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What is your "High Definition DVD" position?
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Since I have an older Mits CRT without HDMI inputs and which offers native 480i which makes SD DVDs look great (to me, ymmv) I'm waiting.
We Had a Pioneer 51" based HT (circa 1995) with 7.1 and a Denon 3801 and just replaced the Pioneer with a Sony 60A2000 which is excellent.
4 points:
1.We switched to Dish for the maximum number of HDTV channels which is better than Direct TV.
2.The Std Def channels are all better than the Pioneer 1995 Elite which was very good for over a decade, ( I feared wose).
3.The transmitted picture quality, Std Def, is all over the map from channel to channel, so knocking yourself out calibrating seems silly. Ditto for old DVDs we have. So, pick your most watched channel, adjust for that and live with the rest. If it's a long movie, do a simple adjustment. (News programs are the worst where split screens can be half great and half terrible--that can't be calibrated out).
4. HDTV channels are great, even stunning. We bought On-Line at Amazon, got in house delivery, and anybody can turn one on which is all Geeks do.
Enjoy now; I'm sorry we didn't buy last year.
BBA
4 points:
1.We switched to Dish for the maximum number of HDTV channels which is better than Direct TV.
2.The Std Def channels are all better than the Pioneer 1995 Elite which was very good for over a decade, ( I feared wose).
3.The transmitted picture quality, Std Def, is all over the map from channel to channel, so knocking yourself out calibrating seems silly. Ditto for old DVDs we have. So, pick your most watched channel, adjust for that and live with the rest. If it's a long movie, do a simple adjustment. (News programs are the worst where split screens can be half great and half terrible--that can't be calibrated out).
4. HDTV channels are great, even stunning. We bought On-Line at Amazon, got in house delivery, and anybody can turn one on which is all Geeks do.
Enjoy now; I'm sorry we didn't buy last year.
BBA
I have a Panasonic 47" HD set & have an HD cable box from our local provider. I recently bought the HD-DVD addon for the X360 and I really like it. I can definetly see the difference but I wish that my TV was capable of displaying a 1080p signal. I guess that will be the next purchase!
Have bought both Toshiba HD-A1 and Samsung P1000 (both with upgraded software). No comparison the HD-DVD is sharper, with less artifact on 95% of the titles. HD-DVD for home theather.......blu-ray for computer storage.......that's how it should work out..................
Was very impressed with bluray disc . Waiting to see HD - DVD on Toshiba hxa2
Prefer to see if suitable solution can be worked out for dual disc or one prime disc
Would check out Pioneer Elite player when it comes t o town
Prefer to see if suitable solution can be worked out for dual disc or one prime disc
Would check out Pioneer Elite player when it comes t o town
Prefer to see if suitable solution can be worked out for dual disc or one prime disc
Samsung and LG are working to put out dual format players. As for one format, don't hold your breath.....unless one goes under we'll have the two formats for an undetermined time, (which actually is NOT that bad a thing, competition= lower pricing points!). Right now HD-DVD is on the lower pricing scale without any sacrifice in quality; If it persists you'll see some studios coming over to HD-DVD (ie . Buena Vista, Lions Gate) since it's only a minor expense to retool existing DVD production lines as vs. starting from scratch to create a blu-ray line. That's why I think you'll see BV, LG, come over to HD-DVD before you see Universal coming out
with blu-ray disks. When you see Sony titles on HD-DVD then one of two things; 1) Game Over, blu-ray delegated to computer storage; or 2) someones learned how to pirate the Blu-Ray disks to other format.
I haven't been paying as much attention to HD DVD's due to the two formats. When and if dual format DVD players become available that will change.
I heard somewhere that these players require you to hook them up a certain way or the output will not display in HD. I'm not happy about that prospect since what if I have a HDTV that is a bit older and doesn't have the necessary input capability? I think this is all about some paranoia they have about controlling how and when we can view their content. For example: I think anyone that has an older HDTV that doesn't have an HDMI input capability will not be able to view HD movies in HD with either format player. If this is true it certainly will impact acceptance of HD players.
I heard somewhere that these players require you to hook them up a certain way or the output will not display in HD. I'm not happy about that prospect since what if I have a HDTV that is a bit older and doesn't have the necessary input capability? I think this is all about some paranoia they have about controlling how and when we can view their content. For example: I think anyone that has an older HDTV that doesn't have an HDMI input capability will not be able to view HD movies in HD with either format player. If this is true it certainly will impact acceptance of HD players.
Not exactly true.
