GMohr wrote:I have both, BluRay and HD DVD.. by and far we chose HD DVD 90% of the time. I have been an HD DVD early adopter for over a year. I have the HD-A1 and it still performs
flawlessly. We also have a PS3 for the BRD it works fine. We recently picked up the A30 and we have compared BRD and HD DVD side by side.
HD DVD wins out every time. But the key to all of this is which is easier for my wife to use. 100% of the time it is the Toshiba's and I believe
that is what Shane's article was about. Which is easier for the consumer to use. For MY family it is the HD DVD players.
Gene, can you elaborae somewhat on your statement that you have compared BRD and HD DVD "side by side" and the "HD DVD wins out every time"?
You follow that by indicating that the HD DVD stand alone players are easier for your wife to use than the PS3. I would expect this, since the PS3 is a gaming console with the ability to also play HD media. Is that what you mean by HD DVD wins out, or is it some other aspect?
It would also be more informational if you could indicate the setup you are using to display this content and the audio equipment used to listen to it.
I'm not trying to argue with you, I'm just trying to understand the comparisons you are making. Personally I think that some of the "advantages" that Blu-ray holds is somewhat theoretical and may not be apparent in actual use. I also think that studios that produce on both formats are going to release to the lowest common denominator as far as video and audio bitrates go, so again Blu-ray would not show any gains, even though they might be achievable.
It also seems to me that unless you have display equipment that is capable of really large screen size and is also capable of 1080p/24 native display, you likely could not see any appreciable difference between the formats. This is currently a very small percentage of HDTV setups and may not be relevant to the majority of buyers today, but for those of us considering just such a setup, an actual end user comparison would be valuable.
I'm only looking for answers... I'm not trying dispell your observations, I would just like more background information so that I can evaluate your comments more accurately.
aaronstout wrote:
Gene, can you elaborae somewhat on your statement that you have compared BRD and HD DVD "side by side" and the "HD DVD wins out every time"?
Aaron, this is based on our movie watching tastes and using Netflix to rent movies on both formats on the same system. The quality of the HD DVD picture and sound through our system(will list below) exceed our expectations. With the hype that BluRay standards pushed(and have yet to meet) we expected more.
You follow that by indicating that the HD DVD stand alone players are easier for your wife to use than the PS3. I would expect this, since the PS3 is a gaming console with the ability to also play HD media. Is that what you mean by HD DVD wins out, or is it some other aspect?
Aaron, to some aspect yes. We did own a Samsung player and the PQ/audio just was never right. Our Toshiba has always been perfect. We have not experienced any problems at all. We have never had a disk not play, unlike the Samsung or PS3 and BRD. My wife wants to put a disk in and have it play.. she doesn't want the have to use the controlleror Bluetooth remote(I have the PS3 remote but she likes the 880 universal) to operate the system. Again, the wife liking and finding it easy to use makes my life more enjoyable... if you get what I mean.
It would also be more informational if you could indicate the setup you are using to display this content and the audio equipment used to listen to it.
This is a long list: Living Room(where testing occured)Toshiba HD-A1; PS3. Sony Wega III 50" LCD; Pioneer Elite VSX-74TXVi; Klipsch Quintet III and an RW-10d ; Harmony 880 Remote,
Sun room: Sony Bravia 40"LCD, Toshiba HD-A30, PS3, XBox 360, Pioneer VSX-1015TXK receiver, Bose AM-10(from a previous set up)
Not the most elaborate set ups, but chosen for the rooms they inhabit.
I'm not trying to argue with you, I'm just trying to understand the comparisons you are making. Personally I think that some of the "advantages" that Blu-ray holds is somewhat theoretical and may not be apparent in actual use. I also think that studios that produce on both formats are going to release to the lowest common denominator as far as video and audio bitrates go, so again Blu-ray would not show any gains, even though they might be achievable.
It also seems to me that unless you have display equipment that is capable of really large screen size and is also capable of 1080p/24 native display, you likely could not see any appreciable difference between the formats. This is currently a very small percentage of HDTV setups and may not be relevant to the majority of buyers today, but for those of us considering just such a setup, an actual end user comparison would be valuable.
I would agree with you 100% here, and I can only tell you what my eyes and ears see and hear from my systems.. everything is variable.
I'm only looking for answers... I'm not trying dispell your observations, I would just like more background information so that I can evaluate your comments more accurately.
Thanks,
AaronS
No problem. Again I was offering my observances and what my family and I have found for us. If I had $50K-$60K to spend on a theater room my choice might be different. But in my house and the rooms that these are in, we have found what works, sounds and appears best to us.
Best of luck choosing.. it is a fun ride and I am enjoying every minute of it.
