New DVD/Blu-ray Purchases

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

I have a Sony, I'll have to look up the model number, that I think is really good. It's about 2 years old and I've never had an issue with it. I don't use it for streaming and stuff, but it's a great standalone player and I think it runs faster than other players I've seen/used.

Not sure how it would compare to a PS3 (especially now that the PS4 is out), but certainly at the time I bought it, it would have been considerably cheaper than a game system if you're not a gamer.

[jellydonut25]

[Dr Kain]

[XvGojira]

[lhb412]

Thing is, I'm no gamer. Not in the slightest.

[XvGojira]

[canofhumdingers]

[lhb412]

^Yeah, I'm leaning towards another Sony player. The first one I got was excellent aside from the aforementioned sound dropping, which I reckon is probably just a glitch for that particular one. I'll probably go for a different model just to make sure.

I want to stay around the $100 range.

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

So, mine's a Sony BDP-S390.

I THINK (I didn't actually look it up, I just looked at Sony BD players and that one looks most similar in appearance).

Here's the thing about it, I basically have 3 BD players...I have an older Sony model from like when a Blu-ray player was like $400 and HDDVD was still around. It's fine but has problems playing newer stuff. I still use it in one room, though.
I have an Xbox One, and it's fine, no major complaints.
And I have this other player.

This other player is the ONLY one capable of playing one of my movies that has a glitch or something (and I bought it used for a dollar from a closing Blockbuster so I can't return it) without skipping like 8 minutes of the movie. It skips like 12 seconds. It just seems to be better at handling marred discs (generally a bigger problem for DVDs than blu-rays) and generally, it runs and loads faster than the others and it's QUIET. Maybe I just think it's quiet because there's always something in the room that's been louder, whether it's the speakers or ambient noise or something, but I can't hear the thing running.

Like I said, I don't use it for Netflix or anything like that, but as just a player of discs, I think it's great. It's just a simple, small player that plays discs and plays 'em great.

[MekaGojira3k]

[jellydonut25]

The orange bricks...

I hear the new blu-rays aren't bad, actually, except for the cropping. And that's a shame. What's worse, is that funimation posted a poll to their site before producing the blu-rays asking people if they'd prefer the original aspect ratio or cropped releases, and cropped was the more popular option. That's a damned shame.

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

Somewhat true. They could have remastered an un-cropped version the same way they remastered the cropped version, but they didn't because of the poll.

When they did the level sets, they did a frame-by-frame full restoration of every episode. While doing this new group of blu-rays, they just did DNR and a new transfer. They could have done that to uncropped source material for the same cost as cropped, but they were convinced by an online poll that people would rather have the image fill up their screen than get the as-intended image.

So yeah, the level sets were awesome but pricey, and funimation chose to go with a cheaper method of transferring to Blu-ray for future releases, but the reasoning behind cropped vs. uncropped wasn't cost related; it was what funimation thought people actually wanted.

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

Yeah, it's upsetting because while the blus certainly aren't perfect, I'd probably buy them without hesitation were they uncropped. As it is, I'm sorta holding out in hopes that maybe we'll get an uncropped release eventually, given that it's the most popular anime in the US and there's a new show coming and the movies and stuff...

[canofhumdingers]

What did they crop it from scope to 16x9 or something? That's just silly. Most TV's these days have one of the zoom settings set to do just that. Forcing it upon all consumers (even if it's what the majority think they want) is just asinine.

[jellydonut25]

They cropped it from 4:3 to 16:9. It's a TV show from the 80s/90s so yeah...it's made for "TV aspect ratio". Supposedly, they did a good job with the cropping (according to the press release they did a "Shot by shot re-framing of the series to create a modern HD presentation") but it's still disappointing not only that they did it, but that so many people would WANT that. People are idiots.

[canofhumdingers]

That's even stupider! Every widescreen tv I've ever seen has a zoom setting for that. Are people so freaking lazy that they want to impose their personal (poor) taste on everyone else b/c they can't be bothered to push a button on their remote? Ugh. The public at large is a bunch of morons.

I'm glad I'm not a fan of the show. I'd be furious.

[Dr Kain]

[lhb412]

Best Buy exclusive steelbooks? Why, I think I will. Thank you.



Yeah, after Fury Road I'm gonna hafta get all the Mad Max films. I'm glad BB commissioned this cool Fifth Element cover, because regularly that has to be the craziest movie with the blandest posters/cover art.

[Dr Kain]

I honestly hate steel books. A lot of the ones I have had seemed to scratch just by looking at them wrong. I'd rather just have a nice standard BD case that uses the original posterart.