Comments on: Blu-ray Profile 1.0, 1.1, 2.0 explained--Ask the Editors

CNET explains the differences between the different Blu-ray profiles, including Profile 1.0, Profile 1.1 (BonusView) and Profile 2.0 (BD-Live).

[mickey918]

I don't recommend you buy ANY BluRay player as most experts I've read say that BluRay will not be around in 5 years. Why waste your money?

[RRosal]

mickey918:

Consumers will go where the next generation of entertainment is and not based their opinions on the words of "experts." If we were to go with the experts' advice in the past, then CDs and DVDs wouldn't be where they are now. And if you're hedging your bets on downloadable media, make sure that you're aware of Comcast's recent announcement on the consumer 250GB per month upload/download cap and that most other ISP's may go that route-so don't place too much on that competition. But hey, if you're happy with your 480p crappy definition DVD then go with it man. I'll take my 1080p copy of The Shining over the poorly done DVD any day.

[alpertjm]

This is a non-helpful posting. We live in an age where technological changes occur so rapidly that an electronics product becoming obsolete in 1-2 years is not uncommon. If it's possible to acheive HD playback for 5 years for a player that's under $200, that's actually doing pretty well. But hey, if you like the grainy resolution of regular DVD's, more power to you.

[YeTr2]

....as most experts I've read....
These wouldn't happen to have been the same experts that said the same for Television, VHS, DVD, iPod, and the Internet, would they?
And besides, for the next 5 years, everyone will be all over the format like white on rice. This means that your opinion would leave you out of the loop for those '5 years' until the next product that comes out. When that happens, the same experts will say again that the new product will fail miserably, and you'll be stuck in that same vicious 5 year loop. The same loop that can also cause new formats to fail. Reguardless of how great the boat is, if everyone calls it a failboat, it will eventually fail because noone wants to be part of a failboat.

[ApplestoOranges]

Hmm.. how long did the blasted VCR last? I have a feeling you might be right, something new is bound to come along. Streaming content is much easier, so why have all these movies laying around when you can watch them onine whenever you want? With the ever lower cost of storage. And yes, Comcast is talking abou that, but when they start to lose customers then thier tune should change. I personally dont care for them as a company, so I would never be affected anyway. I just bought a BR DVD player just to get Netfilx and Pandora, even though I dont have an HD TV. They players are cheap, so whats the fuss about?

[Wes#1]

"Experts" love to hear themselves make predictions that gain THEM attention. There is nothing on the horizon to supplant Bu-ray as the only HD physical media... and the public at large (and especially studios) love physical media. Blu-ray is just getting started and will be with us for many years while the internet infrastructure plays catch-up and becomes affordable. Even then, downloading will likely only be a rental model.
As for the "profile" issue of this article, I think it should be made clear that you can watch MANY (indeed MOST) supplements just fine with 1.0. Most commentary tracks can be switched on and off -- no PIP window needed (or wanted!) in the majority of BRDs out there.

[conchchowder]

Flash media is not only on the horizon, it is here. Flash is the future of HD video my friend. I have a 16 GB card I paid $20 for. Do you think It will be long before the 64 GB flash card is here and movies will simply slide into your pj, tv, or AVR. Y'all are so stuck on moving disks...think forward. Streaming may come along at some point but not while the cable companies can make cash out of the diverted bandwidth.

[Rick Cavaretti]

Look, I just want to watch the movie. I don't care about the commentary or pulling up a reverse view PIP or something. In my standard DVDs, I've never accessed any of the extra features or popped them into my computer for interactive content--who has the time?. What makes them think I need more extra features I'll never utilize? Keep it simple, keep it cheap. I just want to watch the movie, like the first time I saw it in the theatre. Pass the popcorn please.

[b_baggins]

What the author conveniently forgets to tell you is the reason Profile 1 is illegal to manufacture anymore is because the DRM was cracked, meaning you could actually rip and copy your HD movies. Can't have that.

[carlitosway74]

Thanks for the detailed info Matt along with the PS3 recommendation....now if I can convince my wife!

[Dragon_Myr]

Yes, here's a Blu-ray question. Why in the world would I want to spend double or even triple the cost of a DVD just to watch a movie? Most movies are barely worth the $9.50 the theater charges. Paying $30+ is unbelievable. Unconverted DVD looks great even on a 1080p HDTV. I just want to watch a movie...not listen to some commentator, go online for extra content, receive messages, or any of that.

[yankeescf]

I agree that I only want to watch the movie, and maybe a few 'making-of' features on the disc, which is STILL POSSIBLE without profile 1.1 or 2. I myself bought a prof. 1.1 player. However, the fact that you're saying upconverted dvd's look just as good as blu-rays is ridiculous. Have you ever watched a blu-ray movie? Didn't think so. If you watch a regular dvd on a big 42" 1080p tv, you have to view it from pretty far away to get a nice, clear picture, which is still lacking in a great amount of details. Watch a blu-ray movie, and you can sit as close as you want without a loss in picture clarity.

