HD-DVD is here.

I think I'll wait a bit, since I lack a big HDTV. I'll probably get a 30 inch or a 32 inch LCD for my dorm room if I land a job. Yeah it'll be my monitor too.

I think the fact that you need a brand new HDTV right NOW, to be able to take advantage of 1080 p is a bit disheartening. Knowing that, I will definitely wait on HD-DVD/Blu Ray because I just invested in an HDTV 2 years ago and am enjoying it.

I'll just wait for my Playstation 3 which will have 2 hi-def Blu-Ray outputs for 2 HD monitors.

Plus, it'll cost less than $500, and it'll play games, too.

I just hope that Serenity comes in Blu-Ray, too.

That guy bought two of the worst movies ever to play on that thing. It's like buying a Porche and filling the tank with corn oil. Idiot.

I am baffled how someone can justify spending THAT MUCH money on something that's just essentially an upgrade of your DVD player. I don't want to pull the people are starving card, but I hope that guy stops at a red light and a homeless man rips him to pieces.

I think Colt45 is posting pictures of himself.

Where'd you get all the cash, man?!?!?

Plus, I think the explosion of HD-DVD is going to be muted, because not many people have HD-TV sets.

Finally, that dude above is wayyyyy too excited to be purchasing LAST SAMURAI and PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.

Is he riding a unicycle?

Worst movies ever??? Someone hasn't watched enough Albert Pyun.

Why buy something in the middle of a format war, that's first generation and is more expensive and more buggy than dozens of models will be in a year or so, with only two awful titles available and a few average on its way, just so you can to sit it in your front room and gloat about having a five-hundred dollar shiny dick replacement?

'Please, come in and enjoy the future of home entertainment!'

'Wow, it's, um, a DVD player. What movies do you have?'

'The Last Samurai and Phantom of the Opera! In High-definition! Like, whoa!!!!'

'I really should be going. My boyfriend will wonder where I am.'

'But... high-definition... samurai... so, so lonely...'

Must... watch... Phanton Of The Opera...in HD... right... NOW!!!

Seriously, spend the money on hookers and blow.

My thoughts exactly.

I can't see in the picture of Mr. Happy-go-lucky... what do the price tags on those DVD's read?

And yes, Chest, it does appear he's on a unicycle.

But SOMEbody has to be that guy. That same guy was probably walking out of a Best Buy in 1997 with a shit-eating grin after he paid $800 for one of those spanky new DVD players and a copy of Twister. People like that made it possible for DVD players to be had for less than a fart in a tea cup.

But DVD didn't have a rival format also trying to establish itself as the number one medium. The message we should want to send to the companies is that we're not going to by shit until this whole fucking format war is resolved, at least as far as I'm concerned.

Well... someone's got to buy a few sets before the price drops.

Better you than me.

It's sad, there's another home-theater specific message board I visit and people there are creaming themselves over this crap. I have a feeling that it wouldn't have mattered if Blu-Ray hit first or this, some guys just have to be the first-adopters. "OMG it's slightly better than what I have right now so I have to HAVE IT!!!"

What can we do with those people?

I wish they could've resolved it too, but it's too late. We have no choice but to let the format be decided by soulpatched unicyclists. Our fate is in their hands.

Come to think of it, that guy kind of looks like Millette. Only he's smiling. And outside, instead of playing Oblivion.

My thoughts exactly. No matter how trite the VHS/Betamax analogy sounds, it's the situation we are back in again. It will most likely be solved by dual mode players that don't care if it's blue-ray or HD-DVD, but it would be better solved by the entertainment industry selecting a standard, and sticking with it.

DVD was a new format. This is essentially a tweaking of an existing format.

I don't even understand HDTV, let alone HD DVD. Are you people really having that hard a time watching standard TV sets? Do we really need the maximum possible resolution to watch TERMINATOR 3?

