So, after a long time brewing over the decision, I went out and purchased an HD-DVD drive.... Here's what preceded my decision so you have a better understanding of my assumptions / objectives:
1) I purchased an Axiom Epic 60 home theater system paired with a Denon 3806 and a 60' Sony SXRD. Thanks for everyone's help in setting it up. What an amazing system.. I also happened to buy an Xbox 360 to support the wife's video game addiction. Oblivion IV: Elder Scrolls was a particularly difficult point in our marriage, I don't think we spoke for a month. I refuse to purchase Xbox online for fear of………………I digress
2) I'm an HD content whore. I rarely venture out of the 10 HD channels that in our cable package. Sports and nature shows are amazing in HD.
3) Upscaled DVDs don't cut it. Although 480p DVDs look ok, it isn’t the same after watching 1080i TV. I won't go into the 1080i / p discussion, I believe most people won't know the difference. My TV does not support it anyway.
4) Price: 200 bucks is all that the XBOX 360 HD-DVD drive set me back. That's a lot less than many CD burners that I've paid for in the past. 600 for the cheapest blue-ray (PS3) is a lot.
5) Technology: I really don't care about the storage capacity between the formats and blu-rays support for 1080p. My TV doesn’t support it anyway
6) Lots of chatter about HD sound formats (DTS / Dolby). My point of view is my Denon does not support the HD formats and Dolby digital 5.1 is just fine. The HD-DVD drive claims to support DTS, but I think it's BS since the XBox 360 does not. Looking for more information / opinions here.
7) Format risk: If I’ve chosen the “wrong” format, I’m only out 200 bucks. If blu-ray “wins” I’ll go out and buy a PS3 in another 18 months when the price gets to a reasonable amount (300 ish).
8) Netflix: I don’t have to invest in a potentially “dead” format, since I don’t buy many DVDs due to my monthly Netflix subscription. I was thoroughly surprised how many HD-DVD movies are out there. I think most studios are releasing in two formats until there’s a “winner”
Just my home theater thoughts for the day… any comments and opinions are greatly appreciated…..
YoYo
Whatever makes you happy man. As you say, it sounds like the best choice for you. It'll be interesting to see what happens with the "format" war. Personally, I'd be happy to see dual players succeed so that no one is left in the cold for choosing the "wrong" format.
Now that blu-ray has started using the same codecs as hd-dvd, image quality is reported as being roughly identical. As will all formats being served over 1080p displays, we're now at the mercy of the originating source. If the studios give a crap it can look amazing, if they don't a subpar transfer is going to only look okay.
In either case, we're in the infancy of the new formats. I think that reflects in the movies that are being released with little or no add-ons included. It's like the old days of DVD
I think you made a good choice, I did the same
the 360 add on is a great way to get into HD without a big expenditure.
I have the PS3 and Xbox HD-DVD add-on. Personally so far I have been choosing to watch a HD-DVD over Blu-ray via my Netflix queue. I have the PS3 connected with HDMI(directly to the tv) and the Xbox with components through my reciever but I've seen better quality thus far with the HD-DVD. It could very well be the movie production as I've see huge variations in quality with both formats. Superman Returns on Blu-ray was a huge dissapointment.
My HD-DVD passes DTS over to my reciever. I play the Eagles Tour in Melbourne video disc in the Xbox HD-DVD player and my reciever decodes it as DTS. AMAZING sound!!
Out of necessity, I've been doing quite a bit of research on the HD / Loss-less sound formats. In a nutshell, HD is the only format that provides a Loss-less multichannel audio format. The new Sony BR player may be able to decode loss-less codecs on BR disks, but that's hard to confirm. There are not many on the streets yet so user comments are scarce.
If you can't stand to watch SD DVD's, then you should consider getting yourself another DVD player or an external video processor. The difference between HD and SD ran through my VP at 720P is not that great. I suspect that when I get a 1080P projector the difference will more noticeable, but it isn't at 720P.
Regardless of all that, I am enjoying HD DVD's. Not just the new releases, but what I enjoy most about it is the older movies that are getting transferred to HD. I watched Caddyshack the other night and it hasn't ever looked that good. My only gripe is that I'll soon be compelled to buy a BR player so that I can enjoy more films that the BR supporting studios use.
I universal HD / BR player would be nice.