[dodgeman007]

what blows my mind is people talking about watching a blue--ray movie filmed even more than a few years ago, IT WASN'T FILMED IN THAT RESOLUTION, your not gaining ANYTHING, IE the shining, yeah that movies older than i am, think it was filmed in 1080P? well your way wrong, i have some ocean front property in kansas to sell you, there are really only 10-20 movies that exist in the blue ray lib. that are worth having in blue ray. and i assure you the shining is not one of them. there is no way to add detail where detail doesn't exist, its not possible, thats why up-converting dvd players are a sham as well.

[fire1fl]

Almost all commercial movies are filmed in 35mm. The resolution is 20-25 MP per frame. That is approximately 10 times the resolution of 1080p. If the resolution of the conversion from film to tape or digital media is less than 1080p, it was because the manufacturer chose to lower resolution or the copy was made from an inferior medium (i.e. VHS tape).

That is the only point of HD and BR - to be able to provide better resolution to an increased capacity digital medium. We're not in Kansas anymore.

[DarkHawke]

I'd add that some TV shows were filmed in higher resolution than is available from DVDs. And as anyone who's seen the remastered Original Star Trek will tell you, even 40 year old TV shows can be upgraded to look SPECTACULAR on HD.

[Nisei]

@dodgeman007
The fact that you obviously don't know ANYTHING about how movies are recorded is OK. But please don't use caps to make something clear which is complete disinformation.

[basenjiboy]

Dodgeman, you don't know what you're talking about. First of all, virtually all feature films are shot on film - which has at least 25MP per frame resolution, with significantly higher dynamic range that HD or SD video. At this point, there aren't any video formats that can truly match or exceed film's resolution and dynamic range. BUT, each new generation of video recording and playback comes closer to the quality of film and creates the need to retransfer the existing library of films to the newest video format so us consumers can see the movie in as high quality as is currently possible.

Why don't you view an SD VHS copy of the movie 2001, shot in 1969, on an SD monitor and compare that to a remastered Blu-Ray version viewed on a 1080p 50" plasma screen? Try to tell me there is no difference in picture quality.

[Renegade Knight]

Good thing Blue Ray plays DVD's then eh?

[Wes#1]

To address the question about why an older movie would look better on Blu-ray than on standard DVD... one must think about the display of that movie. You can get away with "upconversion" on a small screen and it looks pretty good. On a LARGE screen (say a 60"+ set or any good projection rig), the difference between true 1080 lines High Definition and a 480 line Standard Definition becomes far more obvious. In "upconverting" 480 SD, your player (or projector) is actually synthesizing additional video lines (to fill in the voids) to create a fake 1080 lines. The larger your display gets, the more obvious these fake lines become. And, yes, even a 40-year-old film like "2001: A Space Odyssey" looks better on Blu-ray than on SD DVD... the former being sharper, more detailed, and with fewer artifacts when shown LARGE in true 1080p. Depending on your display, as they say, "your mileage may vary."

[racevw14]

A lot of disinformation here!
Blu-Ray will be around more than 5 years, anyone who thinks HD downloads will replace it has never heard of internet caps & if I want highly compressed HD without uncompressed audio I'll watch cable!

Th profile 1 players were announced to be discontinued several months before any broken DRM's, it was always meant for there to be only profile 1.1 & 2.0 players, I wish they'd kill the 1.1 players myself & there would only be profile 2.0 players.

To the fact that older movies weren't shot in 1080p, well that's true, old movies shot on film actually have a resolution of 4K!!
That's more than enough resolution for Blu-Ray transfers.

[DarkHawke]

Above controversies aside, I want to put together an HTPC that would include a Blu-Ray player. What do I need to get to get it to a Profile 2.0 spec? Is it enough to get a currently available disc drive and software, and any changes/advances in the spec will be handled with software updates, as with the PS3? Do I need a given CPU spec to handle all this secondary processing?

[Michael Hawkins]

I cannot play doomsday on my sony player. Is there any way round this so I can just play the Blu ray film?

[teccyfreak]

Since purchasing a Sony blu-ray player BDP-S300, I have installed three firmware downloads, 0395, 0420 and lastly 0430. Does anybody know what these downloads do and does it upgrade the player to profile 1.1? Even the Sony shop does not seem to know what it is all about!
Peter. (teccyfreak)

[fazalmajid]

You can be sure the first thing the Internet connection in BD-Live will be used for is to monitor your viewing habits and collect other information behind your back, much as TiVo collected viewing habits without users' permission. That's the reason why I purchased a Profile 1.1 player. If you do get a Profile 2.0 player, I would strongly advise you to disconnect the Ethernet jack, or put it behind a firewall.

[gingaskunk]

OMG!!!!oneoneone!! PONIES! you mean *THEY* might find out that I watched Dark Knight 7 times on the day it was released? what an infringment on my rights! IT IS THE END OF THE FREE WORLD!!!!!