Both of the new high def DVD formats (HD DVD and Blu-ray) use a method called AACS to protect the content on disc. Through AACS, the movie studios have THE OPTION to indicate that they want to restrict resolution over unprotected (non-HDCP) outputs. So far, NONE of the studios are doing this, which means that all titles in both formats can currently be viewed at your TV's highest resolution even if you're only using component connections. If the studios do start doing this, you will still be able to view the movies, and at up to slightly-better-than-DVD resolution: 540p.
I have an older TV as well, that is limited to component inputs, and does not support any sort of HDCP input. So I will be one of those affected if the studios decide to start limiting output.
- S
Both of the new high def DVD formats (HD DVD and Blu-ray) use a method called AACS to protect the content on disc. Through AACS, the movie studios have THE OPTION to indicate that they want to restrict resolution over unprotected (non-HDCP) outputs. So far, NONE of the studios are doing this, which means that all titles in both formats can currently be viewed at your TV's highest resolution even if you're only using component connections. If the studios do start doing this, you will still be able to view the movies, and at up to slightly-better-than-DVD resolution: 540p.
I have an older TV as well, that is limited to component inputs, and does not support any sort of HDCP input. So I will be one of those affected if the studios decide to start limiting output.
- S
WITH MY NEW 65" MITSUBSHI AND THE LATEST TIVO UNIT, I'M GENERATING VERY LITTLE INTEREST IN HAVING AN HD DVD OF ANY TYPE. I CAN'T IMAGINE NOT HAVING YOUR VIEWING HABITS/NEEDS SATISFIED WHEN YOU HAVE A TIVO UNIT.
And to each his own.
Keep in mind that these packaged formats (HD DVD and Blu-ray) can contain about twice as much video information than anything send over cable, satellite, or air ... not to mention the audio advantages.
But if you see no difference and hear no difference, don't spend the money just because others insist it's better.
- Shane
Keep in mind that these packaged formats (HD DVD and Blu-ray) can contain about twice as much video information than anything send over cable, satellite, or air ... not to mention the audio advantages.
But if you see no difference and hear no difference, don't spend the money just because others insist it's better.
- Shane
YOU MISSED MY POINT ENTIRELY. THE WHOLE IDEA OF HIGH TECHNOLOGY IS IS TO GIVE A PERSON THE BEST POSSIBLE EXPERIENCE WHETHER IT'S VIDEO,SOUND,PHOTOGRAPHY,ET AL. WHERE'S THE INTEREST IN PROGRAM CONTENT?
Hi Rod,
Could you please post your messages in the correct case. Upper case is considered shouting.
Thanks
Could you please post your messages in the correct case. Upper case is considered shouting.
Thanks
Perhaps you could clarify your point.
I read your post to mean that you didn't need HD DVD or Blu-ray to satisfy your taste for high definition. But your saying instead that your point is that you don't like any of the content on HD DVD and Blu-ray?
If so, again I say "to each his own". I, personally, think there are some great films in both of those formats. But if you don't agree, don't let me (or anyone else) convince you to spend your money on them.
- Shane
I read your post to mean that you didn't need HD DVD or Blu-ray to satisfy your taste for high definition. But your saying instead that your point is that you don't like any of the content on HD DVD and Blu-ray?
If so, again I say "to each his own". I, personally, think there are some great films in both of those formats. But if you don't agree, don't let me (or anyone else) convince you to spend your money on them.
- Shane
Shane,
You question was:
"What factors are weighing in your decision?"
Blu-ray. 24fps on 1080p. Quality recognizion and tendency.
Although HD DVD is reading from the disc film content as 24fps, it is not outputting it that way, not even on their second-generation players.
Toshiba's decision of not including such feature on the 2nd players was even taken after Blu-ray came out with specs and players with such feature (Sony, Elite), bragging about it because of it importance for film content (and to suitable displays).
Even then, HD DVD ignored the feature on 2nd generation players (one is out, one is coming out in a a few months). So they have a plan, and quality is not within it, and that suggests for the possible shortcuts they could have implemented across the player to make it sellable fast to mass market (and that is an assumption, but with valid logic).
They chose volume and ignored a quality feature as the tool to establish their format. I would suspect that they would eventually incorporate that feature, but I am not one of those consumers that keep changing their model every few months with a smile on my face and my pocket open.
I open my pocket to quality, not planned obsolescense.
Since most TVs accept 1080i or 1080p only as 60fps, this feature would not be as important as it is for front projectors and some new displays that can process the 24fps into multiples of it for a clean artifact-free display, instead of converting it to 60i and later to 60p, the interlaced world of video.
Even Toshiba is promoting the 120Hz panels now (5 times 24fps), so it is not even consistent with their panel plans.
