The Blu ray bandwagon

Blu-ray have been around for a long time now, I remember the first time I ever saw a friend with blu rays and feeling a bit bemused as to why they would spend so much on discs, when they could get the same movies on DVD for half the price. That was back in 2007, when blu ray was a lot more expensive than they are now. For a long time I just thought of them as not worth the money for what you actually got.

Then 3D tv came along in recent times, again I wasnt too sure on if it would be worth the money, afterall when HD tv's and DVD players first came out years ago they were alot more expensive than they are now and we just had to wait a little while until they were more affordable. I was happy for a long time with just watching my DVD's on a nice HD ready LCD tv.

Now the blu ray's and blu ray players have been reduced by alot compared to what they were and theres now alot more effort going in to the discs themselves that I had found it hard to resist. The first time I noticed something about blu ray that made me want them over DVD (and be happy to pay the extra cash) was when I saw the dawn of the dead blu ray. 

I couldnt believe how much effort had gone in. You got different covers to choose from for example that you can swap and change when you feel like it. Lots of special features, aswell as the better quality picture and sound, you also get a poster.

Ever since then I had it going around my head that I really thought it was now the time to cross over from the DVD age into blu ray. Something recently that pushed me further into actually going ahead and purchasing a player and blu ray discs was seeing that nowadays most blu rays also come with a DVD and digital copy known as triple plays, or just a DVD known as double play. There are also more and more steelbook editions, some of which are now hard to get hold of as they were special edition and sold out straight away. Such as the back to the future tin which contained all sorts of cool stuff such as a copy of the sports almanac featured in Back to the future 2.

 So I am jumping onto the blu ray bandwagon! The player I have chosen is the Panasonic BDT210 which I have yet to purchase but shall write a review of it once I do at the end of this month. I have chosen it because although it is £140 on amazon, it is actually alot more expensive in other stores, I have read up on other players and extensivley about this particular player to make sure it was a good buy. It has everything I am looking for, wi-fi ready, connection to youtube etc, 2D to 3D conversion which interested me quite alot and will be great when we finally purchase a 3D tv (going to be saving up for that, the prices arent as pretty for them just yet), HDMI and USB connectivety, fast load up, and generally a great player for a great price. If you want further info on this player here is a link -

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004QWY7RU/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

So, seeing as I will be buying a blu ray player in 2 weeks time I thought I should probably get a few blu ray movies to watch on it. So I have picked 6 that I thought I would really enjoy seeing in the much better quality picture and the ones that seemed good quality for the money (steelbook editions, extras). So here they are (reviews will come once they have arrived in the post) :

Scarface steelbook triple play blu ray, already have this on DVD however I am now updating and will be giving the DVD away to family or sell it on ebay.

The wizard of oz: 70th anniversary edition 3 disc combi pack, an old favourite again iv updated from my DVD boxset. I am keeping my 3 disc boxset though as its just too nice to give away or sell for cheap.

Magnolia, this is just the one blu ray disc no other extra discs, however I love this movie so much and its such a beautifully made film that I really did need to watch it on blu ray. Especially the falling frog scenes. Again this is an upgrade from DVD.

The big lebowski 2 disc blu ray + DVD set limited edition digibook for the 10th anniversary of the movie. This is a movie I have wanted for a long time on DVD and almost bought on quite a few occasions, but there were never very good special features and although I loved the movie I always thought "Il get it another time". Im so glad I waited as I now am able to get this instead. It looks so beautiful and I have watched videos on youtube to see what its like in reality, and I have to say it looks like its worth every penny! very excited for this to arrive.

Apocolypse now 3 disc edition - This is another movie I always wanted to add to my DVD collection and just never did, here I am able to add it to my new blu ray collection with extensive special features and in a really lovely set.

And finally a movie that I havent actually seen, Akira, has been on my 'to watch' list for a long time, more so after it appeared in the Empire magazine's top 500 movies issue back in 2008. This new steelbook has been released recently and I saw this as a perfect oppurtunity to not only see this anime for the first time, but in the best possible way too. I have bought the collectors edition steelbook blu ray + DVD.

I will be back to review each blu ray once they have arrived and I have bought my player. 

I will leave you with a famous scarface quote:

"Lesson number one: Don't underestimate the other guy's greed! 

Lesson number two: Don't get high on your own supply."