The Blu-ray Way
I am sitting on the precipice of an exciting upgrade. In a few short weeks, we will be abandoning our standard DVD player for Blu-ray. Although we own several hundred DVDs, I look forward to adding newer releases to my collection in Blu-ray! I was a bit concerned but inquired on Twitter, and apparently when you play standard DVDs on a Blu-ray player, they "upconvert" and play at a higher resolution.
I am encouraged by programs like DVD 2 BLU, which Warner Brothers just unveiled. They are offering consumers the opportunity to upgrade Warner Brothers films on DVD to Blu-ray for a very reasonable fee. This is merely a glimpse of the future of home entertainment, and as a pop culture sponge, it is about time that I hopped on the bandwagon.
To me, the only real downfall at this point is that I am unable to play a Blu-ray disc on my Mac. I re-watch a great deal of TV on DVD on my laptop, but will not be able to do so with Season 5 of Lost (which I pre-ordered on Blu-ray; it will be released on 12/8/09). Of course I am hoping that by the time a 6-season Lost box set comes out in the next year or two...Apple will have joined the Blu-ray party.
I have no plans to replace every single DVD on my shelf, but the following films on Blu-ray certainly top my holiday wish list:
- The Dark Knight
- Gattaca
- Inglourious Basterds
- The Lord of the Rings trilogy
- The Matrix trilogy
- Star Trek (2009)
- V for Vendetta
The two titles/sets that I would DEFINITELY add to this list are:
(1) Blade Runner (Five-Disc Complete Collector's Edition) [Blu-ray]: http://amzn.com/B000UBMWG4
~AND~
(2) Spider-Man - The High Definition Trilogy [Blu-ray]: http://amzn.com/B000UR9T8
Kill Bill 1 & 2 also look GREAT on Blu-ray, but the improvement over a well-upscaled DVD is far less apparent with these films that with either Blade Runner or Spider-Man. Both of these titles are so insanely better on Blu-Ray than on DVD (regardless of upscaling; with these latter two, it's *still* not even close), that I can't begin to describe it. Must-haves, both!
Enjoy!
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If you have any of the Pixar films it is well worth it to upgrade those to Blu-Ray. Pixar films on Blu-Ray look and sound spectacular, actually a lot of the computer animated films look great on Blu-Ray! And the LOST Blu-Ray sets are great too, especially if you already watched them in HD during the original broadcasts.
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I'm pondering whether to switch out the DVD player too. But.. we just can't afford to buy a ton of blu-rays, so will be very interested to hear thoughts on the upscaling.
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