Amen. All this talk about dpi and resolutions and HD, spending hundreds and thousands of dollars, all for the sake of few more lines of resolution from a screen you have to sit halfway across the room from to see well anyway? I remember somebody saying that going back to watching football on a regular TV after seeing it on HD was like clawing their eyeballs out. The hyperbole is just ridiculous.

But ... but what about Divx?!?

My "big" TV - the one in the den - is a 25" CRT.

Surprisingly enough, HD-DVD isn't really on my radar at the moment. Factoring in the format war on top of all else, I think I may skip this generation entirely, and wait until the 3" 5 Terabyte disks that eventually replace them come out.

There is a huge difference between the clarity of a regular cable signal and a HD signal.

As for DVD and HD-DVD...? Not so much as to warrant the upward swing in cost.

Of course that's ridiculous, but you haven't seen a true high def picture if you can't see an appreciable difference. Is it worth paying a small fortune? Hell no. But I like what I've seen, and I'm looking forward to this technology being affordable.

There's a huge difference but who cares? Is your American Idol experience changed THAT much by HDTV?

Technological upgrades that improve content or content delivery - these make sense. When you're spending thousands to make sure you have the latest technology to just improve sound or picture then you're a conspicuous consumer of the most wasteful sort.

American Idol, no. Sporting events? Yes. Same for other shows that play out on channels like Discovery HD.

I'm not disagreeing with you on the HD-DVD front. But I do think that for the cost HD for television is getting to the point where the cost pays off.

They are new formats (they even support more codecs), and HD looks much better than NTSC video, yet this guy is a moron because this player is too expensive, there are no movies for it and it might become obsolete by the end of the year.

Both Jason and Devin comprise my position.

When I bought my DVD player 6 years ago, it was $130. For $130, i was getting DRASTICALLY better picture and sound than VHS, access to bonus features I would've never seen in VHS, not to mention the conveniences of chapter stops, the disc format, etc. That was a vital purchase, one that has given me that $130 worth and then some over the years.

Of course, if I want a better picture and sound, it'll cost over $1000.

Yes, HD's an improvement. Yes, it's an improvement I, eventually, want. How much I'm willing to shell out for that improvement is FAR less than what companies seem to think its worth.

Well, you get more codecs on HD DVD. I guess that has some meaning to someone somewhere.

omg codecs ^_^

No. But as others have said, for sports the answer is an absolute yes.

It's not the clarity or detail of HD that makes the difference, though those help. It's that the feed for an HD broadcast uses different cameras and lenses that shoot from angles that are both more inclusive and more dramatic. You can see far more of the action. There's more context.

Going back to standard sports broadcasts after HD isn't like putting your eyes out. It's the difference between a film presented full screen versus anamorphic widescreen. It's like watching the game shot by Ernie's Wedding Fotos after enjoying Martin Scorsese Presents the NFL.

Well, HD broadcasts of all kinds look much better than NTSC on a HDTV. Just like the difference between VHS & DVD. But a progressive scan DVD player on an HDTV set still looks amazing, so the relatively small improvement this upgrade provides is hardly drool worthy.

You know how you seem to prefer quicktime trailers vs other formats? If you do so because you think they look better, then you care about codecs.

I am an electronics freak and find the HD-DVD release very exciting. But there is no way I'd pay $500 for a disc player in the middle of a format war. Besides with the PS3 I'm convinced Blue-Ray will beat the pants off HD-DVD anyway. I'm glad these intial adopters are buying the sets...someone has to be the guinea pig. The first impressions I have read say the movies don't have the "Wow" factor some expected. Good. Force the studios to understand that the general public expects a HUGE increase in quality and features for $500 and not a small one; especially in a format war. Otherwise, welcome to the world of SACD and DVD-Audio...dead as a doornail.

For those trivializing the purchase and HD in general...it's just not your thing. For others like myself, we truly enjoy it. But just because I think HD is the shit there is now way I'd drop that kind of cash on it. But I'm not gonna bad mouth someone else for doing so. If they can afford it, more power to them. Fuck whoever says what others should or shouldn't spend their money on.

