Universal to Release Blu-ray/DVD Combo Disc

Great another reason to raise Blu-ray movie costs...

All the better for the bargain bin 9 months after release...

Exactly my thoughts! I blasted the tech Gods the day Toshiba announced they were bowing out of the HD war. I just new if Sony won it would take 4ever before the prices came down or the adoption of BR because of its high cost. Betamax finally won after all these years.

SIGH!

plays in the car and blew rey

I wouldn't exactly call them 'future proof' seeing as how movies-on-disc are rapidly becoming obsolete. By the time Blu-Ray drive, player, and media prices drop enough to snuff out DVDs, people will already be streaming movies or storing downloaded movies on portable storage devices.

Here is a thought for all of you.
I won a OPPO DVD 1080p upsampling player and a Panasonic 42" plasma 1080p display.
This is what I did:
Got my friend to bring over his PS3 and hooked it up via hdmi
Brought home 10,000BC on DVD and on blu-ray
played both doing an A-B test
RESULTS OF TEST
both looked great and on blu-ray i saw maybe 125% more resolution
was amazed at how good the oppo dvd upsample held out against blu-ray
BOTTOM LINE
no blu-ray for me.i am sticking with dvd until blu-ray is the same price as a dvd is now.
Screw Sony !!!

You are missing the point of PS3.
PS3 is not just a blu-ray player. For $300, it gives you blu-ray player, internet browser and a game console

Your Oppo DVD just plays movies...

1)How many are using their PS3 for browsing? And how many tthat have used it didnt find it frustrating and inconvinient for a console thing to do?
2)Before its recent pricedrop whoever wanted a console and NOT a BR Player why had to pay about 500$ for a console with nothing special? ( like i said before the pricedrop )
3) Why be forced to upgrade to BDs if they dont want to or pay any more than the usual DVDs just for "futureproof"? Talking about futureproof when it coms from a company like Sony is ironic since its contradicting their own move of forcing a whole new format in a console in the first place. Dont you think?





More or less i felt the same when that happened.Sony has always been one expensive ass mofo with bad services and slow price adjustments. You dont even wanna knowhow much ive spent personally over the past years. Amen for Samsung HDTVs. And if it wasnt for MS this time around with an xbox PS3 would be so SO much more expensive and you know it.

Here in Greece the cheapest BD costs about 8 Euros. Thats about 12$. 100$ for 8 BDs... lol Are they fn serious? STILL?!

I think his point was that there isn't a need for him to upgrade as the quality is negligible (for him) and he already has both a TV and DVD player that takes advantage of it.

I loved the idea of the "flipper" discs when they first came out. For a $10 DVD I'd be willing to pay $15 (50% price increase) for a "flipper" disc.

I see this idea flopping. As the story said, unless there is an immediate gain, i.e. being able to watch it in high def, those with regular dvd players won't even consider it. Plus, those with blu-ray players aren't going to pay extra for a standard version.

It's quite tiring hearing another person say an upscaled DVD is as good as a 1080P picture (HD-DVD or Blu-ray). It isn't. If you say you can't see the difference either you have bad eye-sight or are telling lies.
It's like sticking a cheap hamburger in your mouth and telling me it's the same as a fine steak.
Yes your burger may be made of beef and is of the same size, just like the steak, but it is padded out with offal and offcuts. Yes your upscaled DVD picture might be 1080p/i but it it's padded out with lines that your device guesstimates.
You might well be satiated, but let's not fool ourselves that your cheap burger is the same as a fine steak.

These type of discs are more expensive. I don't need it as i stop buying DVD. There is no sense of buying DVD if i can purchase Blue-Ray disc from $12 to $16. If you are clever you can purchase new releases for $19.00.

There is no need for this double sided disc.

It's not so much of a question about the improved quality of Blu-Ray, it's ultimately a question of whether that improved quality is worth the much-higher pricetag. I'm more of the opinion that BR is still way too costly (and overrated) for what it offers - especially considering you have to have a decent-sized HTDV & a good audio system to fully take advantage of what Blu-Ray is capable of.

Upsampling DVD Players can do a good job in improving DVD movies. Granted, it's not bringing the quality up to BR standards, but it's considerably cheaper to purchase, not to mention you don't need to replace your entire DVD Library. That cheaper cost, with the current economy, is what many people consider is more important than squeezing a little extra quality out of your entertainment system..

I was waiting for someone to point this out. You may recall when Universal did this with HD-DVD, the combo discs cost about $10 more than the normal HD-DVD movies.

Additionally, there was a big problem with manufacturing process of the combo discs. Many copies' HD side were not playable, skipped or froze at some point into the movie. I remember having to return at least two different movies for this reason. BD fanboys mocked HD-DVD supporters for coming up with solutions such as holding the disc over steam/boiling water to clean the disc in the hopes it became playable.

