Downconvert HD Blu-Ray to SD DVD(s)

[Beck38]

Over the past couple of years (and seems to be accelerating), is the studio's releasing 'special edition' Blu-Ray disc or disc sets, without the corresponding standard definition disc sets.

I have noticed there is some commercial software out there that purports to 'slice and dice' the Blu-Ray disc (after decrypting by other software), and compress down to SD dvd5/9/multiple discs (and usually can do AVCHD).

Now, HD is nice, my entire system has been HD for several years, and I went to an HD display almost 10 years ago. But.... the cost differential between commercial Blu-Ray disc and std-def is pretty ridiculous, especially when I read review all the time on how poor an encoding job the studios have done to some titles.

I would have thought that I'd see a lot of downconverted titles on usenet, but most is various flavors of H.264. Great if one has equipment to play it, but the vast majority of folks out there are still SD.

So, has anyone out there had any experience with these BR to DVD programs? The two I trip over all the time is 'Blu-Ray to DVD II' and 'Blu Ray Ripper'.

There were a lot of... shall we say, dodgy DVD programs bouncing around ripping folks off at the dawn of the DVD era 10 years ago. I don't know whether the two listed here are simply a retread of those updated to 'Blu-Ray'.

Any comments? And yes, there is a 'BD Rebuilder' program under developemt at Doom9, but it's currently at the stage that 'DVD Rebuilder was around vr. 0.2 or so.

[mbucari1]

Well I don't know about downconverting to SD, but if you had the $$$$ to go HD 10 years ago then you must have run into some real hard luck lately to not be able to afford blu-rays.

[Beck38]

Well I don't know about downconverting to SD, but if you had the $$$$ to go HD 10 years ago then you must have run into some real hard luck lately to not be able to afford blu-rays.

Not really; in fact I retired WAY early (age 49) simply because, as a former stock/commodities broker, I saw the current mess WAY off and most of what I wanted to do in my main line of work (electronics/telecommunications) had been done and the thieves were, at the time, cratering several of the best firms out there (MCI, Sprint, Lucent, etc.) and I had little incentive as to pursuing a Doctorate in the 2-3 fields I was still faintly interested in (and besides, pure research had come, and continues, to a grinding halt in the U.S.).

The main reason is all the poor, and I mean POOR, reviews of the BR releases. Again, reminds me of the dvd era circa 1998 through about 2004 or so, when the studios finally started putting out more quality instead of a quick 'make a buck' videos. I think right now, we're about at 2001 or thereabouts, and we've got at least another 3-4 years to go, IF (a big IF), the studios start putting money into their product.

Of my current collection of around 7000 dvd's, some 200 or so 'bad' pieces of junk were bought during that 1997 through 2004 or so period; the reviews at the time were as glowing as most of them are today, although some reviews/reviewers are a bit more strict today. Some. I don't intend to be 'stuck' with yet more crap.

I'm sure eventually, the studios will get their act together, I simply think right now, everybody agrees the costs are way to high, and the quality way to low. So I see a need to 'bridge' the gap a bit for a few years until tha product is yanked up to it's potential.

But, the studios are already double and triple dipping BD on some titles. The race to the bottom (in quality, while ripping off the consumer in cost) has begun in earnest. Prime example this month is 'Terminator 2'.