Tales from a Blu-Ray Skeptic

Okay, so in response to what has been widely rumored, I’m not dead.  Just toiling away as we near the end of a college semester in which I’m taking one of the worst classes I’ve every had in all my years of secondary education (and somehow I think I’m now over 10, sheesh). 

Likewise, I’ve been on travel more in the last 3 weeks than in the last 6 months combined, so it’s slowed me down a bit here.  The good news is I’ll have some observations from my recent business trip west where I got to spend the better part of a Sunday enjoying Disneyland with a work associate who worked for the Mouse in Florida before they closed down the Animation studio there.  I’m saving that post until I get copies of the pictures Jim took, since stupid me left my camera back in my hotel room.

So I thought I’d give a quick discussion here about Blu-ray and Disney movies.  I have to tell you that I have been a bit of a Blu-ray skeptic.  Not because of the Blu-ray technology itself necessarily (though this whole profile business is just a mess frankly), but because of all the expense needed to truly get the best out of it.

Thanks however to some expiring airline miles, a little b-day money from a family member and a sale from Best Buy I picked up a Panasonic DMP-35K (the only stand alone player to receive a cnet.com Editor’s Choice) for basically sales tax ($18 and some change).  My wife had also given me a copy of Sleeping Beauty on BRD for my b-day back in October because it came with the DVD version for free (and Netflix let me add Blu-Ray for a buck a month!). 

After messing around with Sleeping Beauty last night, I have to give props to Disney – I’m impressed.  Even on my 5 year old Sony rear projection set and my 6 year old Kenwood THX amp, it looks good and sound good.  The biggest plus though for all us Disney dweebs are truly the extras. 

Lots and lots and LOTS of extras. 

Possibly even enough to justify the $30 average price if, you are like most of us, Disney extras junkies.

We’ve only scratched the surface of the ones on SB, but they are very well done.  For instance, watching the commentary version of the movie takes advantage of Blu-ray’s ability to impose Picture-in-Picture like windows over the movie, and they use it too pretty good effect.  Sometimes you see John Lasseter,  Andreas Deja and Leonard Maltin as they talk, other times you see stills of things related to the movie (background art, opening day pictures, pictures of voice artists or even small movie quotes from animation greats like Marc Davis, Ollie Johnston and Eyvind Earle).  I haven’t been able to get the BD*Live to work yet, but certain that was because of internet issues last night.

So overall I’d say Disney has really stepped up to the format if this is indicative of their plans for future releases.  And I’m impressed have no buyers remorse about picking up the player either, which is good!  The Panasonic gets high marks from me too.

I put off Blu-ray for quite sometime because my 5 year old equipment, while supporting HDMI and HDCP (through a DVI connector), only does 1080i and the amp only Dolby Digital/DTS.  If you want the high end of Blu-ray capability you need a 1080p (or better a 1080p/24 set) and a Dolby True HD/DTS-HD receiver and speakers all interconnected with HDMI (and therefore HDCP). Oh, and don’t forget the need to have a player that supports BD 1.1 or better yet the 2.0 standard… 

And that’s where Blu-ray has failed for me ultimately (and why I was a total skeptic).  Too many acronyms for too many people like my Dad.  Plus the upgrade cost to get there… I can’t possibly hope to drop $2,500 or so for a new flat screen TV, a new receiver and a Blu-ray player (to be on the low end at that) just to get what it has over what I’ve got, let alone someone like my father or grandmother for that matter. 

So Disney is shrewd to throw more content on the discs, lots more content.  Will that make people upgrade alone? 

Probably not, but even for the skeptic in me (and my slightly less than top of the line specs by today’s standards) I’m still pretty happy I did.