Will I see an improvement from Blu-Ray

[TTrooper]

Hi, I'm looking at buying the BDP-S370 Sony Blue Ray Player. I current have a Panasonic TX-32LXD700 TV with a Toshiba XD-E500 and am wondering what sort of improvement I will see. Blu Ray looks fantastic on all TVs I've seen in the shop but Ijust wondering as my TV is not a full 1080p set wheather I will see a bigger enough improvement to justify the upgrade.

I did read on another forum that the picture quality would be almost the same as an upscaled DVD due to the image being down sampled from 1080 to 720p, I understand this but I thought I would see a bigger improvement.

Your comments would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Anonymous]

you will still see an improvement ok , but not as much as you would on a bigger , 1080p tv , assuming you will upgrade your tv at some point in the future though , and seeing as the sony is only around £170 , it wouldnt be a bad idea ...

 

[Anonymous]

I have a panasonic viera 720p/1080i tv from 5 years ago, it was a what hi-fi 5 star winner for 2-3 years running... I think

Blu-ray is stunning !!!!!!! especially with the audio.

Cant wait to upgrade again to a nice new panasonic with kuro technology 600hz.

Will go from a 42" to a 46" though, if my alcove will allow

 

[bigboss]

Totally agree with maxflinn here.

If you're not desperate for a blu-ray player, the Sony S370 should come down to £100 or thereabouts by Christmas.

 

[Anonymous]

Not on a 32 inch screen.

 

[Anonymous]

SamsonD:Not on a 32 inch screen.
not true ..

my brother has a 720p sony 32v4000 lcd , i gave him my ps3 a while back , along with a few blu-rays ...

they look sharper and crisper and are more detailed than an upscaled dvd ..

 

[Binman]

I have a 32" panasonic plasma from a few years ago. Its a 720p set, and I recently bought a Sony BluRay Player (cant remeber the model, but it was £120, so I guess its the entry level)

It replaced an ageing, and entryish level panasonic non-upscaling DVD player. I have found a big improvement from my old DVD player, and am happy with it. However, I have Dark Knight on DVD and Bluray. Playing these two on the new Bluray player, which upscales the DVD picture, the difference is less obvious, but still there. The same DVD played on my old DVD player vs the Bluray on the Sony the difference is much bigger.

So, I suppose what I'm saying is that, yes, you will see a difference, but the amount will depend on how good our current DVD player is.

 

[Anonymous]

maxflinn:
SamsonD:Not on a 32 inch screen.
not true ..

my brother has a 720p sony 32v4000 lcd , i gave him my ps3 a while back , along with a few blu-rays ...

they look sharper and crisper and are more detailed than an upscaled dvd ..

I'm quite surprised. I have seen a Denon DVD-1940 and a fat PS3 on a 32 inch lcd screen, and there really wasn't any difference that I could see in picture quality.

 

[Anonymous]

SamsonD:maxflinn:

SamsonD:Not on a 32 inch screen.
not true ..

my brother has a 720p sony 32v4000 lcd , i gave him my ps3 a while back , along with a few blu-rays ...

they look sharper and crisper and are more detailed than an upscaled dvd ..

I'm quite surprised. I have seen a Denon DVD-1940 and a fat PS3 on a 32 inch lcd screen, and there really wasn't any difference that I could see in picture quality.

well i guess if the denon was better at upscaling than the ps3 , or in my brothers case , his xbox360 , then the difference compared with blu-ray may not have been so obvious , i do still think that there is a significant difference though , much more than ive ever seen between different blu-ray players with blu-rays ..

even though some claim one blu-ray player blows another out of the water

 

[Frank Harvey]

DVD can look very good even on a 42" screen. I think when people compare Bluray and DVD, they tend to look at whatever is closest to the screen - objects like people's faces. It's close objects that aren't going to show how much better Bluray can be, it's the background you need to look at. Wherever the background, or objects at distance in the background are in focus, see how detailed they look. This is where DVD's heavily compressed video quality just can't cut it. As an example, check out the long shot of the open square at the start of the 15th chapter of Casino Royale. The fine detail should impress you.

 

[007L2Thrill]

Yes you will see an improvement, one and half years ago I had a Panasonic 32" LCD and I brought a PS3 and the image was so much more dynamic and brighter with no blur to be seen, a lot like David says above me, plus the 32" I had was only 720p.

So what are you waiting for go and buy one and enjoy a couple of films on it and come back and let us know what you think as you will not be disappointed.

