[Prof Yaffle]

I'm going to be really contentious here, since I know how much people love their 96" screens and 8-channel sound around here :-)

I can clearly see the different between SDTV and HDTV, no question. And I can see the difference between DVD and BR, but it's nothing like as pronounced - most of the grotty quality of SDTV is actually because they're over-compressed MPEG2 streams, not because of the resolution IMHO (42" 'LED' Panasonic at maybe three metres).

So - yes, for the inevitable future-proofing (we've all been there already), I'm using BR. But the quality is really marginal, especially for the hassle in ripping them and the storage space they take up (or the re-encode time if you want to shrink them). Maybe other people sit closer...!

I personally think that this is actually merely credit to the fabulous job the XBMC devs have done in the upscaling code, since I'm sure the difference is more noticeable on hardware players. Either that or it's my failing eyesight...

Discuss

[T800]

The bigger the display, the better the display, the closer you sit and the better calibrated all makes a difference, even more so when added together.

DVD's on my 1080p 50" plasma look fine at 11 feet.
Put a Blu-ray on and then go back and they look poor by comparison but not bad.
DVD's look pretty poor on my 720p projector and even worse after viewing Blu-ray.
720p mkv's look really good on the 1080p 50" plasma. Very little difference between 720p mkv and Blu-ray. Move closer to the TV and I can see the difference.
720p mkv's look good on the 720p projector, Blu-rays look even better.
Going back to 720p mkv after Blu-ray on the projector the difference is quite obvious.

Don't forget there's more to Blu-ray than just video.

I rip only the movie so most Blu-rays are between 20GB and 40GB. I like quality audio and video in my media content. If I can get the best version I will. Worth the space in my opinion.

[thethirdnut]

DVD's colour is often washed out on a larger display...there really isn't any picture quality comparison as far as I am concerned....BR >> DVD.

+the HD audio is another reason to use BR altogether as T800 mentioned above.

[rockstartower]

I think a lot of it depends on the movie. A lot of the older movies made into blurays don't look too much different to me than standard dvd. However, if for instance compare the dark knight rises DVD to bluray it's unbelievably different. The amount of detail, the sound quality, everything about the bluray in terms of quality makes the entire film a different experience. It's not like this for every movie though.

[thethirdnut]

@rockstartower - true that.

Some BR transfers are done on the cheap - look like ass.