I saw a couple of threads about whether or not the actual movie was any good but I'm wondering if anybody has seen reviews for the actual HD-DVD?

At least a consumer review? Somebody must have gotten their Amazon.com order today.

At least a consumer review? Somebody must have gotten their Amazon.com order today.

Mine is supposed to ship tomorrow.

At least a consumer review? Somebody must have gotten their Amazon.com order today.

yeah, right. :)

I don't know, maybe Amazon did fulfill some pre-orders. I had it pre-ordered, then got a $25 certificate that I decided to apply to the order. I cancelled the old order and created a new one (I didn't even think that I might've just been able to apply the credit to the existing order) and the new order has a ship date of early March.

I don't know how much stock to put into that ship date - I checked earlier and the eta was next week on a new order. Now, it's back to sometime in March. So far, this sounds like it's one of those discs that Amazon isn't getting much of. All of my other pre-orders this week have already shipped.

Mine shipped today :)

I've had my copy pre-ordered for over a month, but it didn't ship yet. Hopefully tomorrow.

Peter Bracke has his review up here (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/hollywoodland.html). Way to go Universal!

High-Def Digest has a review up.

Edit: nevermind

I was fortunate enough to pick this up on the weekend and watched it Sunday night on my parents' 52" Sony XBR2.

We watched it right after watching World Trade Center, and I thought that hte picture quality was much better for Hollywoodland. Personally, I think it's right around the quality of Serenity and Good Night and Good Luck.

Didn't watch the extras yet (SD anyways), but I really enjoyed the movie. I had wanted to see the movie when it was in theatres, but never got the chance.

I don't think you'll be disappointed with picking up this film. :)

Mike

High-Def digest just posted their "hollywoodland" review.

Great review too!

High Def Digest gives it a 4 1/2 star rating in PQ!

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/hollywoodland.html

I loved this movie. :)

High-Def Digest has a review up.

Edit: nevermind
It is now

Sounds like another great transfer! Running up to get at Fry's along with The Sting.

Yea I cant find it cheaper than 29..maybe frys will discount it soon

I posted earlier that I thought it looked great-I just went back for a second time today and now that it is darker outside and my sony sxrd isn;t washed out i think the picture is even better-one of the best looking movies I've seen. Go out and grab this for that alone-you may even get wrapped up in the story like i did.

I find myself more often than not, disagreeing with the tastes of the reviewer at high-def digest. I think he is simply unable to appreciate cool movies, and is not open minded enough to give many movies a chance. Just look at his review for Goodfellas and Reservoir Dogs (movie, not PQ review).

Because of that, I try to ignore the film reviews on that site, cause they just irritate me. I only check out the PQ section of the review.

As for Hollywoodland, I intend to give it a rental, and if its any good I'll probably buy it, if only to support HD-DVD. :cool:

I'd love to offer an opnion but stupid f**king Netflix sent me the SD DVD even though my account clearly shows HD-DVD.

:mad::mad::mad:

I'd love to offer an opnion but stupid f**king Netflix sent me the SD DVD even though my account clearly shows HD-DVD.

:mad::mad::mad:

Wow, I feel your pain! I have heard of a few cases where this has happened to others. Bummer!

I'd love to offer an opnion but stupid f**king Netflix sent me the SD DVD even though my account clearly shows HD-DVD.

:mad::mad::mad:

Same thing happened to me. I reported the problem to the Netflix site, but there's no way to clear my Queue and re-request the Hollywoodland HD-DVD. :mad:

Same thing happened to me. I reported the problem to the Netflix site, but there's no way to clear my Queue and re-request the Hollywoodland HD-DVD. :mad:

Call their toll free number and make their rep change it right there.

Call their toll free number and make their rep change it right there.

digitalmediaPC,

Thanks. I phoned Netflix at 11 p.m., and heard a message that the current wait to speak with a Customer Service Rep was 16 minutes. No thanks.

