Someday, I will buy a PlayStation 3. I’m not sure when that day will be, but once there are enough good games to justify the purchase, I will go out and buy one. It would be nice if Sony would drop the price on the blasted thing, though, because with $400 I could buy a netbook and have cash left over.
Hmm, now I’m contemplating a netbook. Anyways…
The impending PS3 purchase has me in a bit of a bind where buying movies is concerned. Blu-ray looks pretty good on those nice shiny displays at the stores, and I imagine they’d also look pretty good on my 32-inch Sony LCD (its a placeholder, I’m reserving getting the real TV for after I buy a house).
When a new movie I like comes out on video now, I have to decide whether I should buy it on DVD, or wait until I get that Playstation 3 and can watch it in glorious high-definition via Blu-Ray. The decision isn’t quite so cut-and-dry, though.
On the one hand, DVDs are relatively inexpensive, and while they have to be “stretched” to fill a widescreen, they still look good. The pretty picture of Blu-Ray, on the other hand, comes at a cost: the difference in price between Blu-Ray and DVD versions of the same movie can be from five to twenty bucks!
Next time you are at a store that sells movies, browse through the Blu-Ray section and look at the prices. I promise you that at some point you will say to yourself: “No way I would pay THAT much for <insert crappy movie name here>” Its so ridiculous, you might even say that about a movie you like.
The other consideration is that there are some movies and TV shows that don’t really need to be seen in high-definition. Movies like The Matrix would rock in high def, as would anything by Pixar. In contrast, I could watch Chris Rock or Futurama on a crappy old black-and-white TV and they wouldn’t be any less funny.
So thus we have the question: “DVD now, or Blu-Ray later?”
The answer?
Well, lets just say I haven’t bought any new movies in months.
Eduardo Soliz 