Until then, HD players are not as expensive as one might think. The first gen players can be had for under $300 and the second gen players can be found for under $500.
I just bought a new Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD but I might exchange it for XA2 which does 1080P and has 5.1 analog outputs. This is my first HD DVD experience and I am blown away at PQ 1080i over component video has. SD DVD looks good at 480P put once I get my new TV and connect via HDMI it will upconvert SD to 1080i which should look amazing. I haven't played any CD so I wouldnt know how sound quality is for music but I bought the player for HD movies and I am more than pleased on this player.
Drew
Wait, are you telling me that I will have to upgrade my Denon in order to get the new DTS and DD sound from HD-DVD or Bluray?!?! Oh my, the expenses never stop, do they!
The lossless stuff requires either HDMI or direct analog outs. But the analog outs only get you 5.1, not 7.1 (the Panasonic DMP-BD10 is supposed to have 7.1 analog outs).
I was lent a Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray player and some titles the other day to demo. I have been holding off to make a purchase because of the uncertainty in the formats. Without having my own experience, I was leaning HD-DVD early because it was ready for the market at realease, compared to the sub-par early Sony releases. Although Sony is looking to make a run now that their technology is catching up to the early promises.
I do think this player does a fine job in both picture and sound with the more recent titles I have seen (Corpse Bride, X-men 3). Load times are quick, but remote response time for certain functions like chapter skip, scan are slow (about 1 second delay). It has a very good build quality, all metal case, not plastic, and beautiful front. Others may prefer the Panasonic DMP-BD10 however, as it supports DVD-Audio and redbook CD formats, which this player does not.
I could certainly be happy with the picture and sound quality of the Sony, but before buying anything I would love to try a Toshiba XA2. I am not trying to recommend Blu-ray over HD-DVD or vice versa, just passing on what I've seen here. Unfortunately my projector limits me to 720p, but it does look great.
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My HD-DVD passes DTS over to my reciever. I play the Eagles Tour in Melbourne video disc in the Xbox HD-DVD player and my reciever decodes it as DTS. AMAZING sound!!
Was that a DVD or HD DVD that played DTS? I'm very curious about getting a 360 and the HD DVD addon.
Personally Sony pissed me off how they went about creating blu-ray. It just didn't make any sense to me, its "advantages" over HD DVD are virtually meaningless. Yet it costs more so you know who will end up paying for it. That alone has me rooting for HD DVD.
I would be very suprised if blu-ray can pull through on top.
HDVD by many articles that I've read is leading blu-ray by such a margin that blu-ray has already lost, now it's up to Sony as to how much more money they want to lose by prolonging the battle.
Just another example of Sony botching another product release. They gave HDDVD to much lead time at half the price. The final nail in the coffin Imo was Microsoft getting the 360 HD DVD addon out before the Ps3 was in anyones hands, how many more households now have HD DVD because of this addon that previously may have waited out a format war.
Blu-ray may eventually have better specs. but so did Beta.
I'm afraid that Blu-Ray will win, or high-def DVD's will fail all together. As much as I wish HD-DVD would win the format war, the exclusive studios backing Blu-ray control nearly 80% of the Hollywood movies ever made. Just as soon as titles such as James Bond, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean and Spider-man start coming out exclusively on Blu-ray, and the price of their players drops, HD-DVD will be out-sold rather quickly. With only Universal as lone exclusive backer, HD-DVD can't keep ahead for long. Whicj makes me made, because I'd like to upgrade my DVD player, but I'm not buying into a format that will probably loose, and I'm not spending $1500.00 on a top-rate first-gen player.
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Was that a DVD or HD DVD that played DTS? I'm very curious about getting a 360 and the HD DVD addon.
Personally Sony pissed me off how they went about creating blu-ray. It just didn't make any sense to me, its "advantages" over HD DVD are virtually meaningless. Yet it costs more so you know who will end up paying for it. That alone has me rooting for HD DVD.
It was a DVD.
I think Hollywood will quickly change its tune when their movies aren't selling enough on blu-ray.
HP who had been a big Blu-Ray supporter and dominates the Media Center PC market, introduced a $100 HD DVD upgrade for their PCs (Sony’s Blu-Ray VIAO solution was just dropped to $749). there is no comparably priced (not even close) solution using Blu-Ray.
