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The truth about Blu-Ray

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The truth about Blu-Ray

The format war is over and Blu-Ray has rained triumphant. So the question is, a $1,000 player, is it worth it?

First of all lets make some things clear. After HD-DVD went dead we were told that the prices of Blu-Ray players would go down. Well of course that didn’t happen. Since its only competitor was out of the market we say a jump in the prices of not only the systems but also the media.

Obviously if you’re thinking about getting a Bly-Ray player you would have (or considering getting) a high-definition screen. Now depending on the resolution of your screen it can be pretty pointless on getting an Blu-Ray player. A screen with the size of 32 inches is not going to show DVD’s much different if they are regular format over a HD format. But if we’re talking 42 inches and above it can be.

Blue-Ray has had some problems (one of the reasons Sony’s PS3 was delayed for over a year). But most of those have been taken care of. Yet the main thing that continues to plague most consumers is if its worth it to spend the 1k now on a player only to find out a couple months later the prices dropped considerably or a new technology is out.

Blu-Ray is not the only one in this war though. As HD downloads become more popular its getting more competition. Since HD downloads only require a hard or some other storage media to hold the recording on it’s a lot more practical.

The only drawback is these require huge hard drives. But with the price of external and internal hard drives lowering daily it’s a lot more cost effective.

Probably the most practical ways to own a Blu-Ray player for a lot less than the average $1,000 price is getting a PS3. At just around $400 for the base models it provides a Blu-Ray ROM and also a next generation console system.

It so happens that most of the times a new technology hits the market it takes a couple years for the price to come down. That was the case with HD TV’s, Notebook computers among others. For that reason I would suggest sticking out Blu-Ray for another year. After all the current DVD’s don’t look that bad and you can get near 1080dpi with a reasonably priced DVD up-converter player.

So in conclusion, unless you’re planning on setting up a home theater system that values in the thousands I would suggest leaving the Blu-Ray option open for a while. On the other hand getting HD downloads is not a bad idea as it is cheaper. And once you have storage space to hold these downloads its just as good as a Blu-Ray player.

But if absolutely must get a Blu-Ray player its not that much to spend the money of a computer on one of the players. Just don’t be too surprised if you see their prices fall below the $500 this November as Blu-Ray dics only count for 7% of the DVD market at the moment. Before buying make sure to read up on some Blu-Ray Disc Player Reviews