Many of you are eagerly anticipating the arrival of HD packaged media. While HD media has been available for purchase in one form or another for many years (D-VHS/D-Theater and WMVHD), HD DVD promises to be the largest distribution to date within months of its release. This article will cover the basics of HD DVD audio and video, gives a brief overview of the two Toshiba models arriving in March, and concludes with a listing of HD DVD movies that will be available upon release (and soon thereafter).

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All very interesting, but of what value are these players to those ofus, for example, with Pioneer Plasmas with nothing but component inputs? Are we just SOL? Itlooks that way. Here I am out front again several years ahead of the pack, and what did it get me?? An obsolete HD monitor. Can you believe that??

But then, I'm gonna boycott all of it until I can download my saved HD programs from my DirecTV TIVO. Enough is enough.

jerfilm wrote:All very interesting, but of what value are these players to those ofus, for example, with Pioneer Plasmas with nothing but component inputs? Are we just SOL? Itlooks that way. Here I am out front again several years ahead of the pack, and what did it get me?? An obsolete HD monitor. Can you believe that??

But then, I'm gonna boycott all of it until I can download my saved HD programs from my DirecTV TIVO. Enough is enough.

I'm with you there, I have a 55" Mits that has only component inputs.

Here's what I would suggest: Don't boycott the hardware, boycott the HD DVD's that have ICT (Image Constraint) enabled. This media is supposed to be conspicuously marked. So just don't buy the media that is restricted, and you'll be able to get the full 1080i out of the players for the rest of the movies. Now which one's those are, I do not know yet.

- Shane

Why is the "HD DVD Tour" listed as "6) San Francisco, CA -- March 1, 2006, Fry's Electronics -- Sunnyvale, CA"?

Sunnyvale is over 30 miles from San Franciso but borders San Jose, the 10th largest city in the United States.

weyoun7 wrote:Why is the "HD DVD Tour" listed as "6) San Francisco, CA -- March 1, 2006, Fry's Electronics -- Sunnyvale, CA"?

Sunnyvale is over 30 miles from San Franciso but borders San Jose, the 10th largest city in the United States.

Good question. Perhaps folks are more familiar with the whereabouts of San Francisco than of San Jose? Just guessing.

- Shane

Hi,

I'm in the same boat as the rest of the early adopters with regard to video inputs but even if I wasn't I probably will only invest in the pc writable drives for their volume capacity.

In a recent AV Mag I read that they took a bunch of people off the street shoed them a scaled to 1080i standard dvd and one in the new format. From a PQ standpoint they apparantly couldn't tell the difference.

I've been scaling my dvds for 4 years and have A/B'd the reults with recorded HD from cable on an SA8300hd decoder/pvr. The HD picture was only marginally better on my ISF'd (tweaked twice yearly) 65" CRT Tosh 65H80 (reflective screen removed) RPTV.

I am however excited about the new audio formats on these discs and hope that even if my picture is dnrezed I will be permitted (have the equipment) to decode the DD and DTS lossless 7 or 7.1 audio tracs.

In fact if these discs allow the ripping off the audio, I might create my own versions.

I have over 300 DVD-A/SACD discs (thank goodness most of my favorites are already available) so aside from The Beatles I'm covered.

I can understand why everyone is focused on picture quality because IMHO the movie industry can't seem to make movies with good stories anymore or at least their too few to mention.

HD DVD & BLU-RAY are dead now except as writable..

I might be able to get exited about 3D though.

The side of the industry that should grow well is the audio. Many of the early adopters who bought HTIB's with their HD displays (cause there was no money left) are now saying, the picture is great its time to invest in better sound.

Peter M.