Thanks for that tip. However, I went to Amazon.com and read the reviews of Studio 11 Ultimate and it looks like about 4 out of 5 are adamant that it's horrible and you shouldn't buy it - no customer support - no nothing. Crahes, hang ups, etc. But I'm wondering about one thing - many of the complainers said they had Dell computers and I'm wondering if there is any correlation....???
rtywonia wrote:I have both a first generation blu ray player and an hddvd player. I say a prayer every time I load an hddvd and I would never have movie night for an hddvd title with my friends. They are just to unreliable. BTW - I stopped sending in my error reports to Netflix because all they would do was send me another disc that does not work.
That actually follows my own experience having a PS3 and HD-A1. The 5th movie that the HD DVD player froze up on was it for my family (the HD-A1 is a torture test in patience to reboot) and we have been choosing Blu-ray since with no problems. I wrote the HD-A1 off more to being a 1st gen player and hope my new HD-A30 does not have these problems (your comments not giving me much hope). Also note the new firmware upgrades for the Toshiba players state an improvement with this problem...
The only HD DVD discs that I NEVER had a problem with were ones I bought. HD DVD rentals were terrible while Blu-ray rentals never had a problem (99% of rentals from Netflix, the rest from the local BlockBuster). The Blu-ray discs also looked clean with no scratches while the HD DVD ones were always filthy and scratched up. Due to the problems I started cleaning them before watching and while that helped some it none the less happened again and that was it for the HD-A1 and HD DVD unless the movie was not available in Blu-ray.
I've been a Netflix member for about 7 years. I started receiving HD DVDs this summer, and have not had a problem playing a single one (probably 20 in total) on my 360 add-on. I do recall one disc that actually had a crack running through it, but don't recall if it was HD DVD or standard.
YMMV,
- Shane
Publisher, HDTV Magazine Your Guide to High Definition Television
jerfilm wrote:
PS: And just to complicate this scenario a bit more, my "theater" is an early Pioneer 50" plasma that I see no reason to give up. Except for one HUGE problem - no HDMI inputs and only one component video input. Any ideas around that problem would be welcomed too......
It's not cheap but the box at this link will convert HDMI to Component.
So far, my PS3 wins that contest hands down. I can quickly and easily check to see if an update is available and even when I don't, the system automatically installs it for me. (This is not necessarily good, as I'd prefer to wait a week or two to see what the update accidentally breaks).
With the Toshiba A2 HD-DVD I need to find my system rev, go to the Toshiba site to see if it's current, then wait 20 minutes or so when a download installs, if it's even needed. I've not tried simply doing an update without checking first so I don't know what would happen if I did. However, without something like the PS3 check that tells me whether the software is up to date I don't feel comfortable trying to install a software release over itself. If nothing else, Toshiba should let me put my name on an email list to be notified when an update is available.
If anyone knows more about email notification from Toshiba or whether it's save to do an A-2 upgrade without going to the Toshiba site first, I'd appreciate knowing about it.
I have had both, B&H. I returned BD because the load time was in Rip Van Winkle years. The "capability" or lack there of, was not clear to me. No DTS-HD, No interactivity on all machines. And BluRay doesn't have the sense to keep their product consistent (Some players won't play all BD movies?). My H20 loads relatively fast for a computer. It plays all the movies that blockbuster sends me and upconverts very well. They only complaint I have is that it doesn't seem to upconvert TV shows as well. Most of all they keep their product consistent. Too many times the electronics community keeps new technology dangling in front of our noses like a carrot, leading us to buy when the technology isn't even supported (HDMI 1.3, True Color,DolbyHD). HDDVD products state what they can do and they do what they state. I am a 45yr. old woman, who does all the research and does all the shopping. Manufacturers Beware: Do not misrepresent your product to a woman during the holiday season. We don't forget.
All in all I agree with that article, however I do believe that more players than just the PS3 and the one Samsung player that was mentioned have the ability to download firmware upgrades via ethernet as opposed to burning a disc. I have a slightly older Samsung model (BD-P1200) and it also utilizes this feature.
However, all in all I must say that I prefer HD-DVD to Blu-Ray.
Let me tell you my little story.
I actually received my Blu-Ray player for free as an award where I work back around the end of June of this year. My wife and I had just gotten an HDTV back in January, and I was curious about the Hi-Def formats, but really didn't want to invest a lot of money into hardware, esspecially if I end up picking the wrong one.
The first two movies we got were Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2. The movies, themselves, played fine and looked great for the most part. But there were issues getting the interactive games to work correctly, plus every once in a while there were some playback issues (Mainly the picture would look weird and jittery, but then if I turned the player off for a while and back on again, it would look fine... so I'm not sure what that was all about).
In the mean time, I bought a few other movies that all played fine. Anyway, I don't personally have Hi-Speed internet yet (I know, I'm way behind the times on that one), and I knew there was newer firmware that would resolve some of the issues with the Pirates movies.
So, I downloaded the file onto my computer via my dial-up internet, and burned it to a disc. I followed the instructions to a T. However, the disc basically ended up "bricking" my machine. I followe the instructions, but what should have been a 10-minute update just never seemed to stop after a couple of hours, so I ended up having to turn off the machine, and when doing so in the middle of a firmware upgrade, that can be bad (I wouldn't have done it, but it was frozen and it wasn't responding to any commands from the remote or buttons on the unit).