I have tested the 3 versions of it (1080i, 1080p60fps, and 1080p24fps) with film content and there is a clear difference between them, easier to recognize in large screens, and it is detectable in casual viewing not just in a lab.
Because most of the TV consumer market does not have a way to handle 24fps without conversions I find the HD DVD market putting its bets in the mass consumer and the logic of "keep on upgrading to my next model".
The pre-recorded hi-def media was waited for long by high quality HT enthusiasts, and those would rather take the 24fps feature, and those would most probably be the early adopters paying first the high prices ($1000+) so a format can be established and the R&D bills can be paid for newer and better models.
However, now that Toshiba has apparently stop the heavy subsidizing on their stand alone players to kill the price, and has come out with a player with the $1000 mark as Blu-ray, it is showing the real price of this technology, but unfortunately, even at the high price, Toshiba still ignores the quality 1080p24fps feature. And the true war begins, a war of quality without free lunches.
I am not including the video game consoles on these comments because both formats have killed the prices to compete in that world; this is about stand-alone players.
If you have a front projector, a large screen, and a quality HT that handles 1080p 24fps properly, you owe it to yourself.
If you do not, or you are not having a scaler dealing with 24fps at higher quality processing than the player, you probably would never notice a difference and might ignore my comments in making your selection based on that feature.
Best Regards,
Rodolfo La Maestra
You question was:
"What factors are weighing in your decision?"
Blu-ray. 24fps on 1080p. Quality recognizion and tendency.
Although HD DVD is reading from the disc film content as 24fps, it is not outputting it that way, not even on their second-generation players.
Toshiba's decision of not including such feature on the 2nd players was even taken after Blu-ray came out with specs and players with such feature (Sony, Elite), bragging about it because of it importance for film content (and to suitable displays).
Even then, HD DVD ignored the feature on 2nd generation players (one is out, one is coming out in a a few months). So they have a plan, and quality is not within it, and that suggests for the possible shortcuts they could have implemented across the player to make it sellable fast to mass market (and that is an assumption, but with valid logic).
They chose volume and ignored a quality feature as the tool to establish their format. I would suspect that they would eventually incorporate that feature, but I am not one of those consumers that keep changing their model every few months with a smile on my face and my pocket open.
I open my pocket to quality, not planned obsolescense.
Since most TVs accept 1080i or 1080p only as 60fps, this feature would not be as important as it is for front projectors and some new displays that can process the 24fps into multiples of it for a clean artifact-free display, instead of converting it to 60i and later to 60p, the interlaced world of video.
Even Toshiba is promoting the 120Hz panels now (5 times 24fps), so it is not even consistent with their panel plans.
I have tested the 3 versions of it (1080i, 1080p60fps, and 1080p24fps) with film content and there is a clear difference between them, easier to recognize in large screens, and it is detectable in casual viewing not just in a lab.
Because most of the TV consumer market does not have a way to handle 24fps without conversions I find the HD DVD market putting its bets in the mass consumer and the logic of "keep on upgrading to my next model".
The pre-recorded hi-def media was waited for long by high quality HT enthusiasts, and those would rather take the 24fps feature, and those would most probably be the early adopters paying first the high prices ($1000+) so a format can be established and the R&D bills can be paid for newer and better models.
However, now that Toshiba has apparently stop the heavy subsidizing on their stand alone players to kill the price, and has come out with a player with the $1000 mark as Blu-ray, it is showing the real price of this technology, but unfortunately, even at the high price, Toshiba still ignores the quality 1080p24fps feature. And the true war begins, a war of quality without free lunches.
I am not including the video game consoles on these comments because both formats have killed the prices to compete in that world; this is about stand-alone players.
If you have a front projector, a large screen, and a quality HT that handles 1080p 24fps properly, you owe it to yourself.
If you do not, or you are not having a scaler dealing with 24fps at higher quality processing than the player, you probably would never notice a difference and might ignore my comments in making your selection based on that feature.
Best Regards,
Rodolfo La Maestra
Made the entry into HD with the XBox 360 HD-DVD add on, very satisfied. Nominal investment and the HD-DVD quality is amazing, will eventually upgrade to a stand alone player, in the meantime this does the trick.
Amen to that statement. A few years ago when I saw all the changes
coming I dropped $6k on my 58" Pioneer Elite rptv and haven't regretted
it for a moment. Many of the new sets are brighter (especially
since I need my lenses cleaned
but none give as film-like a picture
yet.
Waiting out the format whole war. The next step will be a laser-illuminated
FP for a 100-120" or so display on a perforated screen, in 1-2 years. The
Pioneer and the 1080i stuff I have capped right now will tide me over
although I am tempted to get an xBox HD-DVD drive for $200 to hook
up to a PC to get access to Netflix's library of HD-DVD stuff.
