Confused over DVDA and Blu-Ray

[Rick Hughes]

It does seem strange that they didn’t include 1080p when all modern TV’s are 1080p

For example the European HD TV requirement is that all TV’s displaying HD logo must support 1080p 24 fps, 1080p 50 fps, and 1080p 60 fps formats
All Blu-ray players put out 1080p so they must do h/ware conversion from 25i to progressive.

In Europe we get over the air broadcast of 1080p which is good to have.

[John Rofrano]

[Wayne Waag] “Doesn’t the spec also support progressive at 1080 with 24 (23.76)fps?”

Yes, 24p is allowed at 1080 so you are correct, they do allow 1080p at 24.976 fps. But you would think they would have extended that to 30p and 25p as well. They constrained themselves to a 10 year old DVD spec for some reason. Thankful they agreed that both PAL and NTSC have the same resolution. At least they got one thing right. 😉

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

[Rick Hughes] “It does seem strange that they didn’t include 1080p when all modern TV’s are 1080p”

When the Blu-ray spec was written no modern TV’s were progressive. The early HD TV’s were all interlaced and many were projection TV’s and DLP technology which you never see anymore. They had to be to remain comparable with Standard Definition TV because in the early days there were hundreds of SD channels and only a handful of HD channels.

Blu-ray was, and still is, a mess to deal with. We stopped buying Blu-rays because it seemed that every time we bought a new one we needed a firmware update to play them. I got tired of updating firmware and waiting for the darn things to load. We only buy DVD’s in my house. Blu-ray was a nice idea that was poorly implemented.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Rick Hughes]

OK .. that is unfortunate, I don’t see that problem .. I have a small Sony Blu-ray player and it has played perfectly on every Blu-ray disc I have bought (or borrowed) and as for loading speed it is as fast as any DVD I have had.
It is fully networked, occasionally it will advise there is updated software .. but this is not a frequent event, and never complained when I put a disc in.

I also have an HD pvr attached to TV and it loads in about 1/2 the time of the PVR.

Maybe I’m lucky and region B works easier 🙂

[John Rofrano]

[Rick Hughes] “It is fully networked, occasionally it will advise there is updated software .. but this is not a frequent event, and never complained when I put a disc in.”

That’s the difference. I don’t happen to have CAT5 cable running behind my TV because my house was built before DVD’s were invented and all we had was a VCR back then. So my Blu-ray player has no network connection and my DVD player never needed one. My experience is… you buy a new Blu-ray disc and put it into the player and occasionally it complains that you need an update to play this disc… so you search the Manufacture’s web site for the firmware update… you search your house for an achient blank CD… you burn the firmware onto the CD on your computer… you boot the Blue-ray player with the CD and you wait for it to update. Later that day you might get to watch the movie. 😉

I’m not saying this happens with every Blu-ray but it has happened a number of times and it’s annoying and tedious compared to DVD’s which simply work.

As for load times… I’m shocked that you are not seeing a huge delay in loading Blu-ray discs. I’ve owned 2 Blu-ray players and both take forever to boot up and then again to load a disc. Even responding to remote control buttons seems slower. The who experience is very sluggish. I prefer DVD’s.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[David Shirey]

[Rick Hughes] “For example the European HD TV requirement is that all TV’s displaying HD logo must support 1080p 24 fps, 1080p 50 fps, and 1080p 60 fps formats
All Blu-ray players put out 1080p so they must do h/ware conversion from 25i to progressive.”

I was really hoping that the HD revolution would have done away with either PAL or NTSC entirely and just created a universal format. If all your tv’s are required to support 24p and 60p, what do we really need 25p and 50p for anymore? I feel like everyone is watching our stuff on cell phones now anyway. Don’t you love it when you send a client a preview of a video and you can tell it had no resonating impact because all you hear back is “Alright, looks fine. -Sent from my iPhone”

[Wayne Waag]

[John Rofrano]

I’m with Rick on this one. I have a couple of Sony Blu-ray players (2013 models) that really work well. They’re wireless, but I still use Cat 5E cables. Never any problems with slow loading of Blu-rays or DVDs. What’s really nice though is the ability to easily serve media directly from my PC. The icing on the cake, for me at least, is that they play 1080 60P flawlessly. Most other media players don’t. I do a lot of personal road trip documentaries with a video camera mounted on the dash. Because of the high motion content, 60P playback is almost essential, for me at least. Moreover, they support MKV which enables me to have chapters. I could care less about menus, but chapters are a real plus, especially for longer programs. And finally, they’re relatively cheap–less than $100.

wwaag

[Rick Hughes]

Mine has WiFi support but I have it hooked up with Ethernet … has full smart set for Apps, streaming etc., it all just works.
I was amazed the thing is tiny compared to PVR, and quality is superb.

[John Rofrano]

What make and model Blu-ray players do you use. I’d love to have one that isn’t slow and off-line.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Wayne Waag]

[John Rofrano]

I have a Sony BDP-BX-510. It’s a 2013 model. Here is a link to a new Sony at Costco which I would probably buy if I needed one. https://www.costco.com/Sony-BDP-BX650-Upscale-4K-Blu-ray-Player.product.100232668.html Nice thing about Costco is the easy return if you’re not happy. For $90, it seems like a good deal.

wwaag