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Author
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Topic: Anyone consuming HD or Blu-ray?
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 02-08-2007 01:28 PM
This is what I get for not wandering into The Afterlife often enough... ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Last summer, I was prepared to sit the format war out. I was happy with my front projection system and my HD-TiVo, as my projector is pretty good at upsampling DVD's. I had HBO-HD for a little while, but now I've just got the standard DirecTV HD package (so for movies, I've got HDNet Movies channel). No need to hurry into this format war the studios have decided to wage on consumers, for fear of being on the wrong side of a losing battle, right?
Then, I started to do some more research. As a home theater hobbyist, a technology person in general, and a big movie fan, I couldn't stay away from reading about it at the very least.
The picture quality is the easy thing to talk about because it's simpler to understand and easy to see a good picture. If you're accustomed to watching HD, whether over the air broadcasts of football games, etc. or DirecTV's "HD lite," you know the difference between upsampled DVD and HD quality. The difference in picture quality isn't night and day when going from SD to HD, but when you're used to HD, SD isn't good enough.
Reading about the audio specs got me very interested. I liked the idea that the new formats were going to bring more capability to movies, approaching or exceeding the quality of SACD and DVD-Audio. Right around the end of September or so, Toshiba upgraded the firmware on their first generation units to support multi-channel Dolby TrueHD soundtracks. This update could be done via the internet-connected ethernet jack.
I bought a Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD player at the end of September. My first HD DVD movie was Batman Begins, and it was pretty impressive! In addition to the picture quality and the audio quality, HD DVD provides for some very interesting additional content, such as a true picture-in-picture running commentary and a few things I still haven't fully explored yet.
My primary rationalization for buying the player was that it was a good price (less than $400), I wanted to get a second DVD player for the room anyway, and if I kept to renting discs instead of buying them, I'd lower my exposure in the case that HD DVD didn't win the war.
Now, four months later, I don't regret the decision at all. I'm still working on configuring the sound to get the best possible from it with my receiver, but the PQ is incredible. Up until a couple of weeks ago, Batman Begins was the only HD DVD I owned, keeping to my original thought of renting everything from Netflix. I decided that there were a couple of discs that I'd like to have around as demo material, so I picked up King Kong and The Bourne Supremacy on sale.
Based on the reports from CES, and Universal's staunch refusal to support Blu-ray, I've got a feeling that we'll never see a clear winner in this war. Rather than a VHS vs. Beta situation, or even a SACD vs. DVD-Audio situation, I think we'll have a DVD-R vs. DVD+R situation. Both formats will continue to be produced and supported by the various companies involved. There are big guns on both sides, and neither is showing any signs of faltering.
Rather than sit on the sidelines, I picked a side from which to watch and enjoy movies. If the prices of the Blu-ray hardware comes down to a reasonable level, and they produce a player that's able to support the features the format is capable of, all it will take is for the movies that I really want to see to be released only on Blu-ray for me to start looking at Blu-ray players seriously.
If a person is happy with DVD, that's great. When I first got my projector, I was happy with SD DirecTV. My eyes hadn't become accustomed to what better content would look like. Once I spent a couple of months watching HD, SD was no longer acceptable. DVD's are still acceptable, but HD DVD is my preferred movie watching format.
I'm watching Casablanca, and I'm amazed at the clarity of a movie that was made so many years ago. Same goes for The Searchers. These movies actually are more impressive to look at in some ways than new movies like MI:3.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 02-11-2007 04:23 AM
quote: Sam Graham
Warner has come up with another solution...dual format discs.
The new discs, called "THD" ("Total Hi Def") are two-sided dual-layer discs that have HD-DVD on one side and Blu-ray on the other.
Wrong solution. It will increase the price of every disc you buy, and whichever format of player you have will offer you no benefit over a single format disc. In contrast a dual format player, actually quad format since presumably it will play standard DVDs and CDs as well, would be more expensive, but the cost difference should be fairly small, since most of the components of the player would be common to both formats, and this would be a one-off additional cost. Also, you would actually gain some benefit from the extra cost, in that you would be able to play an additional format of disc.
For the shops there would be some benefit in the dual format discs, as they would only have to stock one HD format, and since the price would be higher they would make more profit (assuming that their percentage of profit was constant, and the higher price of the discs did not reduce sales).
When I was in Birmingham two weeks ago I looked in HMV; they now have a few more titles in stock, maybe twenty in each format. I've never seen a player for either format, though HD-ready televisions are now becoming quite common in the shops. I've not seen a computer drive for either format; SVP have no readers for either format, and none of my computer equipment supports HDCP. I think I'll wait. They do offer two models of Blu-Ray writer, but they're about 500 pounds.
HMV now stock a large range of films on some format that I've never seen before; I can't remember the name, but it's packaged in a similar case to a DVD, but smaller, and I think it said it's for a PSP, whatever that is. Does anyone know what this is? Yet another disc format, or some sort of solid state memory device? Quite a few people were buying these, while nobody was buying HD discs; I can't see HMV wanting to devote more space to HD at the moment.
A year or so ago there were a few titles available on SD-ROM cards, for playing in mobile 'phones (what's the point?) but I've heard nothing more about them.
DVD-Audio seems to be another format that's died; I wish I'd bought one when they were in the shops.
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 02-17-2007 09:37 PM
quote: Joe Redifer
I am tempted to get the $200 HD-DVD attachment for the Xbox360, but I can't quite seem to make myself take the plunge. Maybe it is because it comes with King Kong, and I wish for nobody to die more than Jack Black.
Joe,
There are two things that you can take heart in if you take the plunge.
- King Kong is a really good demo disc. Just skip to all the scenes with Kong and Naomi Watts in them. The scene in New York when she walks up to him on the street is a fabulous demo of the HD format.
- You can sell the disc outright on eBay for close to the $22 retail I got mine for. Keep it in the wrapper, and you'll get at least $17-20 for it. Open it, and you can get $12-15.
In regards to the format war becoming a stalemate, I think that is the case. Unless Universal backs away from its refusal to support Blu-ray, those who purchase only one format's player will be missing out on a good chunk of movies.
I would be interested in buying a Blu-ray player, but not the crippled models that are out there now, and certainly not at the prices that they're going for.
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