality titles (with quality presentations) hitting shelves every week, Blu-ray ranking second to only HDTV purchases this holiday season, big titles like Iron Man, WALL•E and The Dark Knight getting good press with their Blu-ray debuts, I have to admit that I’m pretty excited about this Blu-ray hoopla. Not because of the format, but because, for me, it brings the best quality back to my home movie-watching experience.
Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t all of a sudden become a giant Blu-ray fanboy by any means, but my perspective changed once I bought in and really only thought about the content, not the technology behind it. Do I regret supporting HD DVD? Not at all. Do I think Blu-ray still has some room for improvement? Absolutely. Will that keep me from finally getting to enjoy the movies I want in the best way possible? Not anymore.
