I only allowed the two choices in the poll, because I know I will only being willing to do one or the other and nothing else (i.e. rent, etc).

I want to collect all the SD Dragon Dynasty, HKL, and IVL/Fortune Star releases I can as long as they aren't gonna be on HD anytime soon.

The Dragon Dynasty titles seem to have the greatest chance of coming to HD soon, since they are HK movies being distributed by a major & reliable US company (for once) and since they have much more wide-spread distrubution then I've ever seen SE/uncut HK films get (you can even buy Dragon Dynasty movies at Target!).

Then again, if I remember correctly, niche genres like anime and Asian films never really even came to SD DVD in any numbers of significance until like 5 million players were sold. And that was when SD DVD was hugely popular, there was no war, and everybody was certain they had the equipment/desire to upgrade.

5 million players won't be sold to one side of the uncertain HD media formats til probably Christmas of 2008. I assume most niche/semi-rare content won't even begin to come to either side (at least, "to a significant extent") until a few months after that.

But what do you guys think? Has anybody heard whether Weinstein/Dragon Dynasty is checking out the HD front? When do you expect to see niche stuff come to the format with some regularity and what's your policy towards buying SD niche stuff now?

This is some anime thing? I never heard of it.

Unless it's Akira or Urotsukidoji I'm just not interested.

This is some anime thing? I never heard of it.

Unless it's Akira or Urotsukidoji I'm just not interested.

No, mainly movies from Hong Kong and a couple of movies from Japan, S. Korea etc.

I like some of the Jackie Chan/Jet Li HKL titles but I'm holding out for the HD versions.

I'ld say the odds of them coming to HD soon are about the same as Sony switching to HD DVD next week.
J

I'm waiting for the HDDVD releases - i already have a big collection of HK flims from the big three on SDDVD, but have held of buying anything new for over a year now.

I emailed my DDDhouse a couple of months back and no news yet, though they did sound hopeful... but i'd be surprised if it happens before the chinese manufacturers release their HDDVD players.

^^^Yeah, I had a big collection of DDDhouse-purchased, non-anamorphic, cheapo DVD releases for a long time but then sold them for about a buck a piece on eBay. Now it's been a good while since I've seen a lot of these Asian films and I'm starting to re-collect using the better/best versions from HKL/DD/IVL. I guess, I have about 40 but there's still so many films that I've never seen or, at least, definitely, never owned. It makes me impatient to wait since they ARE getting really strong SD DVD releases, since I'm such a big fan, and since there's no real telling if or when they will come to HD period.

I think it's very safe to say that we won't see much Asian film or anime stuff for at least 2 years in HD. And even if we do then - I have to seriously question if we will get anything but the most popular and/or newest stuff. I mean, will we ever get to see things like "Twinkle, Twinkle, Lucky Stars" including a Bey Logan commentary on HD DVD? Or "Born to Fight" in a 2-disc SE release like the one that just came out from Dragon Dynasty?

I think it may be a pretty safe bet to say the answer is "no". Maybe, if HD gets popular enough we'll see newer and/or better-known stuff like Ong-Bak or the Police Story series but it's hard for me to imagine that we'll really get strong releases of some of this other stuff...

These titles won't see HD for a long long long time.

No more SD DVDs for me. I'll hold off until I see HD versions, even if that means I have to buy a separate Chinese spec version of HD DVD player to see these.

These titles won't see HD for a long long long time.

I'll go a step farther, and say I don't think they'll ever be on HD. iIm still waiting for some to come out on R1. That's why I keep my Oppo around.
J

These titles won't see HD for a long long long time.

Sad but true. Would be sweet to have Criterion make it's HD launch with a newly restored version of The Killer in particular. I'd need a mop to clean up all the drool if something like that got announced.