I had a Denon 5910, which I had modded, and the video on the Oppo is in another catagory, and although the Oppo sounds excellent, the Denon (going from memory here) was in another league for audio, even un-modded. But come on, the Denon weighs the same as a baby elephant. Great player, the Denon 5910. |
I paid $499 for being one of the people asking for information prior to wide release. I think it's going to be $599 (or so they say) to start. |
Acutally, isn't the "standard" viewing distance per CEDIA, 3 times the diagonal? Since my display is 52" that's a distance of 13 feet and my main viewing area is actually in front of that. Also, part of the reason, after much research, I bought the display I have, is that actually usually sit on the floor about 8' from the screen. It really is amazing, the detail, without any pixelation. It's a great display, and once again I say it, BluRay is doomed to go the way of Beta, SACD (which was awesome), and the 8 track. |
Tvad, that is good news. The chasis is so much bigger than the other Oppo's they should be able to do whatever they want. Then when they stop making BluRay discs a few years from now, the player will still be relevant for me. |
The fact that many of you are saying that I am not close enough to a 52" 1080p LCD TV to see the difference speaks volumes. It's not a 32" display that I am 20' from, it's a 52" display that I am 8 - 12' from depending on where I sit. It just verifies to me that the difference is just not that great.
It does look better, but it's not VHS to DVD better, no way no how. You could see that difference on a 20" TV from 2 blocks away.
It ain't gonna make it. I give 4 yrs on the over/under for when the last BluRay disc is produced. I'm going to take the under.
Downloads, that's the way it's going to go. Storage gets cheaper and more reliable all the time, bandwith grows and the technology to send large chunks of information gets cheaper and easier. I'm going to pull this thread up again in 2012 and see where we are.
The Oppo is a good player though, if you want a true multidisc, it's a no brainer.
Also, I have never spent $3k on any cord. I didn't pay that much for my speakers. |
Knownothing (excellent Plato reference, btw),
I'm not "having it both ways" as DVD's go to zero, BluRay will prob still be produced, for the videophile.
Goatwuss,
Streaming gets faster all the time, and check out the speeds and available information bandwith's on the very nearly hear 4G technologies. These and other developed in in beta testing technologies should increase download speeds, and elimnate, or really more to the point, change the technology on compression. |
OK, after re-reading this thread, and many hilarous (maybe not intentionally) responses about how if you are a peasant with less than a $10k processor or $20k projector of course there is no difference between BluRay, yada, yada, yada....
I think my conclusions have been verified. We on this forum are about 1/10 of 1% of the total population as owners of higher end electronics, so if only a small percentage of this group see and hear a huge difference it's just not there and it's certainly not going to become the mainstream norm.
Also, after taking this player over to a buddies with a 1080p projector (Panasonic 3000u) and 120" screen (Sterwart, not sure of the model)set up and going through a bunch of BluRay to DVD (and we downloaded some AppleTV HD movies to compare as well) comparisons we came to the same conclusion: better, but not even close to the difference we saw between VHS and DVD. Also, the Oppo BluRay upconverts so well that the DVD's looked spectacular and the HD AppleTV really looked good, but, not as good as the upconverted DVD's or the BluRay. The DTS-HD soundtracks are fantastic, and do seem more dynamic, well just sounded better, especially on my system, but once again, it's not the difference between your VHS and DVD that was shocking, it's a refinement. It's not even close to the difference between Vinyl and CD, so there if you like them collect your BluRay's now, and put them next to your SACD's, DVD-Audio's, Beta's, 8 tracks, et al |
Knownothing, I could not disagree with you more.
The minute, and I mean the absolute minute, that movie studios start releasing all movies to digital downloade the same day that they release the DVD/BluRay you can start selling Blockbuster and Hollywood Video stock short. Why on earth would you go rent and have to return, with possible penalties, the same movie you could rent via cable or media server in HD? My point is that the difference in BluRay is not going to make them run to the store.
Also, why would studios want to spend the money printing the DVD if they can just have it downloaded? Storage is getting cheaper and cheaper every day, you will be able to store, and back up, movies very cheaply, very quickly. I have a Drobo with Drobo share now, it's INFINITE storage really, that back's itself up, I have hundreds of hours of HD video of my kids on it now. When it read 50% full I changed 2 of the 4 drives to 1TB from 500MB and you know what, it cost me a whole $200. I think it's going that direction.
Also my perspective comes from being the guy everyone goes to with AV questions. It's just a hobby, but I probably help purchase/install about 15-20 AV systems a year for co-workers and friends, and I help more people just purchase their gear. I never, never steer them to BluRay, and once anyone has seen an AppleTV they almost always buy one. Between the music server function, and almost everyone already has iTunes, and the downloading movies, they can't believe how cheap it is, I'm with them.
Why, why, why mess with discs???