JS


P.S. The guy in the picture bought those two movies because only three are being initially released: Phantom, Last Samurai and Serenity. Pretty crappy library to offer at first.

I have to say, I don't think I want my pictures to look "almost 3D" as I've heard people saying about HD.

Clear, bright and punchy is all I ask. I want then to look like they would on a high quality theatre screen, "blemishes" and all.

I want them to look like film, not like a window into the next room where a bunch of movie actors are putting on a well lit play.

I don't get the feeling that HD looks 3-D at all, especially once you get used to the clarity of the picture.

Movies still look like movies (read:film) in HD.

HD will have more (but not all) of the details captured in film vs all the stuff that NTSC is cutting out because it just doesn't have enough resolution.

What is there about an NFL game that demands crystal clarity on my TV screen? It's not like I'm missing plays, the slow-mos look just fine, and I honestly don't need a large screen so that Randy Moss is almost life-size. Sure it looks pretty, but pretty ain't worth fifteen hundred bucks to me.

So don't pay it.

So for the people who don't see the point to HD, I guess you guys don't care about it's widescreen aspect ratio at all?

I'm just curious what the appeal is that would drive people to say that there's no other way to watch sports.

I don't know. I certainly wouldn't say that. I have an HD monitor for DVDs but no HD broadcast feed, and I get along just fine.

But I also can't see anyone objectively looking at a standard and HD presentation of the same game saying that the HD isn't obviously a better way to view it. So with respect to Devin's original questions, yes, there is an obvious improvement from an objective standpoint.

DVD was a substantial improvement from VHS, but you didn't see a government mandate to move to DVD like they're doing with HD.

I don't understand, how is the HD tv's widescreen aspect ratio any different to a widescreen plasma/LCD tv?

They aren't mandating HDTV. The government wants the analog channels that they currently let the networks use. Technically they are mandating the use of digital distribution by the networks, not HDTV. The networks are bundling HDTV because they can spin it to be an improvement to the viewer and make more money. The government will regain the analog spectrum and can use it, rent it, or sell it as they see fit to raise oodles of cash. When you are forced to get digital channels, you will not see all HDTV. Just digital channels, some of which will have additional HDTV broadcasts.

JS

Plasma / LCD tvs are usually HD "enabled", you mean who is it different from widescreen on NTSC tvs?

For broadcast, you get thick black bars at the bottom and top, there is no widescreen support for NTSC. What's probably confusing you is that DVD's hack around this limitation by using all the vertical resolution in NTSC for a widescreen image, then your DVD player shrinks that down to a widescreen aspect ration. With HD, you don't need to do this and can enjoy broadcast and HD-DVD,Blu-Ray playback without this workaround on your widescreen TV.

A widescreen TV is not necessarily designed to accept and display the same levels of resolution that are recorded in an HDTV broadcast. For example, you may have an Enhanced Definition Plasma TV as they are a huge seller. These EDTV Plasma sets only can display images in a resolution of 480p (your standard DVD). This is very good, but not HD. HDTV on the other hand is often presented in 720p and today the new sets are 1028p/i. Your widescreen cannot accept the true 720 or 1028 image so it downconverts the picture to match what you do have. Basically it is cutting up and shrinking the image to match your TV (technically it does much more than this but I'm not that well versed on how that compression works). HDTV broadcasts are generally in the widescreen aspect ratio which is what best provides the high level of resolution needed to meet true HDTV.

Yep, I'm aware of that, but other than the HD broadcast being in widescreen, which in the UK is being used for a lot of regular digital channels anyway, how is the widescreen aspect ratio on an HD TV any different to other widescreen TVs? I've got a widescreen plasma TV and aside from not being able to receive HD signals, it has the same aspect ratio as the HD TVs I've come across.

Higher resolution, and the ability to support real widescreen aspect ratios over broadcast. That sounds like a big enough difference to me.

Once you have a widescreen TV, wouldn't you prefer to watch widescreen content? (like Lost, Law & Order, 24, etc ... all broadcast in HD/widescreen)?