Blu-Ray or HD-DVD?

[The Unknown Gomer]

Okay, now that the HD war is over, and Toshiba's HD-DVD HiDef format seems to have officially become betamaxed, just curious as to who all jumped the gun and actually bought an HD-DVD player instead of Blu-Ray. ;)

I actually held off and bought one AFTER they announced that Blu-Ray won the HD war.

But I just hooked up the new HD widescreen TV a few weekends back, and the way the new connections were set up, I was getting my best picture and sound from the new DVD burner/VCR combo that we bought a few months back to replace our dead VHS recorder. Didn't want to burn out the burner just for playing DVDs, but didn't want to lose the picture and sound quality by playing them on our old DVD player, so my boss (who knows about stuff like this, since that's what he does for a living) suggested I get one of the now obsolete and newly cheap Toshiba HD players and use that as our primary player. They're backwards compatible, and have upconvert capability, so it'll make my collection of standard def DVDs look even better than anything I've got now, plus - with the HD DVDs it comes with, it'll give me an idea what an actually HD DVD picture looks like, so when it DOES come time to buy a new player later, I'll know whether I want to invest in a Blu-Ray player somewhere down the line.

The Toshiba just came in via DHL this afternoon. Looks like I'll be putting on my "Geek Squad" hat this weekend and getting it set up. Nice deal. It already comes with 2 HD-DVD movies (one of which I've seen, but have actually been ready to watch again anyway, the first Bourne movie, and one I haven't seen yet - "300") with a mail in offer for 5 more free. Plus it came with an HDMI cable already in the box, so I don't have to buy another one of those.

Weee! Can't wait to play this weekend. :cool: Thank you for choosing Nerds R Us for all your TV and recorder needs. :D

[rossid]

Still have a tube tv and antenna. Maybe a flat screen when everything goes digital. Then MAYBE Blu-Ray someday. Hey I don't even have an iPod.

[The Unknown Gomer]

We would never have gotten the new TV (already had our coupons ordered for a couple of those analog converter boxes), except that our old tube set decided that this was the time for it to break down. We figured that if we had to replace it anyway, might as well get one that wouldn't need a converter box in a year.

And we're still on analog cable, don't have a cable box in the house anymore, gave that back to Time Warner several price increases back.

But even with analog cable, which has several digital network channels already supplied, the TV looks great. (I find myself tuning in to golf matches just to ogle the scenery. LOL.)

Well, so much for the HD-DVD player that came in yesterday. It was supposed to be brand new in a sealed box, with receipts for the extra movies. The box was sealed (or REsealed, most likely), but the unit had an inch of dust on it, the 2 included movies were already open (with one of the cases actually broken), the manual was thrashed and there wasn't a hint of original packing material in the box to keep it from jiggling around. And ZERO receipts included for the extra movies. I've already sent a note to the seller, advising that a replacement needed to be on its way asap, and I'd be more than happy to return this one to them, at their expense.

Naturally, their listing says all sales final :rolleyes: but I've been that route before. If the seller hasn't resolved this by the time my bill comes in, the charge goes into dispute and I don't have to pay it. What a pain though. :mad:

[catman]

I just picked up a Sharp Aquos Blu-ray player and like it. I don't have any Blu-ray disks yet, but it does a nice job of playing standard format disks. The picture is crisper. It also appears to be a bit longer. I like wide-screen disks better than full-screen with it, but that might just be me.
The Chronology 1 disk looks just fine.
I agree with the way you're handling the situation, Gomer. Best of luck with it.

[The Unknown Gomer]

They've actually emailed me back already, and SAY that they only have the one item, they got it sealed from Sam's Club and never opened it, so it must have been a return that Sam's got back that the previous owner didn't bother to pack it well enough.

And did I want to keep it anyway.

I wouldn't MIND the fact that it was gently used (assuming I could get a hefty chunk of change back because I paid for something new), EXCEPT the fact that it traveled 1500 miles via DHL in a completely unpadded box. :eek: I'm not sure, but I don't think electronics care for that too much.

