DVR Chatter

Well, going out of production will be a pretty good hint.  That looks like it'll happen very soon.

I went crazy when DVDs came out replacing my VHS and collecting movies that were important to me.  I just don't feel that way this time.

I got my first DVD player for Christmas in 1998.  I think it was something like $400.  There was one store (Hollywood Video) that even rented DVDs in my area, and they had like 50 titles at the most.  I signed up for Netflix, which was pay per rental at the time.  Buying discs was more expensive then too. By summer of 1999 there were already discs my player wouldn't play.  Fast forward a couple years, and DVD players with many more features than that one are selling for $50. 

I'll wait until Blu-Ray players reach the maturity of that $50 price point before I jump into this new technology.  Had I not been so gung-ho back then, I'd have saved hundreds of dollars and a lot of frustration with that player.

It seems that almost all the DVD's that get played at my house are cartoons for the grandkids.  Nobody else wants to watch the same thing over and over.    And movies seem to be getting worse all the time.

One warning if you want to buy a Blu-Ray player. The Blu-Ray spec is a moving target. The first players were only 1.0, and were missing features like PIP and networking. 1.1 added that. They just came out with 2.0, which has even more hardware requirements. There is currently only ONE 'player' that can be updated to the 2.0 spec: the PS3. And, by the way, in addition to spending money on movies, Sony will also love the fact that you'll most likely also be spending money on games, their on-line service, etc.....

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 … layer.html

Last edited by andyross (02-19-2008 4:39:41 PM)