HD DVD = Wow - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

SpitFire40 · 12-05-2006, 12:00 AM

I recently grabbed a HD DVD player for my 360. I watched MI:III and holy hell was it a great experience. Seriously

The picture quality is outstanding, the sound quality puts you right in the movie.

I had to grab a couple more titles tonite for the weekend, Superman Returns and Batman Begins, the player came with King Kong (Which I think is an absolutely horrible film) But i'm going to watch it again just for the picture and sound.

Anyone else got one? Or even a Blueray player?

Jayems · 12-05-2006, 12:02 AM

King Kong was aweome.. just really, really long

I really have to see what all this HD fuss is about.

jroc · 12-05-2006, 12:05 AM

probably a dumb question... is there a point of getting a HD DVD player if your HD-TV doesnt go all the way up to 1080?? If it only does 720 or whatever would it really be worth it?

SpitFire40 · 12-05-2006, 12:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jroc

probably a dumb question... is there a point of getting a HD DVD player if your HD-TV doesnt go all the way up to 1080?? If it only does 720 or whatever would it really be worth it?

I honestly see no difference between 720p, 1080i, or from what i've seen at the stores 1080p. Maybe I need new glasses or something...

As long as you can do 720p you're good.

MrMastodonFarm · 12-05-2006, 12:09 AM

Okay, question.

I have a movie channel that is an HD Movie channel.. would this be the same resolution as an HD-DVD movie?

SpitFire40 · 12-05-2006, 12:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Okay, question.

I have a movie channel that is an HD Movie channel.. would this be the same resolution as an HD-DVD movie?

I don't know the specs or anything, just my opinion. I find HD DVD being a nice improvement over something you'd see on Moviecentral HD. Not huge but still an improvement.

MrMastodonFarm · 12-05-2006, 12:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SpitFire40

I don't know the specs or anything, just my opinion. I find HD DVD being a nice improvement over something you'd see on Moviecentral HD. Not huge but still an improvement.

Fair Enough... those movies blow me away sometimes. King Kong was just amazing.

Engine09 · 12-05-2006, 12:33 AM

What kind of remote came with it? One of these?

nfotiu · 12-05-2006, 07:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jroc

probably a dumb question... is there a point of getting a HD DVD player if your HD-TV doesnt go all the way up to 1080?? If it only does 720 or whatever would it really be worth it?

I have a 720p (actually 768p), TV, and it is a huge improvement over regular dvd. you have 1920x1080 scaled down to 1366x768 instead of just 640x480 (of a dvd) scaled to 1366x768. It means 1 million unique pixels compared to 300,000.

Isn't that the same as asking why hd vs sd if you only have 720p?

nfotiu · 12-05-2006, 07:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Okay, question.

I have a movie channel that is an HD Movie channel.. would this be the same resolution as an HD-DVD movie?

The complicated answer is the movie is stored at 1080p on HD DVD, but my HD A1 and I believe the xbox only output at 1080i or 720p, so essentially the same resolution. Since 1080i60 has more than twice the frame rate as film, 1080i can essentially send a 1080p picture anyway (although with some judder due to 24fps being converted to 30 essentially). I believe that the hd dvd sends a flag for movies to tell the progressive displays to build a single frame out of the interlaced frames, not sure that a HD satellite/cable box does that. (my understanding of this part is a little fuzzy.

The short answer is that no, there is not a difference in resolution. But their is a big difference in lack of compression. HD DVD are typically about twice the bandwidth of HD movie channels. This means a lot less macro blocking during fast scenes, explosions, etc. And dark scenes seem to look a whole lot more detailed. No banding, globbing,etc.

I find a good HD DVD looks significantly better than a HD movie channel.

Sound quality is a more noticeable improvement, IMO. Although, since there aren't any receivers capable of receiving dolby digital+ and dolby trueHD, I have to use the 6 analog outs from the HD DVD player to take advantage of the better sound. Or if you have an HDMI receiver, you can convert the advanced audio codecs to pcm and send them that way. There is no way to take advantage of the new audio simply using optical or coax audio cables.

Since the xbox add on doesn't have hdmi or analog outs, it unfortunately can't take advantage of DD+/True HD sound. Too bad, because that is where HD DVD really shines.

Draug · 12-05-2006, 09:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SpitFire40

Anyone else got one? Or even a Blueray player?

Yeah, I have the PS3/Bluray. It is awesome. Way better than DVD, and also better than HD from Bell. The 7 channel discrete, uncompressed compressed sound is wicked on the Blu-ray. I am looking forward to A/B testing HD-DVD vs Blu-ray at some point.

Along with the other reasons mentioned, the better compression algorithms on HD-DVD and Blu-ray make it much better than MC-HD.

Saint Troy · 12-05-2006, 09:49 AM

I've had the Toshiba HD-A1 for about a month or so, and it is amazing. The video quality is easily superior than the best HD channels I receive from Bell, and the new uncompressed audio formats are stunning. It's also a great upconverting player as well, it runs circles around a very good denon dvd player that I had previously. So far, I have about 17 titles, Apollo 13 is great, as is Batman Begins, King Kong, V for Vendetta, Superman Returns, I hope to pick up Miami Vice today as it was shot completely in HD and is supposed to be the best looking hddvd yet.

Ironhorse · 12-05-2006, 09:58 AM

I'm still enjoying the very vast picture improvement that I got when I moved from a 32" CRT to a 42" Bravia XBR widescreen LCD this summer.

I'm good for a while.

Igottago · 12-05-2006, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ironhorse

I'm still enjoying the very vast picture improvement that I got when I moved from a 32" CRT to a 42" Bravia XBR widescreen LCD this summer.

I'm good for a while.

I watch regular old DVD's on my 32" Toshiba LCD screen, and I think the picture is stunning. I'm in no rush to adapt the new technology. Let BluRay and HDDVD battle it out, let prices come down, and then I'll think about it.

Hack&Lube · 12-05-2006, 10:33 AM

I like analog cable on my projection CRT!!!

jzA · 12-05-2006, 10:59 AM

Man I thought King Kong was a SWEET movie, imho perfect popcorn popping sit down with the family on a cold night, movie MOVIE...

Engine09 · 12-05-2006, 10:59 AM

Oh yeah! Well I have you beat. I get 3 channels on black and white 7" TV through rabbit ears. It looks great, I'm not convinced of this new technology either.

Agamemnon · 12-05-2006, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jzA

Man I thought King Kong was a SWEET movie, imho perfect popcorn popping sit down with the family on a cold night, movie MOVIE...

I'd agree if they cut about half an hour from the beginning and half an hour from the ending. I thought the setup/foreshadowing took waaay too long.

TurnedTheCorner · 12-05-2006, 12:18 PM

I might pay attention to all this next-gen DVD nonsense when they start releasing good movied. King Kong sucked balls. And does anyone really want to see Little Man on blu ray?

Engine09 · 12-05-2006, 01:39 PM

Is Blockbuster renting HD DVDs?

I'd buy the XBOX360 adde on if I knew there were decent movies to rent. Yeah, Little Man does not count.