Not Impressed with either format  

Agree - Certainly the players and media are in beta (for lack of a better term) mode right now, but I can't argue with many here that want to buy now and have fun. Audio is really in a strange place. Wheather HDMI 1.3 makes some magic leap or not, I have a new processor to look forward to, so....

For most, the next gen will involve quite a bit more than a player, but I do enjoy reading the posts. We'll see how it goes.

E

Re: HD blue laser formats becoming mainstream- certainly not a given nor is there clear consensus of this outcome.

see

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=684346

I have been advocating a niche role for the blue laser formats, encouraging an LD-like (laserDisc) model for the blue laser winner. Hopefully, there will only be one blue laser survivor. However, if an LD-like niche model is possible for HD media discs, then perhaps both formats could survive in this mode.

I certainly don't want either HDDVD or BluRay to replace SD-DVD as the mass market perferred video media format, due to DRM issues.

re: film image quality issues-

see http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=688711

A lot of well regarded people are reporting similar comparisons between upscaled SD-DVD and HD-DVD. Could be early transfer issues, but is also the result of inherent low detail content in many film sources, attributed to technical limitations or director intent issues mentioned in above thread.

I can completely understand having a budget and holding out for a price point and I can tell you also ,without reservation , that the better transferred HDDVD titles are the best film based HD we have ever had. I upconvert standard DVDs all the time and have for years. Even the best DVDs ever made, upconverted , are blown away by HDDVD on a large 1080p capable display. You have to understand that for some of us that fact by itself is worth a lot ( read price of early adoption).

Art

Didn't know that King Kong is already released??? Shure it was not a sd disc?

Don’t ever take what you see at a Best Buy to be the holy grail, of what either format is capable of.

If I had based my decision to buy the HD-A1 on what I saw at Best Buy, (yes I saw a crap presentation there to) then I would have missed out on the best HD ever displayed in our home.

RobertR1,

I understand the rational to 'see myself'. But using BB as source with the 'knowledgeable' reps is big mistake.
I hope that you will have some time reading what others posted about BB demo compared to individual results. Not all people here have agenda and many of them are much more knowledgeable than BB reps.
And no, you don't need large 1080p capable display to see the difference, it visible with smaller 720p as well.

You saw King Kong in SD upconverted then, not HD. Go back and ask to see the demo, and make sure they set the output to 1080i. Can't speak for BluRay.

Yeah that would be weird to see KK in standard and a BD movie and think they both looked the same..

I'm not going to jump to any conclusions because I haven't seen a BD player in action yet. That said, if an upconverted SD DVD looks equal to a single layer BD disc then I want nothing to do with a BD at this time.

Hey Robert, some of the things you said concern me that you were given a bad impression by an incompetent sales rep.

Just to clarify, are you saying you believe you saw King Kong on HD DVD (the actual movie, not the bits on the demo disc)? Because King Kong is absolutely NOT available on HD DVD yet. The only way you are going to see any form of KK on HD DVD is the bits from the demo disc.

If the rep played the movie King Kong (2005) for you on the HD-A1, then he was playing the plain old standard definition DVD. If he let you walk out of there thinking what you saw was HD DVD, he did you a disservice and you should go back and give him (and his manager) a piece of your mind.

Can't speak to your observations of Underworld (but I believe it is one of the first BD releases). Still if this guy played an SD DVD on the A1 and told you it was HD DVD, then I'd be suspect of anything you saw that he had anything to do with. However, the early word so far by many here is that these initial BD titles are not all they could/should/eventually will be.

It is not silly at all. An improperly setup display will kill just about all of the benefits of high quality video. You would be amazed how much just a little bit of calibrating can make the difference when it comes to this stuff. I don't trust a single thing I see at a store, especially Best Buy. Those displays couldn't be any worse in terms of setup and calibration. Even most high end stores suck at this.

If you didn't see much difference between your upconverted DVD and HD DVD, you saw a REALLY bad demo. I have the best upscaling DVD player on the market (Denon DVD-5910) and some of the best video processors on the market (DVDO VP30 w/ABT-102, NEC Theatersynch with HQV processing, Anthem D2 with Gennum Processing, Silicon Optix Reon Reference Board) and no matter how good they are they aren't getting near what HD DVD can produce in terms of detail, depth and color. If you aren't seeing a dramatic difference, you aren't seeing what this format is fully capable of.

I have long believed that most people will not see the benefit of true HD discs, unless they have a display over 40" or so or sit unusually close to the screen. I fully expect to be amazed however when I get an HD source for my 106" screen.

Given the fact that you were at BB I would not be surprised that they hadthe machine setto 720p, instead of 1080i.the quality of the picture is significantly better with 1080i. The BB in my area initially had it set to 720 andthe picture looked soft. I had the sale person change the REZ to 1080i and the picture makes your jaw drop. Next time make sure it isset to 1080i should you decide to go back again.

Not true.

I can assure you I EASILY see and appreciate the difference between high quality HD vs. anything less than that on my Sony KD34XBR960, even from 8-10 feet away with ease.

Maybe I have good eyes. ;)


Of course, I'm sure if I owned some high end rig with a 10 foot screen, we would be past the realm of words into something like this: :eek: :eek: :eek:



;)

You cannot use the BB demos as an accurate representation of either format. I've had the Tosh since April 14th and I have watched all of the available titles - the pq is simply amazing. I was at a BB again yesterday and checked out their set up - the pq was not good. I wouldn't have bought the player after looking at that demo. In fact ,I had the same situation at a Tweeter. These stores do not have their displays calibrated correctly and it really hurts the presentation of the formats.

...and you have to understand that basically none of us have a "Dream reference Display" setup like ISF'd, stacked G90's or other calibrated 1080p display ;).

