HD DVD
Jonathan Valin -- Fri, 04/28/2006 - 16:20
Although I've received some advanced copies of HD DVDs as film editor of TPV, I don't have an HD player yet and have no idea how good the discs look and sound. Of course, I can make an educated guess on the basis of cable HD and dish HD.
Have any of you seen the new HD DVDs? Are there winners and losers among them, or are they all ab-fab? And how about the players? Are some better than others? Inquiring minds want to know.
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1999 - 2011 NextScreen. All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
I have seen HD-DVD using the $500 Toshiba model. I must say that in terms of visual benefits, it delivers as advertised. Unfortunately, I wasn't in an environment where I could really play with any of the audio options.
I have made mention elsewhere that I was going to boycott both the new formats. But the player is only $500. But damnit, I am getting tired of format wars. But the player is only $500. But damnit again, I am not all that impressed with the titles being released. Swordfish? League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? But the player is only $500.
Sigh.....maybe I'll buy one if they release Brokeback Mountain in HD-DVD. ;~)
BTW Jonathan, they really should have made History of Violence three seconds longer.
Since I originally started this thread and you posted your reply, Warner has released Goodfellas, Unforgiven, and Full Metal Jacket on HD DVD! That ain't chopped liver, my friend. Although I certainly share your concern about buying into a technology that might be doomed to an early demise, I shore would like to see the aforementioned in HD. Yessir, I shore would.
BTW, I finally did see Brokeback Mountain. Frankly, I don't know what the fuss was about. The principals give terrific performances, but the movie is so fundamentally hackneyed (and so tediously long) that I ended up feeling nothing at all for either of the doomed cowboys. As Michael Sragow said in an intelligent review of BM in the Baltimore Sun, the movie seems to want to have its cake and eat it too—to be both daring and safely big box office. As a result almost all of its daring and better intentions are reduced to (gay) soap opera cliché.
And what’s this about adding three more second to the best movie of last year? Sir, them’s fighting words!
Thanks for jumping on that BM grenade, sir! Based on your critique I am crossing that one off of my list. If you sense I feel a certain degree of relief from doing so, you're absolutely right. (heh heh)
We disagree on the best film for last year, but only by a hair. If, at the end of History, someone uttered the question "Vegetables, Dad?" I would have been happier. But that is the hallmark of good moviemaking.
As for the list of movies that are becoming available on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, things are looking better all of the time. If I were a betting man and someone, somewhere were taking odds, I would say HD-DVD will be the survivor of the two. Why? Because HD-DVD was first out of the gate with a reasonably priced player, and because the manufacturing licensing cost (per unit) is so much lower than Blu-Ray. Sony's lackluster history in format warfare serves to bolster my position. I've dealt with Sony professionally in the past, and I always found the way they choose to do business a little, well, complicated.
I know Blu-Ray offers much more the way of storage capacity. But given my expectations when I put on a movie in the house, the only way I see that extra capacity doing me any good is if they found a way to stuff a kitchen gopher in there that would somehow appear when I put a movie on. This creature could perform kitchen runs while the movie plays, thus enabling me and the missus to watch uninterrupted. Now there's some technology I'd buy into in a heartbeat!
Sorry for the tongue-in-cheek nature of this post. I'm just in a good mood today.
You may be right about HD DVD, although the smart money is on Blu-Ray, not just because of its extra storage capacity (which, I agree, is of dubious value at the moment to movie lovers), but because of the amount of do-re-mi that will be committed to the format by the big computer outfits. If this were just a movie format war, I'd go with HD DVD for the same reasons you mentioned. But this ain't Beta v. VHS revisited. This is likely to be Toshiba versus the world, and Toshiba's gonna lose that one.
Now pass the vegetables, please.
LOL! Good one (on the veggies)!
As for Toshiba vs. The World, I don't know. I may be working with dated information, but I thought HD DVD's supporters included Microsoft, Intel, HP, Warner, Universal and Paramount, not to mention Hitachi, Fuji, NEC and others. Microsoft and HP alone are two very potent forces that could change the dynamics of this horse race.
