Is it worth me getting Blu-ray now, if my Plasma is not Full HD?

Question

I have a 50" Panasonic Viera Plasma (1366x768) it is a HD Panel, but not Full HD.

I am wondering, if I purchase a Blu-ray player...am I going to be satisfied with the picture. Would I see a difference in picture quality if sitting almost 4m (13ft) away.I do know how Blu-ray players works, but in the short term...will I get a better picture quality with Blu-ray now, rather than my normal DVD/Harddrive player?

Answer 1

blu-ray would look pretty good

Answer 2

your tv IS a hdtv and beyond a few feet from tv you would not notice the difference between your tv and a 1080p model

you could also notice the difference with 1080p/24 if you model is capable of displaying this format as my 1366x768 is.

sometimes picture quality makes up for less than 1080p resolution as my pioneer looks better then any 1080p I have seen.

Answer 3

Well, thats a good question actually.  Good thinking before buying.  To answer your question, it is 'yes'.  You will see a very good picture even in your tv and you will enjoy it.  there is a catch here, to enjoy Blu ray quality image and sound, you need to have blu ray discs only.  Just by playing a normal dvd in a blu ray player won't give you that effect.  At least a HD dvd should be used to give a enjoyable picture.  I think you may be aware of this, just reminding you.

Answer 4

I disagree with the earlier posters.

Short answer is there would be, at best, slight visible improvement. The degree and whether the degree of difference would be worthwhile would depend on you.

You are limiting benefit in at least two ways.

First, a 720p HDTV can't provide all of the potential of Blu-ray, but unless you sit closer than about 8 ft you won't get any benefit from a 50" 1080p HDTV relative to your currrent 50" 720p model.

But the biggest issue is that by sitting 4m (13 ft) from the screen you are past the point where the eye can resolve fine detail that even the 720p HDTV can provide from Blu-ray. In fact at 4m you are almost at the point (~15 ft)where you won't see ANY detail difference between Blu-ray (1080 line resolution) and standard DVD (480 line resolution). See the graph and linked article.

Blu-ray is different from DVD not only in resolution, but also colour space. So while you won't see any significant difference in detail you probably will see some improvement in colours. How much will depend on the movie and how you perceive the picture. In addition, sound from Blu-ray is improved over DVD, but you need a good surround sound system to hear the difference.

I don't know anything about your approach to things. If you are fussy about getting the best possible picture and sound the extra cost of Blu-ray may be worthwhile to you. But in my opinion, unless you are going to sit closer and have a good sound system you would be advised to simply buy an upconverting DVD player (it converts DVD to pseudo HD and on good models removes many video artifacts). It won't give you true HD but under your viewing conditions it will look almost identical to Blu-ray (minus any colour space differences).

The reason I suggest this is because a reasonable quality upconverting player costs about $75 - $200 (avoid really cheap ones. A great bargain, if you could find one, is any of the Toshiba HD DVD players ... the HD-A3 is a very good upconverter that also plays HD DVDs, and was selling for about $75 recently), while a Blu-ray player costs $300+, and more significantly, Blu-ray disks are significantly more expensive than DVDs. The only player really worth buying right now is the PS3 ($400+ depending on model).

In another year players and disks may be much less expensive and there will be greater choice of players.

Hope this helps.