Question for dual format owners. Is BD less problematic than HD? - Page 2

Then it's obviously in your best interest to sell your HD-DVD player and all your HD-DVD movies, if it's "too embarassing" to play HD-DVD movies.

C'mon people...

beside slow load times, no disc/player problems with my HD-A1 purchased 04/06.

I can fully understand where he's coming from.

Skeptical friend comes over and you're trying to explain to him why you spent 500$ on a player and 30$ on a movie when he's got a 20$ walmart DVD player at home that'll play his clearance 7.50$ DVD just fine. And then your player starts hiccuping or locks up. REAL IMPRESSIVE.

And as far as the difference in PQ. I notice it, but I've been horribly surprised by the amount of people who either don't take notice or don't care to.

FWIW,

I have the 360 HD DVD add-on only.

I would now recommend the 360 HD DVD add-on to anyone with a 360, but that's only because of the software update we got this week. I wouldn't have recommended it before the update.

no need for that kind of response, keep the thread civil for once. I have an XA1 that I absolutely love, but some discs from Netflix have been giving me troubles lately. I certainly wouldn't have people over to watch a movie that I haven't tested yet, there are just too many with glitches - probably because most of mine are rentals.

HD broadcasts still have lots of problems, should I sell my TV too?

I keep my HD-DVD player for the rare movie that I'm interested in that is HD-DVD only, and to upscale the few regular DVDs I watch. But no question, I went from being one of the most vocal HD-DVDs supports here last year, to preferring BD because of the better playback and nearly scratch proof hardcoat (I use Netflicks for everything).

A2 and PS3 60 gig. I do not rent only purchase discs. So far the only freeze ups I have had are playing games, not movies, on the PS3.

I have a PS3 and the add-on and I haven't had any real problems with either. A couple of freezes on the add-on and some noise in the signal from the PS3. Not sure if is dust on the discs or the cheap unshielded HDMI cable I use with the PS3 but it isn't frequent enough that I worry about it.

Yes 100%.

Read the threads....HD DVD is far more buggy.

I had to buy 3 players 'til one worked properly...

Blu Ray is more polished, faster, and the remote more responsive.....

The reliablility issues will become ugly when the $199 HD DVD players come along from the likes of Shinco, Lite on, and Ronco. Can't wait!!

that **** is embarrassing. Given you paid xxx for the player, and it's supposedly a lot better than joe shmo's $100 dvd player, it should perform accordingly. You shouldn't be enjoying a movie, then all of a sudden in the middle of an action scene, there's a ****ing freeze.

Before, when the ps3 tries to log you in/out part ways through a movie (causing occasional stuttering & freezes), I used to be pretty embarrassed when I had to exit the movie & restart it. Talk about spoiling the experience (at least for me).

It's like buying a brand new sports car and showing it off to your friends. 1/2 way down the road that POS dies on you, and you have to push the thing home.

I'm with you guys on the embarrassing when crap happens. I'm the biggest AV dork out of my close friends by far so I'm usually the host for movie watching, etc.

Its never cool when watching something and everything doesn't flow properly. Every once in a while my upconverting DVD player that I used to show off to people on my 65" CRT would have hiccups back in the day. PS3 had an issue with the DVD (not blu-ray) version of the Prestige that my friend unwrapped in that very room on release day. It was a pain because friends were over and friends wife, etc over, just not nearly as enjoyable dealing with issues like having to skip 5 seconds of footage to continue watching a few times. Especially when people are like "woowwwaaa, you have a PS3!!!" Thankfully for my PS3 that has been the only issue that I can recall for movies.

Good thing friends usually are not enthusists/fanatics.... or we'd have to put up with snide hd-dvd/blu-ray comments & format cheerleading as we're dealing with the issues. lol

The players you mention are going to be based on a completely new reference design from Broadcom and MS with the drive unit being produced by Toshiba.

So you don't know whether they will be more or less buggy than current offerings.

Unless you'd like to scan and post the receipt for that crystal ball you recently purchased.

You guys must've gotten lemons or something because my HD-A2 works fine and has never had any problems with the 20+ netflix rentals or 10 HD-DVDs that I own.

Well, I take that back, I did have it not play a disc once from netflix. It was King Kong and the disc was cracked in half, didn't notice it till I took it out wondering what was wrong!

Well I have one good friend that was anti-PS2 and PS3 and made comments often. After enough times of asking me if the trailers I sent him are also for the 360 and me telling him no, he now wants one to say the least. Having played games like Resistance and Motorstorm are what first stopped the trash talk, lol He's starting to dig blu-ray movies as well now.

History is not on their side....If Toshiba can't get the 2nd gen players relatively bug free, I have little hope for cut rate vendors with new, untested in the market place chips.

It'll be fun to watch for sure.

