Fair point, but I still think these are very reasonable prices for films with such high quality transfers. The prices quoted are comparable new releases on SD DVD.

I'm not knocking DVD, I still buy those, and I'm sure I will do so for many years to come. I just don't think that adopting a Hi Def format as well, is as expensive as a lot of people perceive it to be, especially for such new technology.

Virgin On Demand HD is the real winner.

But for now I'm supporting Blu-Ray!

A valid point! But why would you spend so much on a good HD set just to watch SD content.

Most of us with next gen consoles have upscalers now and the picture is crystal clear, dvd's are so cheap I just dont see the need, I have had hd dvd hooked up to my tv and the problem I find is that the picture is so good it can ruin films special effects, in King Kong for example the picture was so clear it was easy to spot the outline of where he had been super-imposed onto the screen it looked rubbish on those bits, I also watched Equilibrium in HD and could clearly see some bits of that were computer graphics,again it looked daft.

Even if you aren't bothered about games you could get a PS3 for £279 online and use it to play blu-rays which aren't all that expensive. The PS3 will play your standard DVDs also and if one format is likely to triumph I think it will be Blu-Ray judging on current sales figures. PS3 also has internet browser and allows you to store photos, music and videos so even if you aren't into games it has many functions.

blu-ray just as cheap as HD discs

if your not bothered about games why buy a games console?

TOO early to see whos going to win


you need to watch the surveys as they are usually worded to suit certain companies

an upscaler is best at the moment, make sures its got hdmi

A PS3 is a cheap blu-ray player and you can do more than play games on it, many people have one and haven't got a single game. It's better value that a standalone Blu-Ray player.It is too early to see who will win but if the OP is thinking of getting Blu-Ray or HD-DVD I gave my opinion that blu-ray seems to be in a slightly better position at the moment.

yes your quite correct its cheap

but i think toshiba with their machines are cheap too, if not cheaper

guess it depends what films you want too watch

DVD will stick around for a long time so I don't think the OP needs to worry. Sony are doing all they can though to flood the market with blu-ray and have a hand in the film industry so it wouldn't be a huge surprise to see blu-ray triumph. I bought my PS3 for games though and have to say it leaves a slightly bad taste in my mouth that blu-ray seems to be forced on us but now I have a PS3 I may as well just go along with it

A quick plug for an upscaling DVD player

Try the Cambridge DVD 89

I've had one for over a year now and it's extremely impressive at £199.99

http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/summar...13&Title=DVD89

I guess like the rest of us, you bought a DVD player when they became cheap and started to buy films on DVD rather than VHS. I don't see how moving to HD-DVD/BR is any different, they become cheap and DVD becomes obsolete.

Personally I am doing it now. 46" TV and Samsung BD-UP5000 are on my new year shopping list, assuming the player gets a good write up.

Any new films I buy will obviously be on the new formats, just like my move to DVD. My first DVD player was several hundred pounds and even my first Nicam VHS was £600!

That's almost as bad as paying £400 for a Panasonic VHS recorder in 1998 (yes £400 in 1998) - it was the top end one at the time - and then paying £400 a week later for the first ever DVD player released in the UK.

I'm sure if anyone was inclined to do a bit of shopping around they'd be able to buy a PS3 and an HD-E1 for £400.

That's the beauty of this format war, HD optical media has very, very quickly become an affordable option. If you have to get a bigger piece of TV furniture to house 2 machines, is that really so bad?

If all the production companies had agreed upon a single format of HD disc, you could expect the cheapest player would be around the £800 mark.

This time everyone can afford to be an early adopter.

I don't have a large collection of DVDs and most of them are of ("SD archive") TV shows. The movies I do have I'm unlikely to ever replace with HD versions with a small number of exceptions (block busters like LotR and Star Wars). I've spent much less on DVD movies in recent years, partly because it's no longer the optimum format it was but mostly since buying a PVR I don't make the time to watch DVD movies.

I wont be buying into an HD disc format anytime soon. The likeliest route to one for me would be via a Playstation 3 if prices drop substantially in the medium term. Alternatively, I'm hoping to upgrade to a Freesat HD PVR and if there's one with a combi HD-DVD/Blu-Ray player/recorder then that could be tempting (but I'm not expecting them for some time yet). So for now I'll be sticking with my upscaling DVD recorder and not buying many new movies (or HD sourced TV DVDs).

I bought a Panasonic State of The Art S-VHS machine in 1998 it was around £400.
In 1999 I got my first DVD it was £600, but I got £100 off for buying with a 32" TV and a VCR, package.