Upscaled DVD's are good, there is no doubt, not up to the level of a blu-ray, but still good. If that is all you want then there is no point in blowing another wedge on a BD player.

Personally I like having a blu-ray copy and a dvd copy, if for nothing else at least I can rip the dvd copy to my iPhone which I can't with the blu-ray.

And I can watch the dvd in the car...

a few good points have been made here.

first, padding (upscaling) is NOT as good as the true 1080p movie. transcoding (as it is called) is never as good. and the compare between a hamburger and steak was a great one. same size, but the quality of taste (in this case...eye taste) are different.

second, while the manufacturing may cause issues, the idea of both are a great idea. i have a HTPC with bluray but my other sets in my house do not have bluray. economically, it doesn't work. and so my truck and other tv sets in my house have dvd players. all of which my kids use.

please everyone needs to realize that there is never a setup on any topic that fits for all people. but this one does have its place for some, but obviously not everyone. i welcome more options. and that's what this is...an option. you don't have to buy this one, buy the dvd only one or the bd one only. but for me, a double sided would be a good buy. it's all about options.

Ha, this coming from the company that sealed the fate of HD-DVD by taking the blood money Sony and the entire Blu-Ray Forum gave em. Sorry but I refuse to pay for anything (i rent) from these blood suckers. They've wasted my money too many times and I have too, buying into their retarded belief that they are doing the world's consumers a favor.

I think PS3/Blu-ray supporters are missing the point when someone says that upscaling is just as effective. Obviously, its not a RAW (well then again either is MPEG-2, Mpeg4, VC-1, which is WHAT ALL BLU-RAY's in 1080p are, compressed) 1080p picture. The point they are trying to make is, for all the money (which is easily over $300+ dollars for just about every DVD supportin family) they have spent on their library. The little 40 dollar UPCONVERTING DVD player makes it good enough. They don't have to go out and purchase a $100+ Blu-Ray player and they don't have to replace their $300 libraby, which will easily costs them $600 dollars doing so. Their $40 UPCONVERTING DVD player does enough. Sure I get it, you own a blu-ray player (i own an HD-DVD player) and you can see a difference and blah blah blah. Thats great, but the point is, if I want a crisper image (because thats ALL Blu-Ray/HD-DVD do) a quality upconverting player has more value to most people then a new technology.

Combo format discs or combo format packages (Like Disney release) are a good idea. For me, I get a Blu-ray copy I can use when I'm at home, and if I'm on the go with the laptop or at a friend's place who doesn't have a Blu-ray player, I can just slide in the normal DVD and watch that. Also, there's the advantage of being able to start your Blu-ray collection before you've finally picked up that fancy new player.

The only thing I kind of object to with a single combo disc versus the combo package would be the possibilities of smearing one side could be higher, so I do prefer the two disc package over the single disc combo.

Finally, to the upconversion drum beaters: You like regular DVD's. We have no problem with that. We like Blu-ray, so what's the big deal?

I don't get it.....I don't get people that buy dvds. I never understood this. Why would you buy a dvd for $20 or $30, when you can rent it for $1? Redbox or Family Video have new releases for $1. My local library offers hundreds of movies for free (at least 50 Blu Ray movies). I know its "nice" to have a collection, but its way, way, way overpriced vs renting. You'll spend $100-$150 for 5 movies. I'll spend $5 at the most (probably get them free at the library). The experience is the exact same for both of us. My collection consists of about 10 movies which I picked up on clearance racks ($5 is themost I've ever paid for a DVD.
Somebody please explain!

I don't understand why people want to spend all that money to buy movies in the first place. I can understand listing to music over and over if it is good but after I have seen a movie, even a good one I don't want to watch it any more, well maybe years later. By that time it is playing on my overpriced TV service.

That's exactly the reason for me holding out. Blu-Ray is not the revolution like the DVD was to VHS. There was nothing on the horizon challenging it and it improved/introduced a lot of things worth noting like special features, scene selection, dramatically improved visuals, dramatically smaller in form factor, and a few others - most notably though NO REWINDING! That was a revolution in itself. Blu-Ray has no better capability over DVD other than being able to hold more data to fit non-compressed or at least less-compressed video and audio tracks of higher resolution/more data that DVD at the time was incapable of holding. It's a giant DVD disk - that's all I can see it as.

