To Blu Ray or not to Blu Ray!? Is it worth it?

[Ultima]

Over the past few years I've lost alot of movies and programs I've had recorded on my DVR's due to hard drive failure and just recently having to return my DVR to Direct TV when cancelling the service. So I want to start archiving movies onto an external HDD and have been researching the process. If I start arching the question is should I go with  the latest technology since Blu Ray won the 'war'?

Is Blu Ray worth it? Is the picture quality that much better (I've never been able to compare).

What's all involved in the process?

If we have any experts here willing to offer up some advice I'm all ears. I'll continue to do more research on my own but I always come to ScriptUO to consult with my fellow geeks and nerds first!

Here are some questions I have from the little research I've done it seems it's not a simple process.

1) Windows 7 Media Player won't run Blu Ray because it doesn't have the proper codecs but VLC will? Is that right?

2) Once you rip the blu ray you have to convert it to be able to play it back? Is there any software that rips the Blu Ray and allows you to watch it directly without converting?

3) If I'm ripping or playing back Blu Ray are HMDI cables a must have?

I'm just looking to be able to play movies off an external HDD from time to time.

[TrailMyx]

Personally I love BluRay.  The resolution varies from release to release though.  Sometimes, more recent up-converts of normal DVDs look just about as good.  However with my new 60" plasma, I see the minute details.

I can't really answer any of your questions though.  I just play Bluray disks directly through my PS3.  When ripping, the loss due to compression is just too noticeable at 600Hz refresh.   

[Canuker]

I'm still on old DVD's, sigh.

[Khameleon]

I get my Video's at High Quality as TM said the quality is downgraded, but is better than dvd quality if that makes any sense... I started archiving myself, older movies will just be that.. OLD dvd quality....

[Goliath]

Blue Ray is nice to have and valued more with bigger TVs for sure.  Pixelation doesn't really seem to be an issue these days until you reach into the 50" plus sizes and blue ray does appear to be noticeable in those areas. 

As for watching something in HD versus Blue Ray on a smaller set... I personally don't see a measureable difference.  I just think it is nice to have the blue ray as an option. 

[Ultima]

Well I'm going from SD to BD so that's why I'm asking about the difference in the picture quality. It also seems many of the BD's come equiped with special features and extra content.

I'm reading and learning more each day. It doesn't appear to be a simple process and an investment in AnyDVD seems to be needed to guarantee the process becomes a success. There are some freeware programs out there but they aren't guaranteed to work.

I think if I start now I'll be thanking myself someday.

It appears as if consumers are being pushed into the era where everything is going to be streamed. Streaming is nice but I'd like to have my own library that I can access whenever and wherever I want.

[12TimesOver]

Blu-Ray is definitely worth it IMO. There is a major quality difference between BD and DVD. Of course this doesn't matter as much if you're watching them on a non-HD television. If you go HD then try to go back, you just can't. And I don't know how small you would have to go for it to not make a difference but even on my 15.6 inch laptop screen the difference between a DVD and BD is night and day.

VLC will play the M2TS files that can be pulled off a Blu-Ray disc but these files are typically huge. For example, LoTR Return of the King was over 30gigs. It took me 19 hours to convert the file to a 9ish gig mkv file. This was on a dual-core not an i5 or i7 proc so depending on the speed of your machine it could be worthwhile. By comparison though, I can download the same movie in just a few hours.

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