My purchases were helped by the fact I worked for Capital Sound & Vision (unbeatable.co.uk) - staff discounts were great

My DVD Player is still going strong btw - a Toshiba SD3107.

Imported my first DVD player from the US back in 1998 for £440, not sure what the exchange rate was back then but I was enjoying DVD's while the R2 industry were bickering about including DD5.1 audio

Around £14 for a movie as well, bliss

That said I was not prepared to import a US HD player this time around, I've got more restrained with age but overall prices for both hardware and media (in terms of my HD DVD purchase) are inline with DVD and back then there still were question marks over this non-recordable format

Still expensive? YES!
Cant afford the price tag of £384 for a PS3. Not seen it any cheaper. Not even seen the 360 Elite yet, but people say its almost as expensive. And lets not forget, formats aside, neither of these games machines are winning the games war - thats down to Nintendo, which doesnt do any HD format!

On the subject of disc prices, I can buy DVD movies in the local supermarket and Woolworths for £4-£6.

And the further problem with both new formats - the only ones I have seen are a few PS3 blue-ray games. There are ZERO HD-DVD or BlueRay discs for sale here (by the way, SACD and DVD-A also - NEVER made it to the shops near me).

So it would have to be a dual-format player, but from the reviews I have seen, these tend not to be as good as a format specifc machine, and are also more expensive.

Dave

This is my point - its simply not possible to keep up, and not possible to afford the changes.

Dave

I have both my first DVD and the expensive panasonic VCR in a storage unit... Both working
I left my house to live in the USA for a while and my stuff was stored. For silly reasons I came back!
I would love to get to my video tapes and start putting them on dvd...

I'm sure the same was said about the swap from VHS to DVD

Just like VHS to DVD, when HD players and media reduce to the point where the price/benefit ratio appeals to you, you'll make the swap. You'd be daft to stick with DVD when HD players that upscale DVD can be bought around the same price point

Reports show though that there is a take up rate of 0.5 films per blu-ray machine which tends to suggest the ps3 is being bought for gaming and not blu-ray, though your point about it being a cheap bluray player is valid, am sure though I have seen Blu-ray players for £225 now though ?

Hi Dave,

I think I mis-understood where you were coming from; I thought that you were keen to upgrade to an HD player but felt that price inhibited you for doing so. In which case, I'd hoped to illustrate that it might not be as expensive as you thought.

However, (and please correct me if I still mis-understand) it would appear that you are concerned that the arrival of the new Hi Def formats means that DVDs/DVD players are soon to become obsolete and you will be forced to buy into an expensive new format that will require you re-buy replacements for your entire DVD library. I could understand you being upset if that were the case, but, good news, its not.

In my opinion, DVDs are likely to remain the most popular format for watching films at home, for at least the next 5 years. If at that point HD-DVD or Blu-ray (chances are one format will have folded by then) takes over the mantle from DVD it will still be at least 2 or 3 years before the production of DVD players are scaled down. So it's likely to be at least 8 years before you are expected to "keep up" because you can no longer buy the films you want on DVD, or can no longer buy a replacement DVD player.

The best news of all, is that none of that really matters because, no matter which HD disc format survives/thrives, it will be backwards compatible with DVDs, and therefore, you are in a completely different position from the one when you decided to stop using VHS and switch to DVD.

There is absolutely no reason to feel obliged to "keep up"; your DVD collection/player will serve you well for many years to come.

I know that what one man deems affordable may be expensive for another, but if you're keen on a PS3, you might want to check the link below to Pixmania who are selling at £280. You may well find a better price if you're prepared to hunt for one but its a lot less than you were previously quoted.

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/game-plays...&CodePromo=oui

I was visiting a friend yesterday and saw a PS3 in action for the first time — I was thinking of upgrading to Blu-ray. Yes: the games I saw had fantastic graphics, way better than anything the PS2 had to offer.

However, I also tried some Blu-ray discs and looked at a few downloaded movie samples. (These were viewed on a Panasonic 37" Viera plasma TV.) I have to confess I'm wondering what the fuss is all about: I couldn't see hardly any difference to what I can currently watch on SD DVDs.

I have a 40" Sony Bravia LCD and one of Sony's higher end DVD players connected with quality SCART leads and I'd say the picture was definitely comparable.

Is the difference really that marginal? The way the studios are hyping it, you'd think it was like the jump from VHS to DVD.

Takes a while to get used to the difference, I remember switching to Sky Digital from analogue and throwing a fit because it looked like mush.

The difference can be amazing, I haven't seen any played from disc but saw a BBCHD demo set up and it was like 3D compared to standard definition.