HD DVD and Blu-ray seems like a "transitional" format.

[Bluesmoke]

I'm not J6P, but when it comes to HD, I am. I don't have a lot of experience in HD. I do have a PS3 and bought a few Blu-ray movies. I just bought a HD DVD player (HDA2) that I plan on returning.

Here's my verdict: I'm more impressed with the audio than the video on both formats. Yes. the picture looks good and sharp, but when I popped in Gladiator in my PS3, upscaled to 1080p, it looked really good. Not HD, but I didn't go "Yuck" like I did with VHS vs DVD. To me, it was "more than good enough". As someone who is still pretty relatively new to the home theater experience (started in Feb 06), I'm just not all that impressed by the jump. I'll explain my reasons why.

1. Aside from the PS3, all the HD players are slow. If you're trying to impress me, then load it quick and without hickups. 1st impressions count in everything, even in HT. J6P can buy his $199 HD DVD player and get pissed off by the 1min loading time.

2. Deliver the promised specs and a polished product. When I play the discs the HD DVD player came with, I see ads of "Lossless 7.1 audio." Where is it? I have a 7.1 system. Blu-ray doesn't have finalized specs either. Lossless audio cannot be passed at the moment even though HDMI 1.3 receivers have been out for 4 months already. I don't want to be doing firmware updates. Neither does the average Joe.

3. It looks like DVD. Sorry if I'm reaching here, but when I first heard about HD DVD and Blu-ray, I thought they were a mini-dvd type of format that could hold a lot of data. But these discs now are the same size and shape as DVDs. 1st impressions again. If these discs were small or a different shape that differentiated them from your traditional DVDs, that would be a good selling point. I'd say it's pretty accurate that people's perception of a futuristic disc is small (think Demolition Man movie), etc.

To me, it seems like both of these formats are fighting to be the next Laserdisc. They have some advantages over DVDs, but it's more of a small evolution than the massive revolution that we saw with DVDs.

I'd like to see multiple lossless tracks in various languages, a lot of interactive stuff, and a disc that is small. HD DVD looks maxed out with its measly 30gb. Who knows if that 51gb disc will be out. Blu-ray has a nice 50gb disc that can accomodate a lot of stuff, but it's not really a big enough jump that makes me say: "Yup, I can see why Blu-ray's 20gb advantage makes this movie look better." Either way, both are already feeling outdated. They are both 8 bit color formats, when there's already 36bit deep color tvs coming out, and possibly with more resolution in the next few years. I can't shake the feeling that these 2 formats came out a bit too quick.

I want to see a disc that can do this:

1. 8cm disc or a different shape that can hold 100gb+
2. Multiple master audio tracks. With the ability to download custom audio tracks and extras.
3. 36bit Deep color native.
4. 1920x1080p initially with the possibility to encode multiple times its resolution.

 

[scottyg]

I would say 6 times clearer than a regular dvd is a big improvement....is your tv calibrated properly ? I have owned an upscale dvd player for quite sometime and would have to say it doesnt even come close to looking as good as an hd disc....but if it is good enough for you and you want to save some bucks...great..in the end an upscaled dvd cannot compete with any hd dvd

 

[The Dukester]

What size screen are you watching and from what distance? 1080p content will make a huge difference on a native 1080p projector with a 110" screen from 1.5 x screen width viewing distance, but not on a 46-50" display from 12'.

 

[mike c]

What size screen are you watching and from what distance? 1080p content will make a huge difference on a native 1080p projector with a 110" screen from 1.5 x screen width viewing distance, but not on a 46-50" display from 12'.

what he said.

 

[Bluesmoke]

92" from 10 feet. Like I said, the HD formats look really good, but I'm more impressed with the sound than the video. Watching DVD after watching HD is fine to me since my PS3 does an amazing job at upconverting. And I can live without HD until this stupid war is over, or there's a newer, better format.

It looks like both formats have compromises. HD DVD, I just found out can't do branching because its bandwidth is limited. My T2 ultimate DVD does it flawlessly and that came out nearly 10 years ago. Transformers is coming out without True HD. Wha!! Things like Picture in Picture can't be done on Blu-ray at the moment. It's a mess.

In the end, I just can't shake off the feeling that sooner or later, both Toshiba and Sony will see their formats as lame ducks and just shake their hands and introduce a true successor to DVD, with a multi-layer mini disc that reads faster than DVDs and opens up a new level of interactivity that gets the consumer excited.