I'm going to return it to them, and it looks like at this point my best price deal is going to be from *hack hack gag* Tiger Direct, who keep advertising this deal, but then you go in the same day and they don't have it in stock? Twice? But I can get it online, and with the shipping it'll still cost less than what I paid that ebay seller for it. Alas, it won't come with the extra HDMI cable, nor will I get the 5 free HD-DVD movies since I'm now buying after the 2/28 deadline (although *cha-ching!* I need to see if the ebay folks will let me keep the HDMI cable that came with theirs, in trade for the fact that because I bought their unit that now has to be returned, I've missed out on getting the extra movies.) But I'm fairly certain that I'll get a new item if I buy directly from a retailer.

What a hassle. :rolleyes:

[Mr.Supervious]

we have a ps3...which plays blu-ray movies...amazing picture

[The Unknown Gomer]

That's what I've heard. :cool: Alas, the last game console I bought was a GameCube, and I rarely play that, since I do most of my gaming on my PC.

Well, looks like I'm NOT getting it at Tiger Direct after all. Yay! I'm going to try ebay one more time (yes, glutton for punishment I am). But this seller has 100% positive feedback, and they say that it is (supposedly) new and factory sealed. It's $10 more than at Tiger Direct, but if I get off my duff and get it ordered tonight so that I can get it in enough time, it DOES still come with the properly dated receipts to get the 5 freebie movies. I figure 5 HD-DVD movies for $10? Beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, as my dad likes to say. ;) Just ONE of those movies on ebay would cost more than that, and this will give me a feel for what HD dvds look like. Then when it comes time to see about getting a Blu-Ray player once the prices drop, I'll already be like "Yeah, YEAH, gotta have one of those!" :cool:

Already put the charge for the first player in dispute with my Visa card. I figured why should I have to mess around with paying for TWO players when the only reason I'm getting two is because one is having to be returned. So they'll send me a form in the next 7-10 days that I have to fill out and send back and meanwhile, I don't have to pay that amount on my credit card bill yet. Once they credit it back the amount to cancel out the charge, I can pull it out of dispute and that should be that.

The saga continues... :rolleyes:

[rossid]

There are Aquos Blu-Ray players?

PS2 - finally - about a month ago. After five years and three Game Cubes.

Good luck with the return.

[The Unknown Gomer]

I still can't believe that they're asking if I want to take it to a Sam's club myself to try and exchange it for another one, and then we could get on the phone there and fax them copies of the receipts that they still have there in Texas as proof of purchase, etc. etc. etc. All this so they don't have to go through the hassle of bringing it back to Sam's themselves.

I didn't respond back last night since it was late, but I'm thinking "Hmmm... I could go through all that hassle, when I don't even have a Sam's membership anymore, and make a special trip over there this weekend, wait in their customer service line and get everyone on the phone, only to find out that they probably don't even have one to exchange?"

OOOOR... I could just box the thing back up, bring it in to work, slap a UPS label on it and have UPS pick it up at the end of the day tomorrow.

Which would YOU do!?! :P

I just hope the new one that I ordered last night really IS new this time. I couldn't be so unlucky has to get a returned model AGAIN. :rolleyes: Hopefully.

[The Unknown Gomer]

Looks like I may find out sooner than I thought about the condition of the new player, I was emailed the FedEx tracking number for it yesterday, and it turns out it's already sitting at the FedEx office in Chapel Hill, which is just a hop skip and a jump from here at work (I guess the seller was fairly local). Unfortunately, it's going to the house, not my work address, so chances are pretty good there won't be anyone to sign for it when they go to drop it off. Hopefully they'll leave it, so I don't have to go and pick it up at the Raleigh FedEx office, but if not, well, that's not too far for me to go after work tonight. :cool:

[The Unknown Gomer]

My DVD player didn't come in until today, apparently for some reason, even though it was in Chapel Hill yesterday, somehow it got to Durham and then went 2 hours in the opposite direction and got logged in in Winston-Salem.

