Quote:
Originally Posted by andy
The only reason not to buy a Blu-Ray player is that the new ones have limited outputs. They are phasing out analog outputs as required by the Blu-Ray license. HD component is gone, S-video is rare, and soon there will only be a HDMI output. DVD only players can still offer any kind of analog output (due to their low price point, finding one with them may be another issue).
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I didn't think of all that when I purchased my LG BP-220 Blu-ray player last year. I know mine has composite outputs (red and blue for audio, yellow for video) and an HDMI output, but no analog outputs (or S-video) to be found anywhere. I wouldn't want another cheap DVD player (such as are sold in drug stores and the like) after my first one, a CyberHome CH-DVD300 cheapie (got it as a Christmas present in 2005), went bad after just three years. It just quit reading discs one day with no warning whatsoever.
I have an extended warranty on the Blu-ray, though, but I hope I don't have to use it. The player has been working well since the day I installed it with a composite cable, adding an HDMI cable a few months later -- but I cannot notice the difference in the picture when connecting the player to the TV with the latter. Maybe it's because my flat screen TV is just 19 inches and I sit some ten feet away when I watch it, thereby negating the HD effect?
The reason the newer Blu-ray players do not have analog outputs is to prevent illegal copying of DVDs. Using a standard DVD player with video/audio outputs and a DVD recorder, it is all too easy to run off as many copies of a commercial DVD as one wants, unless the discs are copy-guarded as most commercial DVDs are these days. However, any technically-savvy user of this type of equipment can find ways to get around the copy protection (I believe there are even computer programs available to allow just that), so even copy protection isn't 100-percent foolproof. I remember years ago, when NBC (when that company still had its radio network) aired, over the NBC radio network, its 60th anniversary celebration program in 1986. There was a warning at the end of the program:
"This program may not be reproduced, duplicated, or recorded, in any manner whatsoever." Two or three short audio tones followed the warning; I believe these tones were used to trigger a crude (by 21st century standards) copy-protection scheme.
However, I doubt if it actually worked as intended, as I am sure many people (myself included) recorded that broadcast on audio tape for posterity. I lost my own audio copy of the show years ago in a move, but I'm still going to try to find it online so I can download it to my computer and thence to a CD-R disk. I already have NBC's 75th anniversary broadcast on VHS, but there were certain parts of the 60th anniversary show I'd like to hear again (such as the old radio commercials for now long-defunct companies like Allis-Chalmers, which manufactured farm machinery in, I believe, the '50s through the seventies -- I still remember the jingle: "The world needs more...of what Allis-Chalmers makes!") Who knows? Maybe that jingle is on the NBC 75th anniversary broadcast as well.