Like most people I have been giving some thought to getting a Blu-Ray player, but all of that changed when I visited a friend a few weeks ago. I had always thought Blu-Ray and Hi-Def were the same thing, enhanced picture that had a three dimensional depth to it. But that was incorrect. Hi-Def was the system that had the three dimensional depth so that when a camera panned you get motion sickness and the picture is so clear you can see every cavernous craggy wrinkle on Tommy Lee Jones’ face. Blu-Ray, good picture but not anything like Hi-Def.
So, back to my friend, my wife and I were visiting to see his new baby and while we were there he showed me his Blu-Ray copy of The Watchmen. And I had to admit that the picture quality was great. Then we started watching some episodes of the old Gil Gerard Buck Rogers TV show. And the picture quality was exactly the same. I was amazed, Blu-Ray can upgrade regular DVD to the same picture quality? Not really. When I mentioned this to my friend he explained that it wasn’t the Blu-Ray it was his TV, a 1080, Blu-Ray enhances the sound to theater quality, not the picture.
The sound? All that extra money for Blu-Ray discs is so you can have awesome sound? Just to make sure sure I was clear on this, when I got home, I put on a disc of the old cult classic TV show Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea I had gotten from the library. Now my TV isn’t up to the scale of my friend’s, it’s like a 780 or something like that, and my DVD player is a $30 Wal-Mart special I got about four years ago. Guess what? Picture quality was about the same. Picture was so clear I could easily make out the zipper line in the monster suits and could tell at what time of day each scene was shot going by the prominence of the actor’s 5 o’clock shadow (side note, Richard Basehart apparently never worked late on that show, no 5 o’clock shadow ever).
So for me, Blu-Ray is pointless. With a good enough TV I have excellent picture quality, and I really don’t need theater quality surround sound.