I have an A2, PS3 (which will be going on ebay soon) and a BDP-1200. I've never had a problem playing any HD-DVD's with the A2 and never had a single problem with the PS3 and Bluray's. Just got the 1200 but no issues so far.

The A2 takes a while to boot and a little bit of time to load a disc.

The PS3 was a little faster than the A2 at loading.

The BDP-1200 is pretty damn fast a booting and loading a disc.

our passions are our burden...with jumping on the initial release of any new technology there will always be hicups...i personally like my Blu-Ray better for its reliability. i just enjoy the HD content and am glad to have access to it with these two technologies

I agree that HD DVD players are more buggy compared to my BD Player. However, the end result of HD DVD to demo hi-def format is much more impressive with HD DVD v. BD. I usually use my XA2 to show Batman Begins and Fast and the Furious TD with the U Controls and menu and bookmark feature etc. I then play the Prestige on my Sammy BD Player (BD version) and then play the SD version upconverted on the XA2 to highlight the best of both formats + upconverting. All on my 1080p Pio Plasma....

Most people (including me) see a greater overall improvement with HD DVD compared to a DVD experience. I live in a high rise condo and I can see two neighbors every night watching HD DVD - thanks in no small part to my demo. I am sure there must be a dozen HD DVD owners in my building

So, BD is less buggy, but also less impressive. One could say a Jaguar is more buggy than a Toyota....but....you get the point

As an early adopter of DVD I can still remember problems with early DVD's and I'd have to say it seems there were more DVD issues than either of these formats.

Without counting I know I have well over 70 hd dvd and over 40 blu-ray now and I had problems with only 3 disks, 2 hd dvd and 1 blu-ray. Even those 3 issues have been resolved. I know that from threads here hd dvd has had a few more problem disks but I guess I've managed to to avoid those. 3 disks out of over 100 I can live with.

The PS3 has been very solid as most report however there has been been several threads about issues with the PS3 BD play back halting during playback after a couple of the PS3 updates. I had the problem for a brief time myself. Most people seemed to resolve by disabling network connectivity. Haven't seen the issue in a long time now though.

With the latest update for the 360 hd dvd addon it's a rock solid player now however I personally would be concerned about hd dvd as a rental format given that a clean disk seems very important there. As it stands blu-ray may indeed be better format for renting. (Both gaming consoles are tremendous values in this space.)

I can only talk on the player I tried and my BD player the Pioneer Elite work flawlessly on all the BD disk I watched. I cannot say the same about my XA2. Meanwhile since the last firmware upgrade most of the Xa2 glitch are gone.

In fact on the HD DVD side the issue is more about some combo disk not working. In my case it is Hollywoodland.

On the Blu-Ray side it is more about the standard it self we are at gen 2 player and the standard is still not finalized and none of the currently selling and about to be sold player are compatible to the mandatory spec that will be enforce starting October 2007. That mean everybody will need to change their player to be able to fully appreciate disk produce after this date. This is shame and stops me from buying a Gen2 BD player. I will upgrade my BD player when fully compliant player will be available.

I have a first generation DVD player. I have never had an issue with it, including with early DVDs, such as T2 dual-layer. It still works today.

no problem with either HD DVD and BD except for CoM and Happy Feet on HD DVD... which fixed by pouring hot water on the CoM disc and new firmware for the HF.

Good for you. It's simply an historical fact though that you could pull up lists of issues with certain dvd's not playing or having issues on certain dvd players. There were plenty of problematic dvds on specific dvd players.

I disagree wholeheartedly. Both formats have superb and dud discs. If you haven't seen equal high quality from Blu-ray you haven't seen the right discs.

Agreed... and my Panasonic DVD-A100 and DVD-A300 are still working to this very day. Actually I've just watched T2:UE on the DVD-A300 back in April. The only things these players can't do are DTS and CD-R.

Qualified yes. I own both formats. A A1 and XA2 and BD10. The only problems I have had with HD DVD are with the Uni combo discs, no problems with any other HD DVD disc on either player.

I disagree with the Bland regarding BD being more polished. HD DVD from the opening screens to user interface are much more "next gen" in my opinion then my Panny BD10

A valid issue raised here I think is that BD discs to this point are just simpler discs. In other words there are no combo discs that are including sd dvd and many of the features like BD+, BDJ / BD Live etc. that could complicate matters simply aren't included yet while HD discs have more interactive features overall and are often combos .

It's a valid question as to how reliability might be affected when all the features that are promised for BD begin to be delivered. Hopefully that's why they're taking so long to implement...

Right now, Im renting more Blu-Rays just b/c I don't like the interface the 360 HD-DVD drive uses, but I would much rather see MS in control of the next HD format instead of Sony.

Not b/c I hate the japanese etc.. just b/c of Sony's proven track record of price gouging proprietary formats into the dirt. MD, UMD, Beta, Sony MS etc....