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What's up with blu-ray?
Dec. 11th, 2009 09:30 pmLooking at blu-ray players. Why is it that in order to get the features that a $50 DVD player has, you have to buy about a $500 blu-ray player?
Specifically, we have a cheap DVD player that will play almost any media type we put in it. CDs and DVDs with DivX/XviD AVIs, MPG1/2, VCD, SVCD, thumb drives with AVIs, MP3s, JPGs, really almost anything.
This isn't even very unusual. It's trivial to find a DVD player for < $100 that will do all this stuff.
Yet for some reason, blu-ray players pretty much play blu-ray and DVD, and that's it. Even those that have a USB slot either only use it for BD+ or only play JPGs and MP3s off it.
I'd expect the cheap Chinese players to support more formats, that's how it went with DVD players when they were newer; the cheaper the player, the more versatile it was. But there aren't very many cheap knock-off blu-ray players, and the few I've found aren't any cheaper than the name brands, and they don't do much more either.
I hate to think I'll have to keep two players around to play everything.
The LG player is really tempting though it's nearly $300 - the reason: it plays MKV files. There are a LOT of 720p MKV video rips available online. I can play them on the Myth box but it'd be nice to play them in the set-top box instead of having to copy them to the Myth drive over the network first. But it's not $150 more expensive nice.
Specifically, we have a cheap DVD player that will play almost any media type we put in it. CDs and DVDs with DivX/XviD AVIs, MPG1/2, VCD, SVCD, thumb drives with AVIs, MP3s, JPGs, really almost anything.
This isn't even very unusual. It's trivial to find a DVD player for < $100 that will do all this stuff.
Yet for some reason, blu-ray players pretty much play blu-ray and DVD, and that's it. Even those that have a USB slot either only use it for BD+ or only play JPGs and MP3s off it.
I'd expect the cheap Chinese players to support more formats, that's how it went with DVD players when they were newer; the cheaper the player, the more versatile it was. But there aren't very many cheap knock-off blu-ray players, and the few I've found aren't any cheaper than the name brands, and they don't do much more either.
I hate to think I'll have to keep two players around to play everything.
The LG player is really tempting though it's nearly $300 - the reason: it plays MKV files. There are a LOT of 720p MKV video rips available online. I can play them on the Myth box but it'd be nice to play them in the set-top box instead of having to copy them to the Myth drive over the network first. But it's not $150 more expensive nice.