I love this movie and went to pick it up today but walked out of the store when I saw that it was a combo with a $30 price tag. When will these stupid studios (yes, I'm talking about you Universal and WB) lower the price on these mostly unwanted combo releases. I was tempted to buy the SD DVD that was on sale for $16 but couldn't pull myself to buy an SD disc. So, there you have Uni. and WB, your continued support of overpricing combos is going to result in fewer HD DVD sale because of people like me which is just bad news for the format. I don't have a problem with combos themselves, just the pricing. Don't give me that "buy it online" crap. I checked amazon and there price is $27.95 which is still too high. I don't want to have to jump through multiple loop holes to apply special discounts just to lower the price of combos to something reasonable. I want to be able to walk into a store and pay relatively the same price for combos as other HD DVDs and walk out. IMO, I think the pricing of combos will have a more negative impact on HD DVD then Blu-Ray will. It just frustrates me because I love Hollywoodland but, I'm not buying another combo until they are the same price as non-combo HD DVDs.

Netflix delivered it to me today.

GREAT looking picture. The PQ, I'd say, is maybe at the bottom of Tier 1 or top of Tier 2, it was very nice. The AQ was good too, just not very demanding for the type of film it is...it's not a title to show off your surround system.

No U-Control or TrueHD, but still an excellent transfer. I thought I wouldn't like the film because I'm not a big Adrian Brody fan, and I'm even less of an Affleck fan, but it was a nice surprise.

digitalmediaPC,

Thanks. I phoned Netflix at 11 p.m., and heard a message that the current wait to speak with a Customer Service Rep was 16 minutes. No thanks.

This morning, I bit the bullet and waited for Netflix customer service via phone to resolve my incorrect format for Hollywoodland. The initial wait estimate was 11 minutes. In reality, it was 36 minutes. The customer service rep was extremely courteous and professional. He admitted that the on-line options were inadequate to report my problem; i.e., receiving a title in the wrong format. He said I would be better off reporting a disk as "damaged," but he did make a note to his webmaster the web site needs to be fixed.

He also welcomed and promised to raise another issue of mine with his management. I told him I was also a subscriber to Blockbuster On-line solely for the purpose of renting HD-DVD and Blu-Ray disks that are not offered via Netflix. I gave as examples: The Sting, Friday Night Lights, and Enter the Dragon.

If this succeeds, I will start a new thread to channel future information to Netflix on missing titles.

Blockbuster is starting to be hit and miss with Blu-Ray and HD-DVD titles.

I actually reported mine as damaged and unplayable last night, so I have a replacement shipping today. This seemed like the only way to automatically spur another shipment.

This is the first time this has happened to me after renting about 20 HD's or BD's from them. Wa slooking forward to watching it too. I just watched Crank instead and turned my brain off. :)

I pre-ordered mine as soon as Amazon put it up and I just got an email saying it won't ship until late Feb. :mad: WTF Amazon?

I pre-ordered mine as soon as Amazon put it up and I just got an email saying it won't ship until late Feb. :mad: WTF Amazon?

From what I have heard there seems to be a short supply of the HD-DVD release......On another forum I go to they said that the studio didnt release many of the HD-DVD and that the 1st run shipment of the Hollywoodland is in short supply :(

I took Hollywoodland home today to watch. I am expecting it to be very good.

-Robert

I took Hollywoodland home today to watch. I am expecting it to be very good.

-Robert
Apparently Ben Affleck has returned to his old self, let us know how it goes.

My Amazon order also got delayed despite being one of the first to pre-order. I then cancelled my pre-order for The Departed, which was filled immediately by another etailer - can't wait for that one.

Apparently Ben Affleck has returned to his old self...

Oh no, that means Hollywoodland is going to really suck! :( ;) :p

I pre-ordered mine as soon as Amazon put it up and I just got an email saying it won't ship until late Feb. :mad: WTF Amazon?

Mine was supposed to ship yesterday as well. Got an email this am saying 2/12 shipment. :( OTOH, my xa2 which wasn't supposed to ship until next month will be here Friday. :D

The copy I got at Blockbuster won't play in the add-on. It says it "can't read disc." Other movies will play, so it isn't the player.

i rented the sd-dvd and boy it almost looked hd. it was an okay movie no action really but still an ok movie. i wouldnt buy it for $29 maybe $20...

I received my copy a few days ago. I tried to watch it last night with my wife, but the HD side would not play in my XA2. I actually tried 3 times. The first 2 times, the player simply did not recognize the disc as an HD-DVD or DVD. The third time, it recognized the disc as an HD-DVD, but said: `cannot play the disc', with no error code whatsoever. The SD side plays fine.
I am very frustrated, all the more so that I live in France and get my HD-DVDs from the US, ordering them directly on line. I still have my A1. I'll try tonight to have it play the HD side and I'll report the result!

