What is your "High Definition DVD" position?

[Shane]

And to each his own.

Keep in mind that these packaged formats (HD DVD and Blu-ray) can contain about twice as much video information than anything send over cable, satellite, or air ... not to mention the audio advantages.

But if you see no difference and hear no difference, don't spend the money just because others insist it's better.

- Shane

[rod mitchell]

YOU MISSED MY POINT ENTIRELY. THE WHOLE IDEA OF HIGH TECHNOLOGY IS IS TO GIVE A PERSON THE BEST POSSIBLE EXPERIENCE WHETHER IT'S VIDEO,SOUND,PHOTOGRAPHY,ET AL. WHERE'S THE INTEREST IN PROGRAM CONTENT?

[HD Library]

Hi Rod,

Could you please post your messages in the correct case. Upper case is considered shouting.

Thanks

[Shane]

Perhaps you could clarify your point.

I read your post to mean that you didn't need HD DVD or Blu-ray to satisfy your taste for high definition. But your saying instead that your point is that you don't like any of the content on HD DVD and Blu-ray?

If so, again I say "to each his own". I, personally, think there are some great films in both of those formats. But if you don't agree, don't let me (or anyone else) convince you to spend your money on them.

- Shane

[Rodolfo]

Shane,

You question was:

"What factors are weighing in your decision?"


Blu-ray. 24fps on 1080p. Quality recognizion and tendency.



Although HD DVD is reading from the disc film content as 24fps, it is not outputting it that way, not even on their second-generation players.

Toshiba's decision of not including such feature on the 2nd players was even taken after Blu-ray came out with specs and players with such feature (Sony, Elite), bragging about it because of it importance for film content (and to suitable displays).

Even then, HD DVD ignored the feature on 2nd generation players (one is out, one is coming out in a a few months). So they have a plan, and quality is not within it, and that suggests for the possible shortcuts they could have implemented across the player to make it sellable fast to mass market (and that is an assumption, but with valid logic).

They chose volume and ignored a quality feature as the tool to establish their format. I would suspect that they would eventually incorporate that feature, but I am not one of those consumers that keep changing their model every few months with a smile on my face and my pocket open.

I open my pocket to quality, not planned obsolescense.

Since most TVs accept 1080i or 1080p only as 60fps, this feature would not be as important as it is for front projectors and some new displays that can process the 24fps into multiples of it for a clean artifact-free display, instead of converting it to 60i and later to 60p, the interlaced world of video.

Even Toshiba is promoting the 120Hz panels now (5 times 24fps), so it is not even consistent with their panel plans.

I have tested the 3 versions of it (1080i, 1080p60fps, and 1080p24fps) with film content and there is a clear difference between them, easier to recognize in large screens, and it is detectable in casual viewing not just in a lab.

Because most of the TV consumer market does not have a way to handle 24fps without conversions I find the HD DVD market putting its bets in the mass consumer and the logic of "keep on upgrading to my next model".

The pre-recorded hi-def media was waited for long by high quality HT enthusiasts, and those would rather take the 24fps feature, and those would most probably be the early adopters paying first the high prices ($1000+) so a format can be established and the R&D bills can be paid for newer and better models.

However, now that Toshiba has apparently stop the heavy subsidizing on their stand alone players to kill the price, and has come out with a player with the $1000 mark as Blu-ray, it is showing the real price of this technology, but unfortunately, even at the high price, Toshiba still ignores the quality 1080p24fps feature. And the true war begins, a war of quality without free lunches.

I am not including the video game consoles on these comments because both formats have killed the prices to compete in that world; this is about stand-alone players.

If you have a front projector, a large screen, and a quality HT that handles 1080p 24fps properly, you owe it to yourself.

If you do not, or you are not having a scaler dealing with 24fps at higher quality processing than the player, you probably would never notice a difference and might ignore my comments in making your selection based on that feature.


Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra

[oldGuy]

Made the entry into HD with the XBox 360 HD-DVD add on, very satisfied. Nominal investment and the HD-DVD quality is amazing, will eventually upgrade to a stand alone player, in the meantime this does the trick.

[rpeckrpeck]

Amen to that statement. A few years ago when I saw all the changes
coming I dropped $6k on my 58" Pioneer Elite rptv and haven't regretted
it for a moment. Many of the new sets are brighter (especially
since I need my lenses cleaned but none give as film-like a picture
yet.

Waiting out the format whole war. The next step will be a laser-illuminated
FP for a 100-120" or so display on a perforated screen, in 1-2 years. The
Pioneer and the 1080i stuff I have capped right now will tide me over
although I am tempted to get an xBox HD-DVD drive for $200 to hook
up to a PC to get access to Netflix's library of HD-DVD stuff.

Thank goodness for my IO-Data Linkplayer, which although imperfect
does open up a huge variety of material.

[rfowkes]

Excellent response, Rodolfo! I agree with all of the items you mentioned. I have both formats at my disposal and when I get my new projector (most likely a JVC DLA-RS-1 at this point) I will be playing closer attention to the 24fps side of things. My HP MD5880n supports 24fps but it isn't clear whether this is a straight through support or one that uses a 60fps intermediary. I have a first generation Toshiba XA-1 (absolutely abominable regarding operating speed and user interface) and an HD-DVD add-on to my XBox 360. At least the XA-1 has HDMI output so that I can enjoy HD audio. My current Blu-ray player is a PS3 which does a much better job as a player than I thought it would. Its HDMI 1.3 output has been able to pass all the current HD Audio codecs to my HDMI 1.1 capable Denon 3806 receiver (used as a pre-pro).

That brings me to another point about HD media which seems to be overlooked by many - the quality of the HD Audio codecs! Both formats support uncompressed audio and if your audio system is up to it then there is a HUGE difference in the sound quality of 5-7Mbps bitrates provided by the HD audio codecs and the 192-640Kbps found on "normal 5.1 sources. Even if there are some arguments regarding the difference between Upscaled SD and HD video there is no comparison at all between SD audio and HD audio. It is a tremendous step forward in audio. Unfortunately, we seem to live in a world where 192kbps iPod Tunes are considered to be high fidelity!

[HiTekRedNek]

I will stick with my up-conversion DVD-R until either the price of a Hi-Def player that can play both formats are reasonable, or one of the formats win out like the Beta-VHS wars of the 80's and that player's price is reasonable. I have not seen that much difference between what I have and what the new technology bring to spend the kind of money it takes to get both formats.

[aaronstout]

I think I agree with Rodolfo's position, but I would like to point out that Blu-ray also is not quite complete feature wise, so that is why I am delaying my purchase until this fall when at least v1.1 will be mandatory.

I do feel Blu-ray is going to be the "final" format and it surprises me to see the one reply about how much better HD DVD looks compared to Blu-ray. Seeing the date of the post, I will only assume that he was observing what I have read was rather poor quality transfers on some of the early Blu-ray disks. That was a very dissappointing thing to have happen and I can't for the life of me understand why they would be careless in the early transfers. Too much is at stake to take a careless approach in this endeavor.

I would be interested to see if he still feels the same way after seeing some of the newer Blu-ray releases?

AaronS