Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions HD Player or Blu Ray?

Hello it is mr. procrastinator again(LOL) once I get my ### moving on changing my system. I have a couple of questions 1)Blu-Ray or HD DVD or Combi player and why which format? 2)Has anyone heard the new surround formats and are they much better than plain ordinary DD or DTS?

PS3 anyway

I have never heard the new HD audio but those that have posted about have said there is a difference although marginal.

PS3 appears to be the way to go for BR and any HD-DVD player will work. The Toshiba's have been getting good reviews.

I think there just might be a permanent dual format that will stick around, as alot of folks are able to afford 2 different players with the prices dropping as fast as they are and Sony isn't likely to drop this like the beta format, due to the PS3.

I would get a HD-DVD player, the prices have dropped considerably in the past several months. It's still cheaper to buy a HD-DVD player and a PS3 than to buy a combo player.
I prefer HD-DVD over Blu-Ray, I have both, it's just my preference.
As far as the new surround formats go, Imo there is a significant difference for the better in the new formats. They are clean and crisp, almost like the difference between SD and HD.

I'm with HomeDad on this. I have both, though I've gotten more out of HD DVD, and I would rather it win for political reasons, as well as the fact that certain features were always a part of the spec and aren't being added on.

I have the low-end first-gen HD DVD player and the PS3. I'll probably end up getting a 3rd-gen HD DVD player and passing the first-gen on to my parents.

I agree on the new sound formats, too. They do seem to make a difference.

So far the only thing I dislike about the HD formats is the price of the movies. They really need to start dropping prices on at least the earlier titles.

I agree too. Once Blueray producers drop MPEG2 for good, they will win, but for some reaon, it seems like a very long term thing! Until then, HD-DVD can pack better audio.

Samsung has announced a combo player with the new Reon (or whatever it called) super duper chipset and it sounded like they wanted to make it under 1K$.

I agree with HomeDad and CV as well. I have both and hardware price drops are going to make long term survival of both formats more and more likely. I have A/B Dolby TrueHD vs. Dolby Digital on movies like Constantine and The Matrix trilogy, and TrueHD is hands down the winner. The major difference I heard was the TrueHD track was much less harsh and dialog sounded more natural. This is a decent article comparing all the various audio formats here - http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/J..._Explained/1064

As CV noted, Blu-ray when released was an unfinished spec, so people with 1st gen players may not be able to take advantage of some interactive features on upcoming releases. The HD DVD spec was finalized before any hardware was released, and further the format was a technical descendant of the DVD spec vs. the Blu-ray spec not being inherently backward compatible with DVD.

Additionally, BD are much more expensive to manufacture than HD DVD due to the costs of retooling production lines. Frankly, I feel Blu-ray would be dying a rather quick death had Sony not made the shrewd move of forcing it on the public via the exorbitantly priced PS3. Even so, they're not getting the disc purchase uptake they thought they would because it turns out a lot of PS3 owners primarily purchased their units for (go figure) gaming. Again, I own both formats and these are just my observations. I'm not dissing Sony or their new baby out of prejudice, but those like me who were around for "VHS or Beta?" aren't experiencing anything new.

If you want to keep up on HD disc news, press releases, disc reviews and forums, I highly recommend http://www.highdefdigest.com/ There is a mountain of information on this site, but beware that the forums are filled with rabid HD DVD and Blu-ray supporters.

The bottom line is that if you have a HD display and a way to listen to the new audio codecs, you are doing yourself a major disservice by not owning at least one HD disc player.

Is there any one particular format that has more titles out in stores? I've been debating on waiting for one of the dual format players to come down in price, it may be awhile. The HD players are really coming down in price it seems.

Granted, my Sanyo Z2 is 720P native, I think the quality of the picture would be pretty cool over my HTPC.

All of this positive HD DVD talk is going to make me go out and get one here pretty darn soon, it is nice that just about every comment I read on this and other forums is nothing but positive reviews regarding either of these two players. That's refreshing.

Randy, there is ton's of content for both formats out in stores and online. Some studios are backing only 1 format but many of the titles are now in both formats. Paramount will release 30+ HD DVDs next year and Transformers comes out Tue. on HD-DVD only.
My Toshiba is 720P native and the picture quality is awesome, I haven't even seen 1080p yet and not sure I want to.