With the prices of mass storage (who thought you could buy a 1 terrabyte hard drive for less than $90 by now), all we are waiting for is our ISP companies to pony up, catch up to the rest of the world, and provide speeds capable enough to give us a 1080P or at least a 720P show/movie in a reasonable amount of time. Digital content will most likely be the future (even though I am one that likes tangible/physical media). No matter how you say it, Blu-ray may just be the last hoorah for tangible media formats, but it is already competing with the next format. DVD will still be around for several years I'd bet, there aren't many compelling reasons for people to give the format up completely yet. It's almost like the old analog TV sets, just about everyone still has at least one in use even though they were surpassed with superiority several years back. For those people, the technology works and it is good enough for them. "Future-proofing" doesn't exist, if up-converting DVDs are "good enough", then good for you - not everyone has to have the best of the best. If you want to be a bleeding-edge technology buff, then you can deplete your bank accounts all you wish, but you'll never be ahead of the curve no matter how much you think you may already be!

Final words, buy what makes you happy and whatever works best for you!

I will be getting a blue ray player in a few weeks. As some one who owns over 600 DVD's, I am looking forward to it. First off, there is no need to replace anything in my collection. Blu Ray players are backward compatible. I would rather buy then rent. I just like to own the physical media. And the particular model I am getting, gets Netflix and a few other movie streaming services. So I'm good.

All optical disks and optical drives are soon going away like iomega zip drives, audio cassettes, and betamax. Blue ray is a joke. It's the latest upgrade to a technology that is already dead but just doesnt know it yet. Dead man walking. The sooner the better, imo.

I went to several stores and took a good look at their selection and prices of blue ray dvd's.

I went to two movie rental stores and looked at their selection and prices of ray dvd's.

I did some research to find out about home theater pc's, downloading videos, and video streaming.

I was not impressed. There was no WOW factor.

I actually laughed out loud at this. Oh yeah, I heard there's some lame acronym for doing that. I have to admit, DVDs upscaled onto a 720P projector look way better than they did on 800x600. But I watched Casino Royale (newer) on PS3 both on blu ray and DVD, same time on a 63" Mitsu rear projection TV. You'd have to be blind not to see the huge improvement in resolution on Blu-Ray. The whole movie was enhanced - to be honest it was almost too real, almost painful to watch. Plus the TV's lamp level was set too high. But as they say, you don't know what you're missing - I still am watching upscaled DVDs and no one is bitching because they are too busy watching the movie. We used to watch VHS on crappy tube TVs and after a few minutes, if the flick was any good, you were totally engrossed. Now don't ge me wrong, I love going out to the big screen, and I look forward to setting up a Blu-Ray HTPC once the funds are in. But reality is upscaled DVDs look kick ass and for a good reason. Many of us older guys and gals grew up on VHS and when DVDs came out, no one was watching them on 480 lines of resolution. For many, a 1080p or 720p set is the first device capable of displaying even 480p natively. DVDs in that sense were years ahead of their time. And be honest, how many people actually watch movies with 5.1 speakers and not just the crappy stereo speakers built in to even decent big screen TVs? When I first set up my cheap HTIB 5.1 setup, I couldn't believe how good it sounded compared to the old 2 speaker no sub. When friends come over to watch a movie for the first time, all I hear is how amazing the projector looks and how good the sound is. This is a 3 year old $900 720P Mitsu HD1000u projector and about $200 in speakers, not exactly top of the line.

The DVD is just now being appreciated - Blu-Ray probably won't be appreciated by the masses for another 5 years.

Flipper disks are all fine and well... I already have The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. Instead of making these pointless disks (IMHO) why not give people with 200+ DVD collections a way to upgrade their normal DVD's to BR? Personally I don't have a BR player yet, and about 40% of my DVD's are out on BR.

I actually think Technology sux. (LoL, jk)

However it makes you wonder... what next?

If I build my Collection up to BR what will come along in 2-3 years and start the cycle from scratch...
My 2c of whining.

Anyone have cheese?

what revolution. switching from vhs to dvd got you better picture better sound and more stuff on hte movie you paid for.. dvd to br gives you.... all the same stuff. other then moving from tape to plastic there is no "revolutionary" switch either way. they both are giving you exactly what the last one gave over what it replaced.

really though this time there is a much larger image quality improvement over the old vhs to dvd as they both used the same resolutions. other then pure digital quality the video quality upgrade was rather limited and not so noticable. the sound quality however was vastly better imo. this time around the video quality is vastly better while the extra couple channels while nice is a small upgrade compaired.

I will agree with you on the no rewinding and sound but the rest were not that mind blowing and were rather limited on thier improvment of the movie. to me BR is no more of a upgrade from dvd then DVD was from VHS

I do love surround sound and 1080p so i will be getting all future movies in BR but dont fool your self and others that its not a large upgrade even if its only in one area like dvd was for vhs.