HDTV Reviews

As Blu-Ray players have now been released in the UK and many other countries around the world, the BBC news website has taken many questions from the public that they have about Blu-ray’s release.

Is the time taken to retreive the data from one of these new disks any greater than what it is with current CDs and DVDs?
Steve Cassidy, Hampshire, UK

The loading time is longer than conventional DVD players for the first generation models. Read speeds on DVD players and DVD-Roms will improve over time.

Presumably, hi-def players will be backwards compatible and play all our old DVDs but will these players allow them to be “upscaled” (rendered at a higher picture quality)? Many current, standard definition machines do this so it would seem perverse if new ones did not.
Timothy Spence, Greenwich, London

The Samsung BD-P1000 we tested can upscale current DVD format movies to 1080p, offering significantly better viewing than stand alone DVD movies. But it should be remembered that upscaling to higher resolutions will not result in a picture as good as high definition. There is simply not enough picture information on an ordinary DVD.

If most film companies support Blu-ray and Blu-ray can hold far more data, what is the point of HD-DVD?
Jeff Culshaw, Liverpool, UK

A HD-DVD disk does hold less data than a Blu-ray equivalent. Supporters of the HD-DVD format say the 30GB disk has more than enough capacity for high definition movies.

Blu-ray supporters have said one disk can hold many different versions of a film including more extras but as yet few Blu-ray disks are being pushed to their limit.

HD-DVD has less supporters in the film studio world but some analysts feel the two technologies will achieve a stalemate, resulting in studios supporting both formats.

HD-DVD players are also considerably cheaper than Blu-ray players - in some cases less than half the price.

What price can we expect the players to fall to by 2012?
Rob Popay, Fetcham, Leatherhead, UK

That’s a good question and one impossible to predict accurately. But I think it is fair to say that by 2012 the cost of a Blu-ray player will be much closer to the cost of an ordinary DVD player today.

I’d like to know why the Samsung player is more than twice the cost in the UK compared to America? £900.00 compared to $740.00
Mike, Torquay, UK

We asked Samsung and they told us: “The US market is a single market allowing the introduction of a single model produced, distributed, and sold in large volumes. Europe on the other hand requires the introduction of several model variants which will be produced and sold in lower volumes. There are also differences in purchases taxes between the two regions.”

Does that answer your question?

Will either or both or these formats involve the farce that is region coding?

Both Blu-ray and HD-DVD disks are expected to carry regional encoding - so that disks bought in one region will not work in another.

Hardware manufacturers lay this decision firmly at the feet of film studios and content producers.

Is HDTV required to reap the full benefits of HD-DVD/Blu-Ray’s HD capabilities? If so, then what does this mean for me and other non-HDTV owners?
CyberKnight, Michigan, USA

I’m afraid you will need a HDTV to enjoy the benefits of Blu-ray or HD-DVD. So that’s another considerable expense to think of.

For further questions and answers like this view: BBC