As the price of blu-ray players finally drop so will HDDVD players.
It may be to soon to tell and like you I'll buy a console when the prices drop, so who wins to me is irrelevant, but my money is still on HD DVD.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I hope they both fail miserably.
Do I dare ask why?
I'll take a guess a why....
Unhappiness over two competing formats that couldn't get their act together and settle on one standard, which is what would have been best for consumers. If they can't come to agreement and do what is best for us, he doesn't want success for either. Does that about sum it up?
While I understand the arguement somewhat, I still want one, preferably HD-DVD, to come out on top. If they both fail we miss out on a better format. I'd like all CD's to be SACD as well, or some multichannel format, but that didn't work out so well either.
Nope, it's the DRM. HDCP. The bit that the studios can turn on at any time to force you to use HDCP enabled HDMI or it defaults to 540i resolution. I can link articles if you want. It's completely screwing over the consumer in favor of making people pay multiple times for the same content.
AFAIK the XBOX 360 supports DTS for movies. I swear I've done it-all it should be is a pass through to the AVR..
That said, HD-DVD, Blu Ray, it doesn't matter. Want to see the winner in the next round of the format war? Go to your 'on demand' channel. Or go to the movies download section on the XBOX 360 (or the PS3 I guess, haven't tried it). What rhapsody and napster did for music we'll see done for movies. Five years from now we'll have all you can watch subscriptions and it's going to be wonderful.
In the meantime, I pity people that build up a library of HD stuff with either format. This is a transitional technology-the next 'laser disc'.
So if you want HD movies now (the current subscription content is too compressed for my liking) HD DVD is the way I would go to. Paired with netflix it is marginally cheaper than bluray. Of course if a movie you really had to see in HD was only on blu ray...
Oh, and for the subscription model to work, you need DRM. It isn't unreasonable for a content provider to want to protect their rights to distribute their content.
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Nope, it's the DRM. HDCP. The bit that the studios can turn on at any time to force you to use HDCP enabled HDMI or it defaults to 540i resolution. I can link articles if you want. It's completely screwing over the consumer in favor of making people pay multiple times for the same content.
my feelings exactly.
I already forsee inline devices to manipulate this bit, and the inevitable cat and mouse thereafter.
I recently bought PS3, so I now have Blu-Ray. I never owned a game console and I though it was a good time to have one, considering BR capabilities. I agree with another person post in this forum, that video improvements from Standard DVD to HDDVD are not as noticable as from standard TV to HD TV, no doubt. I fact I was very dissappointed with Talladega Nights that it came with, and then Superman Returns. However, much better with All Kings Men and World Trade Center. Netflix is the way to go: why put money on building a movie library that my be obsolate?!! You'd be suprised to learn how many BR titles they have available, and the upgrade is free!
How about the difference between standard TV to DVD or VCR to DVD in comparison to DVD to H-DVD/BR?
Pretty much like the former. Probably is a matter of expectations: first time I had my new HDTV three years ago I was stunned by it.
I have a 360 myself and am going to wait too. One reason is that even though the 360 offers a $200 upgrade, you still have to hook it up to your TV via component and not HDMI which hurts pic quality (IMHO). Also, god forbid they release some HDDVDs that require HDCP. In that case, without an HDMI hookup, that HDDVD drive for the 360 will be no more than a glorified DVD drive because it won't show the movie in HD.
I don't care which one wins, I just want one to so I can go get a unit.
Of course if it's HDDVD and MS gets off their collective arses and figures out an HDMI hookup for the 360, $200 doesn't sound half bad.
Picked up the Toshiba HD-A2 from the local future shop today. Got them to price match Best Buy at $449.99 CDN which I was quite happy with as I also got 3 movies for the price of 2(Boxing week special). Picked up V for Vendetta, Last Samurai and Batman Begins.
While I am impressed with the HD-DVD picture I was even more impressed with the up-conversion of regular DVDs and all I've tried so far for regular dvd are back-up copies. In a word stunning. I can't believe the difference between this and the supposed up converting players. No comparison.
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How about the difference between standard TV to DVD or VCR to DVD in comparison to DVD to H-DVD/BR?
I posted this at the AVS forums.
Moving from SD broadcast television to HD broadcast television I saw a huge improvement. Going from SD DVD to HD DVD I was not as impressed. On a scale of 1 to 10 I would score it as follows:
VHS gets a 1.