I suspect that soon there will be a horde of additional manufacturers offering HD DVD players with retail prices that are all over the place. With a per-unit royalty of $12, they'd be fools not to. As the installed base of players grows, you'd then see more studios abandoning their alliances and chasing after the business.
There are obviously some wild cards that could skew this. Apple is one, and the sky is the limit there. The other would be the introduction of a new PlayStation that is so stunningly state of the art that it changed all of the rules of home entertainment (not such an outlandish idea, since that kind of paradigm shift is the driving force behind both PlayStation and X-Box).
Indeed, Microsoft will have a USB outboard HD DVD player for the X-BOX 360 by Christmas. This does even up the playing field quite a bit, although a lot of the other folks you mention are hedging their bets (committing to both formats until they see how the chips fall or the revenue streams flow). Frankly, no matter who "wins" this whole format-war is insane. But that ain't news.
True. So......what kind of player are you going to buy?
Well, that is the question, isn't it?
My situation's complicated but not unique. I use an old-fashioned CRT front projector (a very good one, actually), which means that I need a player that outputs HD via analog outputs (either RGB or component). At the moment, Toshiba’s HD DVD players do that very thing. I'm not sure—and last I heard the Blu-Ray group was unsure—whether Blu-Ray will permit HD via analog outputs. For instance, I believe that the player built into PS3 is HDMI-only (for HD signals), which does me no good at all.
So...I'll probably end up buying one of the Toshiba HD DVD players for practical reasons. (And just pray that no one decides to let those HD analog outputs go dark.)
No, your situation is not that unique at all. I have been tempted from time to time to run out and buy an HD television. It almost happened the other day when my wife and I drew sticks to see who would make a store run. "I'll show her!" I thought as I sped down the road. As fate would have it, I couldn't find a 16:9 42" set that day to save my butt. At least I couldn't find one that I could have instantly loaded into the back of the Blazer.
A better train of thought soon prevailed, and I have pretty much decided that I won't make that upgrade until there is more HD content available through my satellite provider.
I expect I'll buy the Toshiba and use the RGB connections.......right after I have a new kitchen floor installed. Such is the art of domestic negotiations.
The question of whether a HD DVD or Blu-ray player will output high-resolution video from the component-video outputs is determined by the movie studios. There's a flag in the data called the Image Constraint Token that causes the player to down-res HD to SD for output on component video. If the ICT is activated, HD output is available only on HDMI. Fortunately, nearly all the movie studios have announced that they will not activate the ICT, at least for now.
Robert Harley
Editor-in-Chief
The Perfect Vision
The Absolute Sound
Ah! I was under the (obviously mistaken) impression that Blu-ray machines might not even offer component output--i.e., that they would be HDMI-only. This is exceptionally good news for early adopters who have eght- or nine-inch projection CRTs (or any other kind of CRT or flat-screen without HDMI/DVI input).
We have just received the Samsung Blu-ray Disc player for review. Issue 70 of The Perfect Vision includes a complete description of the format as well as a review of the Samsung player and our evaluation of the format overall, including a comparison with HD DVD.
Robert Harley
Editor-in-Chief
The Perfect Vision
The Absolute Sound
For a very insightful commentary on the current state of affairs read the following article:
http://www.projectorcentral.com/blu-ray_2.htm
It makes for interesting reading...
jaco
A lot has gone on since the post was last addressed, and Bruce, Brokeback is out on HD DVD.
I'm still trying to figure out who will win the battle but it seems to me that Sony/ Beta/ new manufacturing needs for Blu Ray disks... makes HD DVD the likely choice. Not to mention that for now, and don't for get the value of your electronics last about 6months, both HD DVD and Blu Ray both have essentially the same movies available.
Hmm
We'll see
DN
Sony E55A20
Denon AVR-2807
Toshiba HD A2
Paradigm Studio 60 v4
3-Monster M1000HDMI-4M
Monster Z1 ML-10/10