WOW my 100 post!!

 

[csq2]

I don't even have a blu-ray player even though I've had a Panasonic 50 inch 1080p plasma for 3 years. I will wait until the new blu ray format (larger capacity) comes out before buying a blu ray player. If you buy a blu ray player right now, it won't be able to player future blu ray titles.

 

[Frank Harvey]

That's what software updates are for

If it's a hardware change, then it would be true that future versions of Bluray won't play in current machines, but most changes will be able to be taken care of by a software update.

 

[bigboss]

csq2:I don't even have a blu-ray player even though I've had a Panasonic 50 inch 1080p plasma for 3 years. I will wait until the new blu ray format (larger capacity) comes out before buying a blu ray player. If you buy a blu ray player right now, it won't be able to player future blu ray titles.

At this rate, you may never buy one!

As David correctly pointed out, all blu-ray players are supported by future software updates so that is not an issue.

The supposedly new larger capacity blu-ray format is useless for movies (how big can a film be?), unless they want to add the those extras which most don't watch at all.

 

[Tom Moreno]

TTrooper:
Hi, I'm looking at buying the BDP-S370 Sony Blue Ray Player. I current have a Panasonic TX-32LXD700 TV with a Toshiba XD-E500 and am wondering what sort of improvement I will see. Blu Ray looks fantastic on all TVs I've seen in the shop but Ijust wondering as my TV is not a full 1080p set wheather I will see a bigger enough improvement to justify the upgrade.

I did read on another forum that the picture quality would be almost the same as an upscaled DVD due to the image being down sampled from 1080 to 720p, I understand this but I thought I would see a bigger improvement.

Your comments would be greatly appreciated.

I've got a panasonic TX-32LXD70 that I believe is from the model year before your's and it's a 720p set as well. Even though it isn't full 1080p there is a significant difference in picture quality between upscaled DVD and Blu-ray. Granted that the difference might not be as big as on a 40"+ 1080p set, but even so I can say that that there is a significant difference- enough so that my wife (who really doesn't care) notices immediately and comments if a Lovefilm rental is a DVD and not a Blu-ray.

 

[Tom Moreno]

bigboss:
csq2:I don't even have a blu-ray player even though I've had a Panasonic 50 inch 1080p plasma for 3 years. I will wait until the new blu ray format (larger capacity) comes out before buying a blu ray player. If you buy a blu ray player right now, it won't be able to player future blu ray titles.

At this rate, you may never buy one!

As David correctly pointed out, all blu-ray players are supported by future software updates so that is not an issue.

The supposedly new larger capacity blu-ray format is useless for movies (how big can a film be?), unless they want to add the those extras which most don't watch at all.

This is correct. From everything I've read, the higher capacity BDs aren't going to be certified for media delivery (films) they are going to be solely directed at data archiving tasks. Notice that they haven't even been provisioned for in the ratification of the newer Blu-ray 3D spec even though the consortium was aware of the upcoming tech at that point. Normally if there was the possibility that the tech would be implemented (even if it isn't finalised) there would at least be a provision for it in the format specification.

 

[Frank Harvey]

bigboss: The supposedly new larger capacity blu-ray format is useless for movies (how big can a film be?), unless they want to add the those extras which most don't watch at all.

From what I've heard, Avatar used up the majority of the Bluray's single disc capacity, which is why it looked so good - hopefully, this will become 'normal'.....

 

[TTrooper]

Thanks for all the advice, seems like I've opened an interesting discussion here. I think I'm gonna go for it.

I'll let your know my thoughts.

Thanks again.

 

[Timbot]

I've got a Sony upscaling HD/DVD recorder and a Sony Blu-Ray through a Samsung 32" 720P. There is certainly a difference to me. As a previous poster has commented, the background holds much more detail and I find the edges appear just that bit sharper.

 

[Sonic Dreamer]

Hi Trooper,

I have a high end Pioneer 32" LCD that has a 720p screen resolution. I found a substantial improvement with Blu-ray over DVD, though with my Pioneer LX-91 even DVDs look impressive through upscaling. I'm not quite sure how much diffirence in image quality one will find will a lower spec Blu-ray player, but you should still experience enough improvement to justify spending £200 to £300 on a Blu-ray player, especially when there are such good deals to be had on the price of Blu-ray discs on Amazon.co.uk and Play.com

Cheers,
SonicD