SD television (documentaries or movies) gets a 2 or 3.
SD DVD's, assuming a top quality transfer, get a 5 to 6.
HD broadcast tv (not TNT HD movies which suck) like Discovery HD theater, 9
HD-DVD, Batman Begins the only HD-DVD I have so far, 8
HD-DVD Documentary, hopefully a 9+ when they arrive.
I watch on a 106" screen in a dark room with a Sanyo Z4 PJ. Toshiba A2 goes HDMI to my Onkyo 604 and HDMI to the PJ. Comcast cable and Sony DVD player go component to the 604 and component to the PJ.
The question for others and myself is why have I not seen as big a jump in PQ with HD-DVD as I have with HD broadcast? My answers are that going from SD broadcast Discovery channel programming to Discovery HD is moving from about the worst quality image to about the best so of course I'd see a dramatic improvement. I think everyone would agree that SD-DVD's are quite a bit better than SD tv so naturally the move to HD-DVD doesn't have as much room for improvement. Also, documentaries are often shot in HD as opposed to being transferred from film so there is an advantage there as well. Furthermore, movies may be shot for mood and visual effect whereas HD documentaries are all about a big gorgeous image.
The biggest improvement I saw with Batman Begins is in the fine detail, titles and text. Maybe this movie isn't the best exampe? And FWIW, I had both versions playing last night about two minutes apart. I would watch two minutes of the SD version and then two minutes of the HD version.
The guy I bought my A2 from lied and said the three documentary titles I wanted were in stock but of course they didn't ship with my player. So I now wonder if anyone who has a documentary HD-DVD, how does it compare to broadcast HD programming?
I am not disappointed in HD-DVD, I just haven't had the same wow factor I got the first time I saw lions in the Serengeti on my screen and it seemed like they were right there. Maybe part of it is the 16:9 HD signal filling a full 16:9 screen and Batman being 2.35 there is less visual impact with the smaller screen area?
Curious how others would rate the image quality of the different formats.
Greg
I have since learned that Batman Begins is a good HD-DVD movie, but not a great one. Supposedly King Kong and Hulk are quite a bit better than Batman Begins.
I've found in my situation watching on a 42' plasma, that HDDVD is far superior to standard DVD's as well as to broadcasts shown in HD over DirecTv.
I've read before that some people who are using projectors have not felt the benefits of HD vs SD were significantly different.
I've compared King Kong, Polar Express and Corpse Bride from HD DVD to DVD and in each case there is a world of difference, of course there are different qualities of HDDVD as well as standard DVD's, but for the ones I own I would have to rate them visually a 10.
I'm enjoying the hell out of these HD DVD's. I'm shooting them onto a 96" 2.35 screen with a Panny 900.
I've heard, but can't confirm, that HD DVD's really come to life with a 1080P projector or other display device. I'm currently taking the 1080P data and downconverting it to 720P. So I'm guessing that with a 1080P display, the difference between SD and HD dvd's will be similar to SD and HD TV programming.
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I've found in my situation watching on a 42' plasma, that HDDVD is far superior to standard DVD's as well as to broadcasts shown in HD over DirecTv.
I've read before that some people who are using projectors have not felt the benefits of HD vs SD were significantly different.
I've compared King Kong, Polar Express and Corpse Bride from HD DVD to DVD and in each case there is a world of difference, of course there are different qualities of HDDVD as well as standard DVD's, but for the ones I own I would have to rate them visually a 10.
Interesting . . .
I have only seen Comcast's HD signal and I can't imagine seeing anything better. INHD used to have this five minute documentary on Africa and I would swear the screen was the proverbial window looking into the African Savannah. I have not heard many good thing's about Direct TV's HD broadcasting but I have not seen it myself so I can't comment.
I hope I am not limited by my PJ but since I have seen glorious HD programming, I think I'll be okay. Also, Batman isn't the best HD-DVD title as I mentioned. That isn't to say it looks bad or doesn't look a lot better than an SD-DVD, I just didn't get the wow factor I was after.
It would interesting to get together with some folks who have all the iterations of tv signal provider, DLP Rear Projection/LCD/Plasma/Front PJ, HD-DVD, SD-DVD, Blu-Ray and so on and get everyone's opinion on what looks best.
Greg