First things first. As a supporter of HD DVD, migrating to Blu-ray you have to consider whether Profile 1.1 (picture in picture) and/or Profile 2.0 (internet access) is important to you.
Only the Sony PS currently has Profile 1.1 in the UK. Although the highly rated Panasonic DMP-BD30 is coming to the UK/Europe, possibly as early as February. There will be a whole range of players released over the next few months, so it's for you to decide if you want to take the plunge now or maybe even build up a Blu-ray Disc collection and plump for the player/facilities/price combination that suits you best at the time of your choice.
We did audition the Sharp BD-HP20H at the same time as the Samsung BD-P1400. Although the Sharp was slightly cheaper, it was our personal opinion that the Samsung had the edge in just about every department. Picture wise they are pretty similar. At the time we purchased (early November 2007), only the Samsung could decode all HiDef audio formats. That was important to us. Also the Samsung had an ethernet port too, but in the event of a firmware upgrade, we burned a DVD-RW. All Blu-ray players can be updated via DVD-R/RW.
You will have worries over quality of Blu-ray compared to HD DVD. Blu-ray is at least equal to HD DVD in that respect. There are some individual disc issues, that unfortunately apply to both formats. That's down to the authoring process and not weaknesses in either format!
Because of it's extra capacity, Blu-ray does have the clear advantage in that picture and sound quality don't have to be sacrificed. Every disc we have (except The Polar Express) does have at least one 'lossless' audio option, be it LPCM 5.1 or DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD. Many discs also have Dolby Digital 5.1 as another option for backwards compatablity. Either way, all Blu-ray players can convert HiDef audio to appropriate DD or DTS.
We connected our Samsung BD-P1400 to our original Panasonic 32in LCD and it automatically detected that it was only 1080i (1366x768). When we upgraded to full HD, Panasonic TX-37LZD70, the Samsung was equally clever in that it automatically detected 1080p and also asked us if we wanted to use 24fps! Both 24fps and 60fps can be used in our combination!
Excepting the picture in picture and/or internet content access, we are sure you will be impressed with Blu-ray, whatever player you choose! After all, it's picture and sound quality that are the most important factors and both formats score highly!
Let us know what you decide to do!
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram