[Paul Adams]

It's been a while since I bought anything "home cinema"-wise - in fact I'm still using the same setup I made ~4 years ago:
- Philips 32PF9986 32" widescreen LCD TV (1080i, 768p)
- Samsung HD945 DVD player (soft hacked for region unlocking)
- Marantz SR8500 A/V Amp (DVI in/out, not HDMI)
- Mordaunt-Short 'Genie' 5.1 speakers

I love the ambilight feature of the Philips TV, so I am currently musing over the Ful-HD 42" 100Hz 1080p flavour as an upgrade.

Then comes the question of HD content, which is where I have zero up-to-date knowledge, except that HD-DVD fell on its arse and now "Everybody Loves Blu-raymond". Apparently.

So I see the blu-ray format went for regions, similar to DVD, only "A", "B" and so on instead of 1-6.
And the hacked region-free ones seem ridiculously expensive compared to the retail ones.

What scares me the most is the quoted "power-on to menu" and "power-on to film playback" times - they seem insanely long!
My experience with digital-out (DVI/HDMI) DVD players has been bad enough, the things seem so slow to start up or turn off, but the blu-ray player equivalents sound like they make them seem like lightning...


So for those that made the switch to blu-ray (and not just to get a PS3), what is your perception of the player you bought?
And are you locked into blu-ray region "B" and DVD region "2"?
Do you have enough time to make a cup of coffee between inserting a disc and it being ready to actually play?