It’s just you, me and Blu-ray, baby.
With HD DVD deader than “Cavemen,” Blu-ray survives as the only high-definition disc format. But for how long? With on-demand and, ultimately, online streaming and movie downloads, Blu-ray could look prehistoric in a hurry.
But you can bet your PlayStation 3 that Blu-ray won’t go away without a fight, so let’s take a look at what to expect if you’re in the market for a new player and then take one for a test drive.
The outlook
At least HD DVD had its act together technologically — it simply didn’t have enough support from the movie studios. From the start, HD DVD offered networking, picture-in-picture, onboard digital memory for storing downloaded material and online connectivity.
Blu-ray, perhaps because it’s more complicated technologically and less like a conventional DVD player than HD DVD was, keeps trying to catch up. Last fall, it added picture-in-picture and 256 megabytes of onboard storage in players conforming to something called Profile 1.1, or “Final Standard Profile.” Later this year, Profile 2.0, or “BD Live,” players will add an Ethernet port for 1 gigabyte of memory and Internet connectivity. But how will consumers react when Sony introduces the $400-or-so BDP-S350, its first with an Ethernet port, this summer and find out it can’t access the Internet — and the BD Live features — until a firmware update later in the year?
The earliest Blu-ray players, Profile 1.0, are dinosaurs already. Consumers who dropped $1,500 on a player a year ago cannot update their players. Only one player, in fact, is upgradable — the one stashed in the $399 PlayStation 3, a high-power gaming console that’s more computer than disc player. People can still watch new Blu-ray releases, but they won’t be able to see picture-in-picture commentary or any other Profile 1.1 feature.
That’s why a lot of people call the PS3 a best buy in Blu-ray players. Aside from moving up to a Profile 2.0 level via a firmware update, it can also stream media, play DivX video, and send photos and video over a home network.
“It will be the cheapest BD Live player by the end of the year,” says analyst Paul Erickson, director of DVD and HD market research at DisplaySearch.
Blu-ray players start at about $500 now. Erickson says that, by the holiday season, Profile 1.1 players will become the standard at prices that might drop below $250 and even closer to $200. The BD-Live players will cost up to $200 more. Lower prices won’t necessarily increase consumer interest, though.
“DVD is in its own natural state of decline,” says Erickson. “It will be a little hard for a high-definition format to penetrate a market that’s already saturated.”
The Blu-ray blues
Panasonic’s $500 DMP-BD30, the first Profile 1.1 player when it was released last fall, has the best-available Blu-ray technology. But much of it means nothing to the average consumer.
It’s a safe bet, for example, that there are more adult males in the United States with newly shaped Anton Chigurh hairdos than there are Blu-ray movies with Profile 1.1 features. There’s “Sunshine” and not much else. (Chigurh wins!)
The DMP-BD30 has the latest video enhancements — Deep Color and 1080p/24p, which plays a movie in the same 24-frames-per-second format as the original — but needs a late-model HDTV with the same features.
It has the latest audio, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD, but needs one of the latest audio-video receivers to decode the new surround-sound formats.
A standard DVD looks no better on the DMP-BD30 than it does on a good $100 upconverting DVD player. And a $40 (list price) Blu-ray movie sometimes looks no better than a standard DVD. I did a double take after loading a Blu-ray “Mission Impossible III” and seeing grainy images on the 1080p screen.
But done right, like “Planet Earth,” the Blu-ray/1080p combo mesmerizes.
It might not be a good year for Blu-ray, but it could be a great year for the PS3. At least you can play “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” before gathering the family for “Planet Earth.”
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TRY IT
What: Panasonic DMP-BD30 Blu-ray player
Price: $500
Hot: The most up-to-date Blu-ray technology available to consumers
Not: It won’t be up-to-date for long
Alternative: Wait for a greater selection of players during the holiday season
Available: Abt Electronics, Best Buy, Circuit City
Info: panasonic.com
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