Dammit. I just got an email from netflix stating the following:

The title: Hollywoodland has been removed from your Queue. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we will no longer offer this title as part of our rental library. Please check our site periodically as the availability of this title could change.

We strive to maintain the largest selection DVDs and apologize for the inconvenience.

-The Netflix Team

When I go to add it it says Long Wait. So apparently they're not going to ship me a replacement. ****ers.

I really don't want to blind buy this, so i guess I'll watch the SD version they sent me.

The copy I got at Blockbuster won't play in the add-on. It says it "can't read disc." Other movies will play, so it isn't the player.
Don't worry, it's Blockbuster. I've only been a member of Blockbuster Online for a month but, I'm already think of canceling. I have yet to receive an HD DVD that plays without problem. 2 were unwatchable and a third I had to skip over 15 minutes of the movie to get to a point were it would play. Every single HD DVD I have received looks like someone as driven a car over them. Blockbuster needs to do a better job of throwing out the scratched HD DVDs because they seem to be much more sensitive to scratches then SD DVDs. I'm giving Blockbuster another month or 2 but, if every HD DVD I rent continues to have playback problems then I'm going to cancel my subscription.

I received my copy a few days ago. I tried to watch it last night with my wife, but the HD side would not play in my XA2. I actually tried 3 times. The first 2 times, the player simply did not recognize the disc as an HD-DVD or DVD. The third time, it recognized the disc as an HD-DVD, but said: `cannot play the disc', with no error code whatsoever. The SD side plays fine.
I am very frustrated, all the more so that I live in France and get my HD-DVDs from the US, ordering them directly on line. I still have my A1. I'll try tonight to have it play the HD side and I'll report the result!

I can confirm that it does not play in the XA2. Both my XA2 and Hollywoodland showed up today from Amazon. I had seen your post, so I popped it in the HDA1 first, plus I just wanted to compare picture quality. The disk plays fine in the HDA1, no unusually long load time or anything. Hooked up the XA2 and it couldn't recognize it, but I never got the "cannot play disk" message. I tried a few other disks on the xa2 w/o incident.

I can confirm that it does not play in the XA2. Both my XA2 and Hollywoodland showed up today from Amazon. I had seen your post, so I popped it in the HDA1 first, plus I just wanted to compare picture quality. The disk plays fine in the HDA1, no unusually long load time or anything. Hooked up the XA2 and it couldn't recognize it, but I never got the "cannot play disk" message. I tried a few other disks on the xa2 w/o incident.

I just popped in the disk on my XA2 and received the same error. I am dissappointed. Hopefully the updated firmware will fix the problem.

I got it to play in the XA2, but only after considerable difficulty. I think I restarted the film 6 or 7 times. I wouldn't have been so patient except the fil was something of a mystery and I wanted to know how it turned out.

XA2 here. No problems with Hollywoodland on my end.

It worked fine on my Xbox 360. Maybe I bought a bad disk. Every other HD movie has worked without a hitch on my XA2.

I finally tried yesterday to play on my A1 my Hollywood copy, which had not played on the XA2.
The disc played fine, except for a slight transient lip sync. problem and one hiccup. I never had any problem with any other movie on my XA2.

Funny how this thread went from great PQ to compatability issues.

Funny how this thread went from great PQ to compatability issues.

Both are relevant to anyone considering a purchase. Mine is one the way from Amazon, and I'm crossing my fingers it will play OK on my Xbox 360. Really looking forward to this flick.

Watched the movie last night and the PQ is great. My wife and I enjoyed the movie. I think the only issues with compatability is with certain XA2s.

My disc plays fine in the XA2 up to a certain point. I've had to fight past some garbled audio issues when starting up (stop/restart until the audio sounds right). All seemed good until I get near the end of the movie. It locks up and sounds like it can't read the disc. I get an "Error 408bc504" message and have to recycle the power. While the disc surface looks fine, I have to assume that since it plays fine until that point that it must be disc related. What a pain.

Edit - just tried it in the A1 and it played through the spot it's been locking up on with the XA2 just fine.

Edit again - after it worked in the A1, I stuck it back in the XA2 and this time it played through. Whatever....