Month: April 2008

Feeling Blu

A while back I mused that I hated format wars – though I suppose the 3.5″ floppy was more of a migration than a war – in the context of HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray.

That said, after the Great Christmas Price-Slashing of HD-DVD, I jumped on a cheap Toshiba HD-DVD player. Right before Warner Bros. defected.

Oops.

Now, due to the excellent consumer-friendly policies of Costco I wasn’t too concerned – I knew I could return the unit from whence it came. In the meantime, HD-DVDs were cheap, readily-available, and still delivered a great picture. Ergo, I purchased a few.

What I didn’t expect was how quickly inventories would be, well, eliminated. As in, vaporized. Oops^2.

So to hedge my bets, I’ve purchased a LG BH-200 SuperBlu – a dual-format player. What actually triggered the jump was new (leaked, beta) firmware from LG which added all sorts of new functionality – full, lossless 5.1/7.1 over HDMI, 1080p, Profile 1.1 (maybe BD-Live?), etc.

Fist Blu demo was with Ratatouille – wow.

Tried with Transformers on HD-DVD and it played without a hitch as well.

So far so good. Hopefully finally finished with the home theatre – for now.