Should I get a Blu-ray player?

Yes get it. The blu ray disc holds almost twice as much information that significantly enhances the picture and sound quality. The format war is over and Blu ray is the winner and so now is the consumer that can get these players at a decent price.

 

Yep. HD-DVD is gone and Blu-ray is the winner.

If your projector is 1080i or even better 1080p you will see a great improvement over DVD. I use a 73" 1080p DLP and blu-ray movies do look amazing. Most movies come out concurrently as DVD and Blu-ray so selection is becoming less of an issue.

Like you I couldn't care less about the interactive features. Movies just look awesome at native 1080p.

You probably know this but projectors are kind of tricky. Their native resolution is rarely the native resolution of DVDs (480P) HD (1080i) or Blu-ray (1080p). I would suggest to look into a cheap blu-ray PC that will let you scale movies to the exact resolution of the projector. A PITA but worth it IMHO.

 

No, that was just the first major battle.

DVD vs HD

That's the actual war, which continues. Non-disc delivery is the contender now.... downloads. Meanwhile, 83% of the disc market is still held by DVD.

Blu-Ray is great, if you have the viewing technology to actually see the benefit. With only a small screen and slow refresh, the experience is similar to well upconverted DVD. But since Blu-Ray will likely replace DVD anyway, in boils down to when to spend and how much.

Good luck.
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What is the maximum resolution of your projector? If the projector can't display a high resolution image, it doesn't make sense to use a high resolution source.

If you usually rent movies, go to your rental place and look at their collection of Blu-ray discs. Are you going to end up renting DVDs and playing them on the Blu ray player?

I'm waiting for the price of a good player to drop in half again before I buy one, then maybe the local rental place will have a nice collection of discs to rent.

 

Daniel..

I found this review for your projector.

Sony Cineza HS-51 LCD Video Projector-AVRev.com

"I was particularly impressed and surprised that the HS-51 was able to easily sync with my Apple G4 computer’s video card, creating a wide screen desktop resolution of 1280 x 768 WXGA, a vast improvement over the previously crippled operating systems found in so many wide screen projectors."

Like that guy did a PC will give you the best image. Your projector's resolution is higher than 1080p. This forces an upscaling by the projector that may degrade image quality.

Unfortunately the only way right now to play a blu-ray on a PC is within windows. Like you I am a Mac guy but I made an exception for my home theater.

Cheers!

 

The specs I found said your projector is 1280x720 native. So that means the best you could see is 720p. Anything else would be scaled down. Unless you upgrade to an expensive 1080i or 1080p native projector I think upgrading to Blue-ray would not be worth it.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

IF the projector is native at 720p then at you won't see all the goodness of bluray on a large (over 50") projected image. But native 720p TV's / projectors that are 50" or smaller probably look as good as 1080p TVs at a distance of 8' or more when showing bluray. I just picked up the Sony S350 for $220 last month. It also upscales DVDs well.

 

I second the vote for a PlayStation 3 if you want to purchase a Blu-ray player. It's like getting a blu-ray player with a gaming function for free. I would suggest, however, getting the separate PlayStation 3 remote if you go down this path.

 

I bought a blu ray player for the express purpose of getting the BBC's Planet Earth (the original, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, not the US version, narrated by Susan Sarandan). IMHO, this series displayed on a 1080p lcd is absolutely incredible, and certainly seems like something that would interest you, Daniel. That being said, unless you have a display to take advantage of the high def picture, it is likely a waste of money.

 

Nothing that really matters. Here is a quote from this website.
1080i vs. 1080p HDTV: should you care? - Fully Equipped - CNET Reviews

 

Blue ray quality is much better then DVD but the player cost much

 

I just picked that up cheap on ebay. A must have. (Sigourney Weaver narrated the US version, I believe).

 

Go get it and the Planet Earth Series in Blu-Ray you won't be sorry. The PS3 also plays the newer HD/Lossless(?) audio formats. other than that I don't know much about the newer audio stuff. It's pretty hard to tell or see the difference between 1080 v. 720 resolution on screens smaller that 50 inches. The PS3 also upscales regular DVD to higher resolution 720p(?) and runs a Folding@Home client.

Wildkow

 

if your going to get a blue ray player. my advice is to get a brand name unit, put it on a credit card that doubles your manufactures warranty, and make sure that company will support your blue ray player with bios updates.

the hdmi cables are really overpriced. like $65, and they may or may not be better then the hdmi cables you can buy off the internet for $12

you might be able to have some features if you buy the same brand of blue ray player that your tv is, like samsungs wiselink or whatever

 

LCD technology has improved quite a bit since that article was written, over 3 years ago.
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