HD DVD or Blu-ray: My Choice is...?

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MarkyMark
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Wow! Is the

Post by MarkyMark »

I haven
free2speak
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Post by free2speak »

The only down side is the studios are trying to force us to pick one or the other.
stevekaden
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Post by stevekaden »

Answering to the point that generic users don't see the difference - my 85 year old, kinda fuzzy mother did a "holy sh..." when she saw the HD signal on her new LCD tv (and still beat me for spending $2k).

Then again my wife - who buys our TVs - gets pissed if I interrupt a show or game long enough to switch the channel from SD to HD (but is pleasantly quiet with HD on).

In general everyone I have show HD too has been awestruck. You just have to break through the attention barrier long enough to get them to actually notice what they are watching. Life is pretty busy and full of our own orbits. But once we stop to smell the roses (see, listen to HD), it is appreciated.

Thus I think there will be a large surge and appreciation of hd DVD once the TVs are out there and the cost has been absorbed. And once there, price and market penetration (brand identity) will be the key factors. For example the fact (supposedly) that BR discs are 'greener' never gets mentioned. Price/value is always mentioned.

I like HD DVD, but I expect to not care when they are the same value. Just give me more good movies!
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Post by Richard »

It sure sounds like the comparisons you are expressing are SD TV versus HDTV. The point here was SD DVD versus HD disc. I talked to a customer today who had been watching HD at 480p for months, didn't know it, I set it up right, he could not believe it was set wrong and could not tell a difference...

Like so many others he is still all about the noise floor and has yet to see the difference in actual detail. HD at 480p or 1080i is just as clean as the other... so is DVD and that is the potential problem for the mass market - they just might not get it.
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stevekaden
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Post by stevekaden »

I'll let you know how my mother feels about DVD types - she's moving to a new place in a couple of weeks and I've picked her up an HD DVD - she's been watching on a $29 TruTech lately, so at first it won't be a fair comparison. We'll try and figure out a way to test her reactions without her knowing of the changes on the HD player. Of course that will have good upconversion (Tosh HD-A3) skewing the experiment.

I haven't even tried to compare SD/HD to any but one friend, he clearly sees a difference. I do - but not necessarily that magic 5x. Most of the time I just put on the HD disc, and for all the newbies, their jaws drop. Never saw that with SD since the first DVD players.

Appreciating quality is an interesting concept. I mean, we all (mostly) started eating very plain food (peanut butter sandwiches), and then at somepoint, we noticed there were spices. Maybe a better analogy, we all grow up loving (tolerating) coming of age movies, then we see our first indie. All of a sudden we experience what a real story is. And we don't want to go back. A million examples potentially there. I take all this as a personal responsibility to get my friends to see and hear quality. For example, sit someone in the sweetspot, tell them to close their eyes and play a good SACD. They may not go buy it, but they now know what 5.1 can do. Similarly with a good demo movie.

480p from an HD source vs. 1080...I'll have to try that - I might have to agree that with a good scaler on the display, it might be pretty close.

As for BR vs. HD I can't imagine anyone being able to tell the difference given similar setups and similarly mastered dvds. It's all in where your movies are! (and value).
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Post by Richard »

article wrote:The only element left that could have a huge impact on this is the adult video industry, pornography, as Sony has stated they will not provide a Blu-ray license to produce that content just like they did during the Beta versus VHS war.
I wish I would have googled that!

In doing other research I came across another author stating the same and googled porn HD DVD. Porn is alive and kicking for both HD DVD and Blu-ray formats. Please no links :lol: If interested google it!

My apologies to our readers...
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