This experience also has made me believe vinyl and DAC's will continue and expand their renewed popularity. If you think downloadable HD movies are years and years away, I need to ask you if even 2 yrs ago you thought the majority of digital audiophiles would get rid of their disc players and buy outboard DAC's to play digital files?? That's where it's gone, and continues to go. High res or low res, digital is only a file now, not a disc.
Vinyl is still better (best) and will continue, I believe, to grow again along side the digital file/DAC craze. Once agian, my experience is not one dinner party at our house has not been followed by at least 2 calls for help in buying a turntable.
All that said, I like my Oppo, but it's really for the full multidisc capability, not the BluRay.
Albert, I have not compared but who cares really? Your not going to quit playing vinyl, and the SACD's don't sound as good as vinyl on the best rigs so.... Hey where are you in Texas, what a great rig, if it's Austin I could bring you some wine when I go on a road trip from Houston........ |
redbook with the oppo was very partisan to say the least. I have not tried it yet as a transport with a stand alone DAC since I have a new tube DAC on the way from Paul G at Tube Audio Design, and I am assuming that will be a huge upgrade.
I thought the SACD and DVD-Audio were very good, and DVD's and BluRay look amazing.
To the point of the legal arguements over BluRay rights, I find it hard to believe that the precident has not been set already with the DVD rights since that is digital media as well. It's just a variation of DVD, not really a new media in the fact that it's just higher resolution digital information. DVD was a change from analog to digital, where the information could be diseminated differently. So I'm not buying the legal rights issues are going to take the same time. |
I've still never seen a HUGE difference in video quality from BluRay, from any player, to DVD upconverted well. Yes it does look better, but not VHS to DVD better. Anyone who says that needs to hook up an old VHS player, and take a look.
I find it funny that the rabid supporters of BluRay state you need a HUGE screen to see the difference. The whole point of this post was that I don't think BluRay is going to make it as the next mainstream format to carry entertainment, that means for 99% of the population who don't have projectors or the latest, greatest, largest screens.
I'm sticking to my guns on this one, BluRay may overtake DVD someday, but both will fall away and downloads for movies will join music downloads as medium by which people recieve this content.
I believe the quality of downloads can and will improve enough to make the differnce in quality from a BluRay disc not worth the effort to go out and rent it.
Maybe BluRay will be a niche market for videophiles and stay relevant as vinyl has (and thrived actually) with audiophiles.
I'm going to go turn on a record while I download an HD movie from iTunes. |
last night I rented "Watchmen" on AppleTV (terrible movie by the way) and to me it verified what I have been saying in this thread regarding the death of, not just BluRay but all disc distributed digital media.
When I first started the movie it was too dark and hard to discern details, so I made a few picture adjustments, and the picture was fantastic. My wife thought it was a BluRay disc. It was the best looking downloaded movie I have ever seen. It looked better than DVD's, even those upconverted on my Oppo BluRay player, and was fairly close to BluRay discs I have rented. Certainly close enough that I was glad I didn't drive my car to the store and rent it.
I still contend there is not a big enough difference in quality to make people go out and rent (maybe videophiles will still buy as we do with vinyl) software that can be downloaded that quickly. My movie was available in 5 minutes. As the technology continues to advance, especially 4G networks, this can and will become instantaneous, and full 1080p (and higher) video will become a commonly downloaded accurance.
I also believe that where there is demand for it, the higher resolution audio downloads will become more common. But the market for that seems fairly small right now, the common consumer is happy with MP3, and doesn't have the equipment to hear the difference. I believe that is what will happen with video as well. |
No HD soundtracks yet. They come with standard Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks. Sounds very good though. |
OK, I just downloaded a video my kids wanted to see that I couldn't find on DVD or iTunes from Amazon. It downloaded in 30 minutes in HD (only 720) and watched it on both the computer, and was able to get it onto my 52" Sony LCD through the network pretty quickly.
That is the death of discs. Just as downloads are the death of CD's.
I think people will still buy vinyl, but I can't see any reason to use a disc anymore for a movie. Rent it online through your cable/satellite company, or Roku or AppleTV.
I won't post to this thread anymore, I am beating a dead horse. But, every day I believe that my original contention that BluRay will not become a dominant media format has already come true.
For those of you thinking about buying disc players of any kind, spend the money on a good DAC, or more media storage (for Movies) instead. |
I resurrected this thread to say:
HA, I told you so!!! |
Knownothing, I just saw your response. So your kids are the one's who still used discs?
The percentage of discs bought, or rented, compared to download is minuscule.
Blu-ray is not even the only disc, they still, somehow make DVD's. Neither of which are important.
BluRay was the LaserDisc of formats, a non-important pause. Cloud storage has even made home downloads unnecessary, digital downloads are THE only format that matters at all.
Once again, I told you so.
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