Just play the damn thing.
HD is fantastic, but watching films on a Blu-ray disc can be quite a hassle due to technology seemingly not being finished before it was released and the need for firmware updates to watch the latest films. When playing console games, firmware updates can be a nuisance, but at least if the update is mandatory, it comes on the game disc. With Blu-ray you need to search for your make and model online, find the update, stick it on a USB stick or a DVD, put it in the player, update.A bit of a faff when you are know what you are doing and a complete pain in the neck if you are not computer literate, like my granpa. I had heard that he had bought himself a HD TV so thought I would treat him to a Blu-ray player for his birthday and a couple of films. A couple of weeks later District 9 came out – and the film was not compatible with the player and it took a few weeks for an update to come out. I now feel that I am running the gauntlet if I dare buy him a new release for Christmas. I recently suffered a problem trying to watch Clash Of The Titans on a similar player. The disc ran without a hitch on my PS3, but every few minutes the sound would cut out for half a second on the standalone machine. Very distracting. A few weeks later an update came out for the player and the film now works perfectly – but how many people would have put down that problem to a faulty disc? Many in America had problems when Avatar came out and were told to upgrade their players. The problems seem to stem from Blu-ray being rushed to market to keep up with HDDVD. Early adopters were stung with players that could not do picture in picture, many of which are fantastic, or access online features, which are finally showing their potential. There was no standards set to how a player should update so some use USB Sticks, others discs and then there are models which can hook up to Internet to auto download updates. It feels silly looking at the back cover of films in stores and seeing warnings that certain features might not work with your player, and you might need an update just to watch the film.
In an odd turn of events, the PS3 has shown itself to be one of the best Blu-ray players on the market thanks to being easy to update (though the downloads can take ages and seem a bit too frequent) and having the hardware specifications to use new Blu-ray features. Picture quality is great, which is a surprise due to how shoddy the PS2 DVD player could be, and many discs have a nice little display on the XMB showing what film you just put in, just incase you forgot in those few seconds as you sat back down. However the PS3 was, and still is, a very expensive machine, especially if all you want to do is watch some movies.
Blu-ray films are now reasonably priced, unless you do all your shopping at HMV on the high street and the players have tumbled down in price too. HD TV adoption is growing, but i argue it won’t be the rise in digital downloads that will lead to Blu-ray failing at being truly mainstream – it will be the poorly implemented update system and silly loading times that will put the majority off. DVD had a shaky start with the awfulness that was flipper discs – yep, switching sides halfway through a film – but we are now a good few years into Blu-ray and there are still problems that will make most people shake their head and walk away. Get it sorted.
