Greetings everyone – I hope you had a happy and safe time over the holidays ( I did, minus the delayed flights and freak west coast snow storms, thanks for asking). I also hope you were bestowed with some awesome goodies from Santa or whoever else you threatened into getting you a brand new [insert name of shiny gadget here].
My boyfriend Cory and I decided not to buy each other gifts this year – our reasoning was that we’d rather buy a joint gift for ourselves on Boxing Day and save a large amount of cash. It’s not warm and fuzzy…but we ended up with a Blu-Ray player and some other cool stuff for approximately half the price, so who really cares?
I was extremely excited about our new Blu-Ray player. I couldn’t wait to get home and fire it up and be blown away by the crystal clear picture and sound! However, what they don’t tell you when you buy a Blu-Ray player is that there is a lot of other factors involved besides just plugging it in. To make matters worse, everyone you talk to seems to think that they are the ultimate knowledge source on all things Blu-Ray, and tend to leave you angry, confused, sad, and no closer to your beautiful home-theatre experience (especially if that person is a Future Shop employee…don’t even get me started).
Here are some of the things you may hear while trying to set up your Blu-Ray player that you should not believe, and how you can get yourself setup without too much headache or emptied wallets. I hope my journey can be of help to you.
#1: There’s no point getting Blu-Ray if you don’t have a 1080p TV!
Wrong. While 1080p is the “holy grail” of high definition TV, you can still get an awesome result if you have a TV that only has 1080i. A quick summary of the differences: 1080i (the “i” stands for interlaced) puts the picture on your screen by first displaying the odd-numbered columns of pixels, then the even, to create a complete 540 pixel wide picture. All this happens every 1/30th of a second. With 1080p (or progressive), the whole picture is sent all at once. In theory, 1080p will result in smoother motion and less jagged edges between colors. If you want to get further into it, there’s a good article here that will help you out.
From the research I’ve done and my experience with our plain ol’ 1080i TV, you’re not really going to notice the difference. Yes, you may get a slight increase in quality with 1080p, but since most Blu-Ray players output full 1080p and this is converted (either through the player or your 1080i TV, depending what their capabilities are) to 1080i, the difference is probably going to be so slight that I can pretty much guarantee you’re still going to get a great result.
#2 You need an HDMI cable that costs more money than you make in a week.
If you’ve got a Blu-Ray player and HD TV, you probably are going to want to get an HDMI cable to connect the two. HDMI is a true digital connection that gives the best possible quality. Please don’t listen if someone tells you you need to buy a really expensive HDMI cable. Unless you have the extra cash and you really want to get the cable that costs more than the Blu-Ray player did, just get a cheaper one.
Yes, the guys at the electronics store will try to convince you that you need it, but here’s the thing: all short HDMI cables are essentially the same except for slight differences that you probably won’t be able to notice. The only reason you’d want to spend more on a really high-end one is if your TV is more than a couple metres away from your player – as the cable gets longer, quality will eventually start to deteriorate.
There’s a range of very inexpensive cables (around $30) that are made for regular DVD players and HD cable boxes that may not get you the depth of color you want with your Blu-Ray movies (Blu-Ray uses something called “deep color” to get the high-quality picture it produces – read more about it here).
Then there’s another bunch of cables that are cost around $50-$80. I suggest going for one of these. The one I bought works great and the picture looks amazing. Just get one that is gold-plated if you can – from what I hear, non gold-plated ones can rust over time and even damage your TV and Blu-Ray player’s connectors.
Then there’s the most expensive cables that will run you from $100 to over $250. Ah! How can one cable be $50 and one be $250? Take a look at the brand – all of the really pricey cables are made by Monster. From what I’ve heard, Monster overprices their cables pretty badly for what you get. The difference in quality with these cables is that you will get a little more picture detail in dark areas of the picture…but again, the difference is very slight and in my opinion, certainly not worth an extra $200.
If you’re really stapped for cash, we got good results just using our component cable (the ones with red, green and blue plugs) before we bought the HDMI one. The difference IS noticeable – you won’t get the really crisp details in the picture – but it still beats a regular DVD by a long shot until you can pick up an HDMI cable.
#3: Now that I’m used to Blu-Ray quality, my massive DVD collection is now inferior and obsolete.
This is actually something I said to myself, not something I heard from someone else. However, it’s not altogether true. While Blu-Rays DO look and sound amazing, most Blu-Ray players do a pretty good job of up-converting normal DVDs to 1080i/p quality. If you have a large DVD collection that you’ve put a considerable amount of money into over the years, this is good news. I tried out a regular DVD (X-Men, if you want to know) the other day and the difference was quite significant. Since Blu-Ray discs currently cost around $30 for a new release, replacing your entire collection of DVDs would be borderline insane. On top of the cost, while older movies are going to look good on Blu-Ray, they won’t have quite as high of quality because they were produced before Blu-Ray technology came along. Granted, these movies were shot for very large movie theater screens and will still translate to Blu-Ray fairly well, but from what I’ve seen so far, the older movies don’t have the same detail as current new releases. I suggest you start your Blu-Ray collection fresh and maybe just replace a few favorite DVDs with Blu-Ray if you want to.
I hope this has been helpful in one way another and that you can get yourself set up on your couch with some popcorn and your Blu-Ray movies sooner rather than later!
