Now that blu-ray has "won", is it worth it to upgrade my standard DVDs?

Question

I have over 600 dvds, and I have already upgraded some of my favorites, but I have been disappointed with the PQ in older movies (Superman, T2). Is it worth the cost to upgrade some of my old favorites movies to BD like Die Hard, Predator, Rambo, etc., or are the improvements not that great over the standard dvds?

BTW, my 50" tv is only capable of 1080i, not 1080p full hd.

Answer 1

Maybe.  You will not be able to watch Blu-Ray Disc to its fullest because of your display's resolution limitation.

For your regular DVDs, there can be reasons why the picture isn't good.  

Who made your DVD player and what model is it?  How is it connected to your television?  Is the player configured for 16:9 or not?  Is the player or the television handling the deinterlacing and scaling of the picture?

One thing is to upgrade your DVD player.  I would recommend a player from Oppo Digital as they make excellent players that give you the biggest bang for your buck with performance superior to quite a few players costing many times more.

www.oppodigital.com

Answer 2

YEZS IT ITS

Answer 3

Only you can say for sure.  Many viewers claim that all Blu-ray disks are at least marginally superior to DVD. But, even if true, it doesn't mean spending a lot of money to buy a Blu-ray disk makes automatic sense.  And I suspect you question is a result of becoming a bit disillusioned with Blu-ray ... not that it isn't better than DVD, but not as much better as you may have originally expected.

Note that since you only have a 720p HDTV (it only displays an 720p image even though it is listed as a "1080i" HDTV), you are not getting the full benefit of Blu-ray anyway (Instead of 2.6X DVD resolution, you are getting 1.5X). This assumes you are viewing from the optimum distance (10' with your TV. See the link for details).

That said, resolution is not the only difference. Colour space is improved on Blu-ray over DVD, and dynamic range, shadow detail and video artifacts can be better too.

So, how much better a Blu-ray disk looks depends on two classes of factors: those related to playback/display and those related to the source.  The first class include your display and where you sit (I covered those above), your eyesight, lighting (if the room is too bright you compromise the image), and personal preferences.  

The latter class -- the source -- include the quality of the original film (film stock, director preferences, age), the mastering process (care taken to transfer the original film to digital), the video codecs used on the disk and the disk format (e.g. DVD or, in this case, Blu-ray).  

For example, if the movie was shot on grainy film or had a certain "look" (e.g. grain, colour shift, dark, washed out colours) defined by the Director, no matter how good the subsequent steps the Blu-ray won't look sharp and colourful. Similarly, if the mastering process didn't clean up problems with the original print or uses a low bitrate transfer the Blu-ray disk will suffer.

So ... the bottom line is that there will be a wide variation in the quality of the images (and sound) from movies on Blu-ray. If the mastering is done carefully the Blu-ray disk may be exemplary (although it can't really be better than the original), but it will still reflect the Director's intent (which might not be what you prefer).  I could go on, but you get the point.

My suggestion is that you don't plan on converting all your library of DVDs to Blu-ray (I don't know about you, but very few movies are on my must have list if I have to pay $20 - $30 each for them and can expect only a minor improvement). Instead, consult HD disk review sites (like High Definition Digest) and only buy Blu-ray disks if they are a) movies you really want to own, and b) are well rated for Picture or audio quality.

But as I said at the beginning, it's up to you. Some unfortunate souls (in my view) claim they can't stand to watch DVDs any more ... period.

Others -- like me --- are not convinced HD is worth more than a couple of dollars premium and only buy HD disks for movies that "require" HD. I've no intention of ever replacing more than a very few of my 500 DVD library -- at least partly because I refuse to buy into the studios' wishes to make big profits from reselling movies in a new format -- mainly because to me the value of a movie is more in the content and less (after a certain point) in the PQ and AQ. I may eventually switch to buying new movies on Blu-ray disks when (if?) prices come down to close to DVD level.

I hope this helps you decide.