FINALLY came in today, and while Yay! This one actually appears to be new, it's got all the cardboard and styrofoam, and things packed in plastic bags.

Why is the seller an ignoramus? Because even though I specifically said in the note that I put with my payment to PLEASE make sure that the required receipts to get the freebie movies were included in the box, since I've already had problems with a prior order that I had to return, it would be great to have everything intact this time.

I opened the box when I got home tonight. You guessed it. No receipts. The ONLY reason I ordered from these guys and not Tiger Direct. :mad: I've already emailed them but since it's Friday, I probably won't hear back until Monday.

Decided that I'd probably keep it, assuming it works, and they can either send me receipts to complete the order, or reimburse me the difference between their price and what I would have paid Tiger Direct for it. Or I'll be on the phone to Visa YET again and putting a stop payment on this one too.

Unbelievable. Order the same thing from two different sellers, one with 100% feedback, and one with 99.8% feedback, and I STILL managed to get two sellers who "forget" to include the receipts for the 5 freebie movies which was one of their primary selling points for the player in their listing.

Between this one and the last one, communication with them over the next week is going to be very interesting. :rolleyes:

[catman]

Nice to see your new player came in OK. Hope you like it.
I have some issues with mine that will require a bit of research in the owner's manual to solve. It loads slowly, and sometimes erratically. I have yet to try a Blu-ray disk, but I intend to get a few soon.

[The Unknown Gomer]

Any firmware upgrades that you can do on your machine? I know that Toshiba supplied the info for a firmware upgrade that they said should be done right away, but I'm a little cautious, the last time I tried to upgrade firmware on something, something went wrong and my Netgear router died on me. I had to take it back to Staples and have them give me a new one. Don't have that option with this DVD player. And it seems to work just fine as is, it boots up a little slowly, but not enough to risk botching things up with a firmware update to try and fix it. I downloaded the ISO file and burned it to a disk just in case though, although since I'm in no rush to install it, I might just have Toshiba send me one of theirs, to avoid there being any problems with my download.

Fortunately the seller got back to me right away Friday night about my missing receipt, and it was an online purchase from Best Buy, so he was able to go ahead and email his Best Buy receipt to me that night. Hope Toshiba accepts something like that. I guess we'll see, I'm sending out my thing for the 5 freebie movies today.

The new player installed just fine this weekend, and we watched the HD version of 300 on Saturday, and the upconverted SD version of Beowulf on Sunday. Looks pretty good, didn't notice a whole lot of difference in quality between the two.

Which is good to know, and part of the reason I wanted to buy an obsolete HD player anyway, it allowed me to compare HD and upconverted standard DVD on the cheap, to find out whether it would be worth it to invest in a Blu-Ray player later on once the prices drop. I don't think I'll be needing to, I'm not THAT fussy about my movies, the upconverted SD movie looked perfectly fine to me. So if I can get by with just upconverting standard DVDs, no point in spending the extra bucks on a Blu-Ray player.

[The Unknown Gomer]

My only problem now is that with the DVD movies and the digital HD network programming that we get from Time Warner, I hate to actually TAPE anything to watch later, because the picture we get of the standard def channels through the RCA connection on my old VCR looks so lousy. :rolleyes: Not like we have a choice, since we can't even tape from the HD digital connections to VHS, something about not being able to convert the digital signal to analog tape. I went ahead and recorded Big Bang Theory last night right to DVD from the digital HD CBS channel though, since I've been keeping all those episodes anyway, they're just too funny.

But for standard watch once tv, like New Amsterdam and Medium last night, it's back to old fashioned icky VHS (unless I pull out one of the reusable DVD-RAM discs my boss gave me back when I bought the burner and start using that to record and erase each time, THEN I can record in digital format). I'm so spoiled now. :rolleyes: :P