Seriously dude, what twisted stuff are you watching that the thought of this scares you?

Even if this does happen (and I certainly don't know that it does).... where's the big whoop?

[UFL86]

Have the Panasonic DMB55 and a wireless network in my home. The DMB55 has an ethernet port. What sort of adapter can I get that will receive the wireless signal and port into the Blu-Ray player through the ethernet port? I am sure many other recent buyers are asking the same questions, yet I have found no answers. Thanks, Albert

[jrclancyjr]

I have the Samsung BD-P1600 and I moved my wireless router next to the player to hook directly into the player. I had a USB wireless drive hooked up to it at first but the playback for the Netflix Movies was jumpy and the BD Live content seemed to take for ever.

Best Buy sells the USB wireless I think it was $70.

[joeh4384]

People can purchase a wireless bridge to be able to connect wirelessly via an ethernet port. Older movies look great on Blue Ray. I can only imagine how good tvs will be when they can putout film's native resolution.

[TechyKev]

Thank you CNET for a great article as always.

Yes you can get flash for pounds (or dollars over the pond) but a blue ray disc costs pennies (both sides of the pond)!

Just typical, Sony have been fighting format wars for decades, when they finally win one we end up with this patch work pile of crud!

CNET, what about the rumors that older machines lock up with newer discs, is this true?

[sandraandina_dotmac]

I have a Philips Blu-Ray model BDP9000/37, purchased a little over a year ago. It was playing Blu-Ray discs just fine until we bought "Quantum of Solace" and got an onscreen message that newer BD discs could not be played w/o upgrading the player's firmware. Went to Philips' site to download the firmware upgrade, but when my husband tried on his Windows XP machine, the download kept aborting. I just tried with my MacBook Pro (running Leopard), and the download unstuffs into a plain disk image icon; the disk image contains three files: two with .RUF and one with an .SSE extension. Clicking on any of them brings up the "there is no default application specified to open the document......(any of the three filenames ending in .SSE or .RUF)."
The Philips support tech told me they don't make the firmware upgrade available on a disk (you HAVE to download it) and has no idea what to do except to go to this site and search for an app to open these files so I can burn them to a disk I can then insert into the Blu-Ray player. Needless to say, I can't find any such application. What do I do, short of scrapping an otherwise good player and buying a new one (which may eventually need another upgrade)???????

[sandraandina_dotmac]

Never mind. On a hunch, I highlighted the disk image and was able to burn it to a DVD-R (still don't know if it'll work--may have to borrow another Windows machine and see if I can download & burn it satisfactorily that way). I didn't know I didn't have to open the disk image to burn its contents. (After being a Mac user since System 6, I'm still discovering stuff every day).

A note on Philips' tech support--you may get conflicting reports and advice when contacting them, even using the same case reference number. My husband was told yesterday that if he was unsuccessful, they'd just send him the upgrade on a disc. The first tech I consulted today told me that was not possible--they don't have discs, just downloads; and if I was unsuccessful they'd send me a new player with the latest firmware installed (sounded MUCH too good to be true, and it was). Third tech confirmed that Philips was not prepared to go that far; said he couldn't even BURN me the required files and send me a DVD-R because "our system is not set up for that--we don't have burners;" and said (while he waited for me to try the workaround I devised) that if unsuccessful I should call AppleCare. He did admit that the Blu-Ray technology is "kludgy" across the entire industry, and that regardless of brand, owners should be prepared to periodically have to upgrade firmware till their players wear out. But for consumer-playable 1080p source content, it's the only game in town right now that HD-DVD is dead and buried.

[jj-adams1956]

Last week I got the new 'Terminator 2 - Skynet' edition on Blu-ray. Everything loaded fine on this S350, until it got to the screen where the 'Studio-Canal' logo appears. That's when the disc froze (at 23 seconds in) and flat refused to budge from there. I should have known, since the initial load screen informed me that "Skynet" had detected my player to be less than a 2.0 version. Even so, it said I could still watch the movie, only minus the bonus BD-LIVE content. But that was not the case with my S350.

I contacted Sony, and they sent me a firmware update disc (V19). My S350 (purchased 9-29-08) now plays the 'Skynet' disc without a hitch. What I don't get is why I had a problem to begin with. We only have 40 movies on Blu-ray so far, and this was the first one that wouldn't play.

In my opinion, NO Blu-ray disc should ever freeze up just because the BD-LIVE component on a given Blu-ray player needs "updating." A lot of people (me included) don't care about that feature, period. I just want to watch movies I paid good money for on this new medium, without having to jump thru 50 dozen hoops first.

[jrclancyjr]

Another feature of the BD Live that I did not see discussed it the ability to register your movies. Sony has a Blu Ray Club on their website that when you register your movies you earn points and after 10 or so movies registered they send you coupons to purchase other stuff. Disney is another one with a rewards program and I am sure that they others will follow soon.