Blu Ray or upconvert for 720i TV?
 

So my g/f recently bought a 720i (or p? I dunno...) TV...now she wants to get a decent DVD player...I've kinda been telling her to go Blu Ray, but upconverting DVD players are dirt cheap...I'm thinking since her TV is just 720 not a 1080, is it still worth it for Blu Ray?

Or just stick with a good upconverting conventional DVD player?

thanks

whats your setup like? are u just using 2 channel audio?

if u have a 5.1 setup i'd recomend buying a bluray player because the sound alone is exceptional

BTW, if i were u i'd just return that TV, buying anything but 1080p at this point is such a waste of money when u have 46" 1080p TV's going for under 1200..

she got it dirt cheap...she paid $480 for it and it's a good-spec Samsung

She's running it through 2 channels right now, but a small home theatre setup is next on her list

1) The upconversion that Blu-Rays do to DVD's aren't that great.. not much better than sub-$100 upconverting DVD players, which brings me to
2) sub-$100 upconverting DVD players kind of suck. If you have a semi decent TV, it will do a better job of upconverting DVD's, which brings me to
3) If you REALLY care about video quality, and want to continue enjoying your DVD library, you might want to look at a quality player like an Oppo. And guess what, I'm selling mine right now :) PM me for a deal

Now that isn't to say it's a better idea to use DVD over Blu-Ray. But if she has a large collection of movies, and wants to enjoy them more than ever, buying one really good player would be smarter than buying a Blu-Ray, then buying all the movies all over again.

Thanks for the comment, SkinnyPup, but she's not really interested in buying one used off the net :)

As we speak she is buying a brand new Samsung Blu Ray player for $180 :)

from my experience, and many others, the PS3 is the best Blu-Ray/DVD upconverting player out there. My DVD's look really good with it and it runs like a champ, booting up really fast (some players take 45+ seconds), etc. plus it plays games. just something to check out.

+1. PS3 is best BD player on the planet for under 5 bills. I have both the PS3 and the Sony BDP-S500 and even with the new firmware, the s500 takes FOREVER to load movies. In it's defense, it does a better upconverting job for normal dvds than the ps3, but at 200 more (at the time) I dunno if it was worth it.

She got a Samsung player...for less than half the price of a PS3...plus, don't you have to buy the remote separately for a PS3?

well you can use the controller as a remote, or you can buy the traditional style remote for $20-30, we got one for my dad for Christmas because he can't figure out the controller ahah.

Sub-$100 upconverting players are just a marketing gimmick, regardless of brand. The only upconverting DVD players that actually make a difference are the Oppos, and the Toshiba XDE line.

If the TV your GF bought is a smaller size 37" and below, then you'll hardly notice any difference between 720P and 1080P. There's more important specs that go towards producing a nice image than just 1080P resolution.

Blu-ray does provide better picture quality than any upconverting player. But you'll be paying more for your movies.

Yeah ... I picked up the remote for like $15 ... No biggie ...

the title says 720i, not 720p so it's not much above DVD quality anyways. somehow I missed that too. I'd just get a good DVD player then.

Good job on choosing blu-ray over an upconverting DVD player. An upconverted DVD movie can never look as good as a true 720/1080 resolution blu-ray movie. Also, listen to the guys above that say to buy a PS3. Trust me when I say this. Before I bought my PS3, I was just like you and your gf. I didn't want to spend the extra money for a PS3 despite what I read on it being the best blu-ray player.

I bought the Panasonic S350 blu-ray player, which is supposedly one of the best blu-ray players next to a PS3. It has the CNET editor's top pick. I took it home along w/ Casino Royale on blu-ray, and popped it in. I had heard about load times for standalone blu-ray players, but I was not prepared for what it really was like. I simply could not stand the fact that I was waiting up to 1 minute to load up a blu-ray disc!!! :mad:

Not only do you have to wait when you first pop in the movie, you gotta wait when you jump back to the menu, and do other stuff. To me that was unacceptable. Let's not forget about upgradeability of the blu-ray player as well. Because the PS3 has a hard drive in it, any updates or revisions in blu-ray playing software are future proof for the PS3. Just install and update the newest version, and you're good to go. Your gf's sub $200 blu-ray player probably is not blu-ray version2.0 compatible, aka "blu-ray live". There won't be any room for upgrade there.

If you have a futureshop card, use that to buy your PS3. You have 3months to pay it off interest free.

The Samsung Blue Ray players load up pretty quick IMO. I got one a few weeks ago and it takes only slightly longer than a regular DVD player. Maybe 10-15 seconds and it is already playing.

oops...sorry about the i/p thing...not 100% what her TV is...all I know is that it's 720 not 1080...as for the discs...yeah, they cost more, but we usually borrow them...she used to work at a movie rental store when she was in high school and still works there like a half shift every month or two, so we get free rentals haha...