 

[mike c]

you are much closer than I am ... mine is 108" at 13 feet

what's your projector?

 

[Joe Schmoe]

I have never gone "yuck" to standard DVD. It looks very good to me (and was a night and day improvement over VHS.) HD and Blu Ray are not fixing something flawed, but merely adding a bit of polish to something that is already excellent.

 

[Alamar]

I've never said "yuck" myself to a reference quality DVD. I have said yuck a lot of times on poor / sloppy jobs done with certain DVDs.

I would hope that with a better choice of codecs and 3-4 times more bitrate allowed that even a mediocre HD source should be noticeably better than a mediocre DVD.

Oddly I would suspect that the biggest difference in quality you'd see would be between the mediocre HD & mediocre DVD simply because the reference quality material will have many of the problems smoothed over while the really cruddy stuff is going to look cruddy no matter what.

 

[mtrycrafts]

All formats are transitional So are we.

 

[j_garcia]

I'm more impressed with the video than the sound, but the video quality varies greatly from disc to disc and is entirely dependent on the specific movie. I never thought SD DVD didn't look great until I went back to watching a few after Blu-ray. It isn't like watching SDTV broadcast, but it is noticeable.

Media will go away, so there will be no format winner....

If that technology that IBM is developing actually works, that will allow hundreds of times more storage with existing technologies, physical media as we know it will surely disappear and you will carry around an iPod size device that can hold every movie or song ever made.

All formats are transitional So are we.

Nothing could be more true

 

[GlocksRock]

both video and audio quality will vary from disc to disc on HD formats just as it does with regular DVD.

 

[jliedeka]

All formats are transitional So are we.

Check out the philosopher.

Ted Theodore Logan: All we are is dust in the wind.
Socrates: Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.

 

[MDS]

Check out the philosopher.

Ted Theodore Logan: All we are is dust in the wind.
Socrates: Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.

Correction: Socrates Johnson.

 

[mtrycrafts]

both video and audio quality will vary from disc to disc on HD formats just as it does with regular DVD.

Yes, of course; blu-ray is perfect and doesn't suffer these vagaries, right?

 

[mtrycrafts]

Check out the philosopher.

Far from it Just a simple response. I get a headache thinking philosophy

 

[mpompey]

6 times clearer than what? That is a selling point of the technology and not necessarily the transfer of the film. Remember when CDs first came out, many of those first generation discs (I still have a couple) sounded terrible. But that wasn't due to the technology, but rather the mixing. A properly mixed CD sounds better than vinyl. (I know bring on the flamer war) Don't you remember all the stuff that SD DVDs were supposed to do that never really materialized. Multiple angles is one thing that comes to mind.

I hear all this stuff about 6x times clearer, lossless sound. Most people cannot tell the difference in a sound with sample rates from 96 KHz to 192 KHz. So the 7.1 lossless is not going to be that impressive. Especially if the source material was recorded poorly.

If these two formats actually survive and don't become total niche products, many people are not going to be wowed as much as advertisers like them to believe.

 

[mtrycrafts]

6 times clearer than what? That is a selling point of the technology and not necessarily the transfer of the film. Remember when CDs first came out, many of those first generation discs (I still have a couple) sounded terrible. But that wasn't due to the technology, but rather the mixing. A properly mixed CD sounds better than vinyl. (I know bring on the flamer war) Don't you remember all the stuff that SD DVDs were supposed to do that never really materialized. Multiple angles is one thing that comes to mind.

I hear all this stuff about 6x times clearer, lossless sound. Most people cannot tell the difference in a sound with sample rates from 96 KHz to 192 KHz. So the 7.1 lossless is not going to be that impressive. Especially if the source material was recorded poorly.

If these two formats actually survive and don't become total niche products, many people are not going to be wowed as much as advertisers like them to believe.

I think the 6x is in reference to the pixel content of 480i vs 1080p?

Maybe you have not seen some of those angle capable films yet? Maybe they are in the xxx category? I haven't either but there may be at least 1 dvd out there with this feature???

 

[mpompey]

Sick dude.

Sick.

 

[stratman]

In the end it becomes lucid: seperating the money from your wallet. Marketers are modern-day legal hucksters, whose sole mission is to convince the target audience that they're not happy with what they have.....wether its Blu-ray or HD DVD, the point is to get your money.

 

[mpompey]

You got it Stratman.