With far more common 720p displays- RP, FP, panels- upscaling an SD-DVD to 1280x720 means interpolating ~1 Million fewer pixels than upscaling an SD-DVD to 1920x1080p.

Bottom line- if you have a common 720p-class display (most HDTV owners), an upscaled SD-DVD will result in much less "made up" pixels vs trying to upscale to 1080i/1080p, and will be closer in detail to an HD film source scaled to 1280x720 on common 720p displays, screen sizes and viewing distance.

...but that doesn't mean we wouldn't all appreciate having Art's stacked G90's and some reference quality 1080p films to view on them :D.

I'd like to see more 720p or 43" plasma display reviews comparing the formats. I think thats where majority of HD ownership is, now.

BTW, on a 720p FP - from reports - difference between upconverted SD and HD DVD should be apparent. And some of those projectors are as cheap as / cheaper than 720p class RPTVs or plasmas.

Boy do I agree with the above.

If you think HD-DVD is marginally better than upconverted SD-DVD, you need a better system. It's not even close.

No doubt about it.... but that is the rub.... do people really invest heavily in HD optical discs anytime soon when they need to spend $2-5k FIRST on a better HDTV/projector.

For those of you who have seen HD DVD/ Blu-ray on both a 720p FP and a 1080p FP, how much of a perceivable difference sitting at "average" distances can you notice?

EXACTLY!

The HDDVD "eggs" require a BIG, FAT CHICKEN purchase by J6P/mom, and the incremental eye candy *will not* persuade $MAINSTREAM_PERSON to make such an upfront purchase (make that TWO large Chickens- an HD display with resolving power for 1080p, and the blue laser player(s)).

I think $MAINSTREAM_PERSON is gonna choke on that chicken bone :D.

Doesn't mean there isn't an LD-like place for HDDVD...

I can vouch for that :)
I have also seen the XA1 on a 34XBR960 and can see a difference (depends to on the disc) but even at its worst, it still looks better then HD sat. or SD DVD.

But that 'bone' (as you call it) is an intricate part of the equation. You think all the CEs (including Toshiba) are in this only for the sale of a lousy high def disk player and software?? Primarily, that's the studio's piece of the pie. The CEs are in this for the SYNERGY, with all the other toys and junk they plan to sell us. Displays, big and small, media centers, portable Hi-def disk players (because reslution really counts on that 4" screen!), wireless networking, universal remotes, etc. ad infinitum.

Don't make any mistake about this. For the CEs, the tail is most definitely wagging the dog. ;)

_____________________________________________________
Palladin

Chance favors the prepared mind

RobertR1. I'm not sure what you are seeing then... There is a huge difference between SD and HD. HUGE! There are tons and tons of J6P's that have seen their sports on HDTV and marveled. It's highly advertised by announcers on each HD broadcast how much better it is. It’s talked about in sports forums all the time. “YOU GOT TO SEE IT IN HD!â€, is repeated over and over by J6P’s nationwide. The quality they are seeing is quite good and HD DVD is a step above that and this is all you will ever have to do on setup:

Make sure to use component or HDMI and make sure output is set to 1080i. Done.

You won’t need to calibrate, but you may want to play with your basic tv settings (brightness/color/contrast/sharpness) if you like and I have to assume that isn’t an ADVANCED concept as they’ve been on TV’s for the better part of forever now.

HD-DVD when done right rids the viewer of those last few bug-a-boo’s that you get with cable/satellite/ota. That is problems based on size and compression, macroblocking etc. So it’s a step beyond.

B&M stores have an amazing ability to make things look worse then even a standard setup in one’s house. I never understood why they would settle like that (maybe customers continually F with their hardware, maybe disgruntled employees mangle them out, I dunno), but in every case I have always produced a much cleaner, less noisy picture without even trying by just plugging in cables correctly, that is all. My el cheapo Sanyo bedroom HDTV ($300) looks drop dead fabulous and better then just about anything I’ve ever seen at typical B&M’s, plazma’s whatever. I plugged in the cables and a $10 antenna, boom. *THIS IS NOT AN ADVANCED SETUP. WE ARE TALKING WAL MART 4:3 HDTV AND RABBIT EARS. THERE WAS NO CALIBRATION NEEDED TO HAVE A PICTURE THAT LOOKS BETTER THEN BB'S HD DVD DEMO*

For BB and their Westinghouse Toshiba display. I can see the diamond there at my site but again they have made it rough. They are waaay over sharpening the picture. Why? See my reasons above… Maybe some BR person came buy and tried their damndest to make it look bad. But I’ve seen plenty of HD to know one thing. It’s resolution and color saturation blows SD out of the water in every imaginable way possible and to me, screen size isn’t even relevant. I would think I’d have to be around perhaps a 10†screen before I could tell a difference and I doubt that honestly. You just can’t get wrinkles and pits with SD no matter how small you go because the detail isn’t in the source, it’s in the hd source. The nice thing about size and HD is it has the detail to blow up a huge picture and still look marvelous.

HD sports and similar material shot with HD cams (Discovery Channel, etc) are only a portion of the HD pie. I don't think anyone disputes the difference between SD and HD video-cam source material, even on modest HD displays (heck, even on a 32" BB grade SD CRT fed from an HD set top via S-vdeo!)

To a lot of forum members, HD transfers of film source material is a BIG part of the equation.

And the HD detail quality of film sources is HIGHLY variable, depending on film source element quality (age, dirt, damage, grain, etc), and director intent issues (intentional soft focus, intentional grain, etc)- this is what we are hearing from all the HDDVD/Bluray movie release reviews.

Lets stop there and make it simple. It looks better then that and you can't get off it. Ya know there is a return policy at most places, you might just want to check into that.