HD-DVD & Blu-Ray

Anyone else biding their time for the release of these formats?
*waiting*

Yep. I have a 36-inch monitor that nicely displays 480p. I can't really justify buying anything newer until HD DVD/Blu-ray gets released (I don't watch TV...) My plan is to spring for a new monitor or projector about the time HD DVD gets released and then get a 2nd generation player about 6 months later.

More HD content is good, but neither of these formats, as they stand right now, are interesting to me at all. The crazy, draconian DRM schemes the studios are inflicting on consumers are completely ridiculous (imo) and are likely to slow greatly adoption of these things. And that is on top of the format war confusion, crazy high prices, etc. To me, these things have DVD-A/SACD written all over them. But I've been wrong before. ;)

-Smokey.

Until the 'war' is nearly over and a clear 'winner' is announced... there is not much point in me paying much attention to this fray. These competing formats might be the death of both. Consumers are not going to want to get the 'wrong' one (think Betamax), and might avoid the mess completely. That, and the fact that initial costs will be high, DVD saturation is nearly complete, and the majority of earthlings will never, never, never see, notice or care about any improvement over their DVD's... of which they have emmassed quite a collection.

With convergence being paramount these days, the latest announcement by Microsoft backing one of these formats might signal a serious contender, but who really knows. It might be many years until there is a format that I'll plunk my money towards.

cheers

shane

just do some casual mentioning of this to other people in your life that you know aren't as tech savvy as you, and it's really not surprising (to me) that very few people know about these formats. i would submit that if you in turn tell them there's a possibity of a new dvd format release coming soon...they won't like the news. try it and see what kind of responses you get. i've had good and bad.

i think microsoft's stance was based on their new console release because sony's console is supposed to ship with blu-ray support next year.

We interrupt this program for a public service rant....

With the current state of the movie industry, it's hard
for me to get excited about hi-def DVD formats. Especially
if they're going to be as expensive and user-unfriendly
as it appears right now.
I mean, does the average SD DVD viewer really care that
they can't count the pores on Ben Affleck's face when they
watch "Gigli"?
For myself, I'd rather watch a terrific movie shot and projected
in Super 8, than something like "Dukes of Hazzard" in 1080p.

On the production side of things, Hollywood's latest buzzword
is "4k". In digital production, "film resolution" has so far been
defined as being right around 2k (1920 x 1080 pixels). Now,
the push is to raise that to 4k, as if what's wrong with movie-
making is that people can't see the image clearly enough. Yeah.
That's it. Same thing with the current craze for 3D, digital projection,
features shown in IMAX theaters et. al. ad nauseum.

Call me a content snob. That's fair. I deserve it.
But I'll get excited about home hi-def formats (and willing to sink
thousands into equipment upgrades) when the studios give me
better content to make it worthwhile.

Wow! Did I say that out loud?:eek:

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled program:D

Rick

The Matrix Trilogy will be released May22 in HD DVD.
Most folks already have it ordered. I don't, but I WILL have it to play on my projector!!

The reviews have given it top notch(5/5 or 10/10 stars depending on reviewer) in both Video and Audio.
Audio is in TrueHD. :D

I've got the Complete Matrix Collection on HD DVD. So far I've only watched the first one, but it is stunning and sounds great on the Ascends, as well.

Yep, thats what I've been reading, VG PQ/AQ...

Now thats what I'm talking about!!

I will have to get off my ass, and go and get it.... probably this weekend I'll headout.

I forgot to mention..

I got the Matrix Trilogy on HD DVD...

OUTSTANDING!!

I have been watching Blu-Rays for almost a year now since getting the PS3. I remember, the very first time watching, I was able to tell a difference between its picture quality vs. that of normal DVD. Now, it seems harder and harder to differentiate.

I have also been watching a lot of HD channels on DirecTV. From ESPN, Discovery, to club1080. Any of those blows the Blu Ray away in terms of pictures clarity. Sometimes, you literally feel like you can touch the people on TV. I'm confused as to why that is since the HD channels offered from DirecTV are 1080i while Blu Ray are 1080P. Has anyone else experienced the same and does anyone know why?

What is the native resolution of your HDTV?

The TV is 1080i. I was at my friend's house this weekend and we were watching Pirates of the Carribean in Blu Ray on his HDTV which is 1080p and did not find much difference either. But yet, when we watched HD channels on his satellite (Dish Networks), it was extremely clear. I haven't calibrated my TV using DVD like AVIA but I would think this has to do with resolution rather than color calibration?

I am not well versed in this stuff, but I am learning. My guess it has to do with the scalers that are involved, as well as the movie itself.

HD channels are broadcast is 720p or 1080i.

Yeah, that would be my guess too. Upon further "googling" into this topic, it seems like there are others experiencing the same issues as well.

http://www.avforums.com/forums/archi.../t-488715.html

I'm pretty sure the movies are being downscaled to the 480p for some reason. The games looks awesome though. Just when playing movies..:confused:

Take a look at the sharpness setting on the tv turn it all the way down, you might be seeing film grain.

Check the settings on your PS3 - by default, they only output 480i, and must be set to allow 1080p, 1080i, etc. HD television is WAY less sharp than Blu-Ray from a PS3 - there is something wrong here. Also, you **MUST** use HDMI cables to get HD output from PS3. Good news is Monoprice.com sells them for $10, and they work as well as Monster $200 ones. Monster stands for "monstrously overpriced".

Old thread, but here's 2 cents.

One reason that DVDs might be looking better is that the PS3 upconverts DVDs to 1080p (as of about a year ago). As to HDTV looking superior, robruffo is right in that Blu-ray should look far better.

HDTV is 15-17mbps mpeg-2 video @ 1280x720p or 1440x1080i.
Blu-ray is around 30-40mbps avc or vc-1 video @ 1920x1080p.

An upconverted DVD will look smooth and will interpolate the chroma subsampling (from the 4:1:1 NTSC encoding), but won't have any new real detail.

You cannot get HD from the supplied standard def PS3 cable. However, you do NOT need HDMI to get HD. You can also get the component PS3 cable (red, green, blue for video and then red, white stereo audio).

Also, there are display settings to allow 480i/p, 720p, 1080i/p. Movies, games, and the XMB (PS3 menu) all use these same settings.

A 1080i TV *MIGHT* not accept a 720p signal, which would force 720p games down to standard def 480i/p. However, a 1080p movie will playback at 1080i no problem.

As for which HDMI cable to get, there are other threads in many places around the net. I'd be warry of $10 cables if you want 1080p and are going more than 6ft (as a very general rule since the cat 1 spec only requires 1080i capabilities). But, ~$15-$25 from monoprice or bluejeans will do just fine until 50ft or so.