General Discussion : Blu-ray

[epiphany]

Inspired by a thread on The Auteurs, I would like to know what Criticker uses feel about blu-ray. Finally switched to blu-ray, after waiting for quite some time, hoping to not be too early of an adopter.

Right now, my sole blu-ray is the Criterion's release of Chungking Express which is both my first Criterion and an excellent release. I do not plan on buying many or even any blu-ray discs or some time unless Criterion comes out with a film I really like as the upscaling feature works great for me; Criterion dvds look almost like blu-rays with upscaling. Also, video rental shops are starting to stock blu-ray discs, so the whole family can enjoy the player.

I was browsing dvdbeaver a few minutes ago and lo and behold, the first review for the personally much awaited Last Year At Marienbad has presented itself. 21-31 days after 23 June and Chungking Express shall have some company.

After reading some posts on said muse, a sense of insecurity that Blu-ray might just be a transitional format like VCDs creeps upon me.

What do Criticker members feel about Blu-ray? Have you adopted it? Yes? Have more discs than HM? Share the Criterion fetish? No? Think that its a sham? Waiting for the price to drop? Can't bear to leave your DVD collection behind? Think the world is going to end in 2012 so what's the point anyway?

[edkrak]

Number of films released on BR that I'm interested in is so small that I really don't care about this format at this moment. I would even say that existence of BR is annoying for me, cause it stopped/slowed many dvd labels from releasing rare titles on dvd, because now they're concentrating on releasing popular films on BR.

[Radicalohank]

Planet Earth is out on Blu-ray. If you have any sort of shrooms around you i recommend eating them before watching. Other than that, i dunno.

[FitFortDanga]

I've got a bunch:

The Graduate
El Norte
Bottle Rocket
X-Men trilogy
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Shining
A Clockwork Orange
The Godfather Collection
Serenity (and Firefly: The Complete Series)
Halloween
Silent Hill
Amadeus
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Baraka
Blade Runner
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Fargo
Goldfinger
Goodfellas
Harry Potter 1-5
Kill Bill 1 & 2
The Seventh Seal
Sin City
Terminator 1 & 2
Unforgiven
WALL-E
Young Frankenstein
Blazing Saddles
The Third Man
Futurama movies 3 & 4
South Park season 12

on order/coming soon:
Last Year at Marienbad
Do the Right Thing
Pulp Fiction
Jackie Brown
It's a Wonderful Life
The New World
The Office season 5
The Prisoner complete series
Kagemusha
Playtime
Repulsion
This is Spinal Tap
Dr. Strangelove


I don't think Blu is a transitional format, it seems like it will be around for a while. For me, any title worth owning is worth owning in high-def. I do wish there were more obscure/classic/foreign movies available, but the format is still young.

[Hells_Zargon]

Personally I'd rather get a £3 DVD than a £15 Blu-Ray disk. I'm not denying that it isn't good, but the difference isn't great enough to make me part with the extra money. Even if Blu Ray does eventually take over, DVD will still be a staple format for a long time yet.

[Pickpocket]

Another gimmick. Something else will be out in 5 years that will be xxxxx times better

[slidercc]

No interest in blu-ray. There will be some new technology down the road, that will replace it. I'm sticking with DVD until its gone or until the internet gets shut down for piracy!

[Stewball]

I've converted about 5% of my 180+/- DVD titles to BR. There'd be more but they still aren't available. The transition isn't moving a quickly as VHS to DVD but this last Christmas saw a pretty good turnover. I agree with FitFortDanga, "For me, any title worth owning is worth owning in high-def." I think one thing that's slowing the transition is the absurd pricing. Even f*****g Wal*Mart wants in the upper $20's for most new titles and close to that for the old ones. I gotta scrounge the Net for descent prices, which you can usually find, but most people aren't going to do that, so they're just sticking with DVD.

Won't go into what I've already bought, but here's the stuff I especially want in BR that's not available yet:

Gladiator
Fiddler on the Roof
Jesus Christ Superstar
West Side Story
Braveheart
Evita
O Brother Where Art Thou
Rainman
Excalibur
The Music Man
The Devil's Advocate
Fantasia
Alice in Wonderland
Little Shop of Horrors
School of Rock
Shrek
Undisputed (2002)
Finding Nemo
Once Upon a Time In Mexico

I'm especially not holding my breath for these:

The Lion in Winter
Rollerball (1975)
Crossroads (1987)
Streets of Fire (released in HD/DVD--WTF?)
Emperor of the North
High Road to China
Mother Lode
Song of the South

What's weird is that some of these are in HD on cable/satellite but not out on BRD.

[Luna6ix]

i've said it before, and i'll say it again. blu-ray really isn't that much better than dvds, and i really could care less. holographic movies i dont even see an advancement that would get me to upgrade...well maybe a dvd that has all the movies in the world on it--i'd probably fork out an extra $500 for that, but not a blu-ray player.

[epiphany]

Well, I'm moving to blu-ray because I recently got a larger television and my old dvd player was rubbish thus wanted to upgrade that too. The upscaling in blu-ray really does the trick for me as most of my dvds look brilliant when upscaled and since Criterion blu-rays are going for the same price as normal Criterions on Amazon, why not?