Thank goodness for my IO-Data Linkplayer, which although imperfect
does open up a huge variety of material.
coming I dropped $6k on my 58" Pioneer Elite rptv and haven't regretted
it for a moment. Many of the new sets are brighter (especially
since I need my lenses cleaned
but none give as film-like a pictureyet.
Waiting out the format whole war. The next step will be a laser-illuminated
FP for a 100-120" or so display on a perforated screen, in 1-2 years. The
Pioneer and the 1080i stuff I have capped right now will tide me over
although I am tempted to get an xBox HD-DVD drive for $200 to hook
up to a PC to get access to Netflix's library of HD-DVD stuff.
Thank goodness for my IO-Data Linkplayer, which although imperfect
does open up a huge variety of material.
Excellent response, Rodolfo! I agree with all of the items you mentioned. I have both formats at my disposal and when I get my new projector (most likely a JVC DLA-RS-1 at this point) I will be playing closer attention to the 24fps side of things. My HP MD5880n supports 24fps but it isn't clear whether this is a straight through support or one that uses a 60fps intermediary. I have a first generation Toshiba XA-1 (absolutely abominable regarding operating speed and user interface) and an HD-DVD add-on to my XBox 360. At least the XA-1 has HDMI output so that I can enjoy HD audio. My current Blu-ray player is a PS3 which does a much better job as a player than I thought it would. Its HDMI 1.3 output has been able to pass all the current HD Audio codecs to my HDMI 1.1 capable Denon 3806 receiver (used as a pre-pro).
That brings me to another point about HD media which seems to be overlooked by many - the quality of the HD Audio codecs! Both formats support uncompressed audio and if your audio system is up to it then there is a HUGE difference in the sound quality of 5-7Mbps bitrates provided by the HD audio codecs and the 192-640Kbps found on "normal 5.1 sources. Even if there are some arguments regarding the difference between Upscaled SD and HD video there is no comparison at all between SD audio and HD audio. It is a tremendous step forward in audio. Unfortunately, we seem to live in a world where 192kbps iPod Tunes are considered to be high fidelity!
That brings me to another point about HD media which seems to be overlooked by many - the quality of the HD Audio codecs! Both formats support uncompressed audio and if your audio system is up to it then there is a HUGE difference in the sound quality of 5-7Mbps bitrates provided by the HD audio codecs and the 192-640Kbps found on "normal 5.1 sources. Even if there are some arguments regarding the difference between Upscaled SD and HD video there is no comparison at all between SD audio and HD audio. It is a tremendous step forward in audio. Unfortunately, we seem to live in a world where 192kbps iPod Tunes are considered to be high fidelity!
I will stick with my up-conversion DVD-R until either the price of a Hi-Def player that can play both formats are reasonable, or one of the formats win out like the Beta-VHS wars of the 80's and that player's price is reasonable. I have not seen that much difference between what I have and what the new technology bring to spend the kind of money it takes to get both formats.
I think I agree with Rodolfo's position, but I would like to point out that Blu-ray also is not quite complete feature wise, so that is why I am delaying my purchase until this fall when at least v1.1 will be mandatory.
I do feel Blu-ray is going to be the "final" format and it surprises me to see the one reply about how much better HD DVD looks compared to Blu-ray. Seeing the date of the post, I will only assume that he was observing what I have read was rather poor quality transfers on some of the early Blu-ray disks. That was a very dissappointing thing to have happen and I can't for the life of me understand why they would be careless in the early transfers. Too much is at stake to take a careless approach in this endeavor.
I would be interested to see if he still feels the same way after seeing some of the newer Blu-ray releases?
AaronS
I do feel Blu-ray is going to be the "final" format and it surprises me to see the one reply about how much better HD DVD looks compared to Blu-ray. Seeing the date of the post, I will only assume that he was observing what I have read was rather poor quality transfers on some of the early Blu-ray disks. That was a very dissappointing thing to have happen and I can't for the life of me understand why they would be careless in the early transfers. Too much is at stake to take a careless approach in this endeavor.
I would be interested to see if he still feels the same way after seeing some of the newer Blu-ray releases?
AaronS
Too much is at stake to take a careless approach in this endeavor.
Agreed yet both camps failed in some aspect... The 1st generation Toshiba HD DVD players were terrible from an operational stand point and did not support 1080p in any shape or form. 2nd generation Toshiba players only support 1080p 60 frames but not 24 frames and they left their entry level unit at 1080i. I find that just as careless in this battle that in the end centers on performance as it relates to SD DVD as well as comparison to the other competing HD disc format.