I’ve always loved Elvis, but somehow as I get older I have new appreciation for “The King” and so wished I had seen him live in Vegas before he left us his amazing musical odyssey.
Alas, I’m taking the title of his Christmas classic in vain, just a little bit, because my reference to “A Blue Christmas” has nothing to do with my mood–which was actually pretty decent throughout the holiday, a refreshing change for everyone around me, I’m sure.
No, my reference here to “A Blue Christmas” is actually more about Blue as in Blu-Ray, the next step in home entertainment media.
To catch everyone up, Blu-Ray is a “souped-up” DVD format. The discs are the same size as DVDs, but because the players use a “blue” laser, the discs can hold a lot more data, and thus the HD pictures that come off a Blu-Ray disc are far more detailed than standard DVDs. At least that is the claim.
I had avoided Blu-Ray up until now because I still have boxes of VCR tapes made useless by the arrival of DVDs years ago, and I didn’t want to replace my decent sized library of favorite movies and TV shows yet again. But unlike CDs replacing Vinyl LPs and now Vinyl making a comeback, I don’t see VCR tapes ever being that “classic” again, so the tapes are probably headed for the recycle bin.
So I was pretty much content to hold out on Blu-Ray until fate stepped in and my better half bought me a Blu-Ray player as a present. But because she has lived with my gadget-obsessed personage for well longer than she would like to admit, she made “a command decision” and asked the kid at the local Best Buy for a recommendation on the best Blu-Ray player they had. He pointed her at the LG Model 390, which cost a bit under $300.
While I was thrilled by her thoughtfulness to get me such a technology based gift instead of some clothes, I admit that I left it in the box for a bit after I received it. I was debating about taking it back, when I began to realize some important points about why having a Blu-Ray player is the next big thing in home entertainment.
First up, Blu-Ray players actually make regular DVD’s look better. This is done through a bit of techno-hocus-pocus called “upscaling”, and what it means is that the Blu-Ray player digitally enhances the bits read off the standard DVD disc to make them look better in “HD”. If you’ve got a 40-plus inch HDTV set with 1080P capability, you will actually notice a difference.
Second, Blu-Ray disc prices are coming down. Most hit movies are well under $20 a pop now, and so they aren’t so ridiculously expensive. Many are now being sold in “Combo Packs” where you get both a regular DVD version as well as Blu-Ray disc. Some even throw in a “Digital Copy” which you can legally download to your iPod/iPhone or laptop for watching on the go. And yes, the quality of the pictures from a Blu-Ray disc are that much better than standard DVDs, not to mention all the additional content on the bigger capacity of the Blu-Ray disc.
Third, and really the biggest point of all, is that higher end Blu-Ray players also connect to the internet. One reason is for what’s called “BD Live”, a fusion of playing your Blu-Ray disc and accessing additional features or content over the internet at the same time.. This was how the recent debut of the latest “Harry Potter” movie to arrive on disc was accompanied by a live internet viewing party with star Daniel Radcliffe.
But the even more important feature of the internet-enabled Blu-Ray player is that many (but not all) models include the ability to play online video content from providers like Netflix, Blockbuster, Vudu, Roxio, and even YouTube.
Stop for a minute and understand this a little better. Instead of having to watch it on your computer, you can now display the latest YouTube video sensation in your living room on your big screen TV. While that is kind of cool, it becomes even more so when you realize that you can watch movies from Netflix whenever you want.
That’s right, Netflix has a feature called “Instant Queue” where you can request movies that you want to watch streaming to your computer, instead of waiting for the DVD’s to arrive in those little red envelopes via the US Mail (though to be fair, they do show up amazingly fast in my experience). But if your computer is like most people’s–it’s either in a corner of the room or on your lap. Not the most convenient location to watch a movie on.
But a whole new class of playback devices have come along in the last two years that hook up to your TV to stream video off the internet right on to your TV set. There have been a couple of moderately successful first efforts in this space, including AppleTV, the ROKU media player, and even the SlingBox to name a few. Now these newer Blu-Ray players make that extra box unnecessary.
In combination with faster internet connections into our homes from the Cable and Phone companies, this has led to an interesting media convergence moment.
It is now possible to deliver HD quality content “on demand” over the Internet to your TV set. Combine this with a state of the art format player like the Blu-Ray disc, and you have one box that hooks up to your TV that may be the bridge from buying or renting physical entertainment content (think Blockbuster and Netflix model) to just ordering up what you want off the internet for either a fixed monthly subscription (Netflix On Demand) or on a daily/per viewing rental (Vudu, CinemaNow).
What this really means is that there is a lot more to watch on your TV set and a lot more ways for it to get there. And the quality of what you watch over the internet is just the same as DVD or in some cases even what the Blu-Ray discs look like.
And they look pretty phenomenal, by the way.
If Santa didn’t leave your favorite thing under the tree and you are returning some items and looking for the “what I didn’t get, but really wanted” suggestion, give some serious thought to a Blu-Ray disc player that is internet enabled. High end models from LG, Samsung, and Panasonic run about $200 and up, all include the internet connection. (Oddly, models from Sony seem to be lagging behind on internet capability. One might wonder if its because Sony also owns a movie studio.)
My set-up experience with the LG Model BD390 was great. It found my wireless network in no time and I was streaming content to the TV set in less time than it took to plug the player into my TV set and the AC outlet. You want to make sure you get a wired or wireless model, depending on how the internet is set-up in your house. One other important technical note here is that you will need a fast internet connection of at least 3 Megabits downstream or more. This means either a cable modem connection or a very fast DSL line. (No, this will not work on a dial-up connection–so don’t even think about it.)
And all this Blu-Ray player goodness opens the way for the next big leap in viewing, which I really experienced for the first time over this holiday weekend as well. More on that in our final dispatch for 2010, which will be out here shortly.
Hope your Christmas was a Merry one, indeed.