Luckily it was under manufacturer warranty, but it ended up costing me over $20 to ship it to Samsung (part of that cost was insurance on the machine) because they wouldn't cover the cost to ship it to them. It took probably a good three weeks or so before I got my player back. I requested in the letter that I sent with the machine that I would like to have them update the firmware while they repair it, which they did.
After that fiasco, my opinion of Blu-Ray was reduced some. I had read similar info about the benefits of HD-DVD that are presented in this article, which was making it look more tempting. Though, back during this past summer, things were looking all doom and gloom for HD-DVD. But then the Paramount announcement happened, and players started becoming available in the $200 range, so the temptation was there.
Then I started doing a bunch of overtime at work, and got some extra money, and bought a player from Amazon for $227 (which seemed like a great deal at the time, though a good couple weeks later was the stinking $99 sale, but considering that I paid just over $200 in total for HD hardware, it didn't seem so bad).
So anyway, a buddy of mine that I work with had gotten a PS3 earlier in the year, and had just gotten the same HD-A2 player about a week or two before I did.
It was around this time that the Fox BD discs with the new BD+ copy protection came out, requiring firmware updates. He had to upgrade his PS3 firmware for the disc to work.
He offered to let me come over and update my firmware at his place via ethernet to avoid the same disc problems I had before. I brought my HD-A2 along as well, since even though I didn't "need" to upgrade the firmware, it would be nice to have the latest version anyway.
So, we updated the Blu-Ray player. At this point I didn't have any discs with BD+, but he had bought one, so we tested it out. The load time was aweful, but it worked. I didn't specifically notice a huge difference in the HD-A2 performance, but it wasn't like I was having any problems with it either.
Fast forward to the past few days. To date, I have about 5 HD-DVDs that I've tried (I just got the Oceans movies last night, but haven't tried them yet), and have not had any playback issues.
However, the other day I received my order for Live Free or Die Hard on Blu-Ray, and let me tell you, that didn't go so well.
I pop the disc into the machine, it goes through the loading screens (this is a Fox disc mind you, so I was expecting the extra BD+ loading), but then I just get a blank black-colored screen, and the words "Slideshow" are scrolling across the display of the player. I was annoyed, but thought maybe I didn't have the latest firmware.
I went over to my aunt's house who just got DSL a few days earlier (I actually helped her hook it up) to check for newer firmware. Nope, I have the latest firmware.
After a lot of guessing, checking, testing, annoyance, swearing, and overall frustration, I did find a way to get the disc to work. If I put in another Blu-Ray disc and played that movie for a few seconds, stopped it, then put in the new Die Hard film, it would load up correctly. Don't ask me why, but it just did.
I looked up some info on the internet later on, and found a thread on AVS forums with people having similar problems (apparently there were some other players effected too, but there were many people with the same model player as me with the exact same problem). Apparently some have contacted Samsung and a new firmware upgrade will be made available to fix this issue down the road. But it's still annoying.
This has more or less sealed the deal for me.... I much prefer HD-DVD.
I admit, the HD-A2 player has it's quirks. The disc tray takes forever to open when trying to open it after first turning on the machine. And chapter skipping on it isn't as 'smooth' as on my Blu-Ray player. But currently I only own a handful of movies on each format, and have already had to upgrade firmware a couple of times to get movies to work right on Blu-Ray (and even that didn't stop this recent Die Hard problem), while not having any playback issues on HD-DVD.
Also, in general, in reading and researching info on the internet, while both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players have had numerous firmware upgrades, in general it seems more like HD-DVD upgrades improve player performance, and often make things look and sound a little nicer than they do already. But even if you don't download them, you'll still be able to watch the movie and still get a really good picture and sound quality.
With Blu-Ray, it seems like more often than not, firmware upgrades are required just to get newer discs to play at all. This is not consumer friendly. This certainly will not appeal to most average-joe consumers.
If I didn't get my player for free, I would be really mad and feel VERY ripped off on my purchase if I had paid money for it.
It seems like most people (not all, but most) who are posting here and saying they've had better experiences with Blu-Ray over HD-DVD are using a PS3 as their Blu-Ray player. And there's nothing really wrong with that. From most all accounts I've heard, when comparing all pros vs. cons, the PS3 is the most reliable, least glitchy, and most future-standard-proof machine for playing Blu-Ray movies on the market. I may even consider getting one down the road if I continue having issues with my current player.
But when a gaming system that happens to play these movies as a secondary function can do so in such a better manner and much more reliably than most other players on the market that play these movies as a primary function, it really doesn't say much for the format as a whole.
We are talking about 2 formats that can do essentially the same thing, but one has a better standard than the other, thus making it more consumer friendly and reliable. It's not really that hard of a choice. This article makes a lot of great points, and I agree with many of them. I started out being very "ra-ra" over Blu-Ray when I first got the machine, but over time, my preference has swayed quite a bit over to the other side.
