[jhuehne]

I'm wondering about picture quality and audio quality differences between d-theater and hd-dvd copies of the same movies.


I saw in another thread that 2 fast 2 furious was better on d-theater. I'm how other releases compare. I picked up The Mummy Returns on hd-dvd tonight and I'm wondering if anyone has compared these yet? I already have the d-theater copies for The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. If the hd-dvd is worse, I might just take it back and get a different movie instead.


I believe these movies are out on both formats:


Scorpion King

Fast and the Furious

2 Fast 2 Furious

Out of Sight

The Mummy

The Mummy Returns

The Rundown

Red Dragon

Spy Game

End of Days

U-571

Backdraft

The Bone Collector

Meet the Parents


I have all of the above on one format or the other except Out of Sight, 2 Fast 2 Furious, and Meet the Parents. I have 4 from above on hd-dvd and 8 on d-theater. The only overlap I have is the movie I picked up tonight.


In general, my experience so far is that the d-theater titles look better than the hd-dvd titles I have. The tier 0 ranked titles do look as good as the best d-theater I have if not slightly better.


Some d-theater titles are not that great, similar to some of the hd-dvd titles I've seen.


Just wondering what others have thought when comparing these. I believe alot of users went from d-vhs/d-theater to hd-dvd so I'm hoping to get some other feedback.


So far my thoughts are if a d-theater title is ranked as reference quality by www.widescreenreview.com then it is as good as the tier1 hd-dvd releases or better. If not, then I'm trying to pickup the hd-dvd equivalent title. I've agreed with their rankings so far on picture and audio quality for d-theater releases.


I do agree with the tiering thread here on avs for the hd-dvd's I have seen as well.


Who else has compared these formats on the same equipment?

 

[joerod]

I have 92 DTHEATER titles and I do not plan to replace any of them with HD DVD or Blu ray releases. They are that good to me!

 

[Robert George]

I think one's hardware may have some bearing on this. I use the JVC 30K, not considered the best D-VHS machine, connected using component video. I have directly compared several of the above titles, U-571, Spy Game, End of Days, Fast & the Furious, The Mummy, and Backdraft. Even though I have several others, I stopped comparing and just started replacing.


In every case, in my system, I found the HD DVD to be, at worst, equal, but usually slighty superior to the D-Theater versions. As I said, this may be hardware related, but since I'm not about to buy another D-VHS doorstop, that makes HD DVD a better choice for me.


And lets not even talk about the convenience advantage of a disc format over a linear tape format.

 

[Rachael Bellomy]

I've doubled up on a few HD-discs to compare them to the tapes....including T2 on BD. It's always close. U-571 was the first and I actually preffered the audio, 576 Dolby, on the tape over the Dolby+ on the HD-DVD.


Like Joe, I have little intrest in replacing my tapes. I proably will on occasion to guage things.

 

[WirelessGuru]

I'm glad I have a lot of the Fox titles on D-Theater that I am missing out on by not owning Blu-Ray. I-Robot D-Theater if in the HD-DVD tier system would be Tier 0.


I was the one who had the opinion that 2 Fast 2 furious had better PQ than HD-DVD, however I did admit a slight error in my comparison as I was using two different input types and both may not be calibrated equally which isn't really a fair comparison.


There seems to be a common agreement amongst owners of U571 on both formats that the D-Theater 576kbps Dolby Digital track has better sound than the HD-DVD DD+ track.


I'd be curious to hear some more comparisons between Blu-ray and D-Theater as Fox starts to release many more of the titles they released on D-Theater to BD. Obviously these are just "for fun" comparisons as D-Theater is obviously a novelty format at this point.

 

[joerod]

I have the JVC HM5 U and I use HDMI to my crystalio II which I then send out at 1080p to my pj. So set up most likely does have a large role in determining pic Q. I, ROBOT is still one of the mos impressive titles out of all of my HD movies (including 101 HD DVD and 37 Blu ray)... It was that good!

 

[Rachael Bellomy]

I'm with Joe, I Robot might be my most impressive piece of software...? It's all so subjective, and close. However, I'd venture that Alien, Moulon Rouge, and Passion Of The Christ are right up there too. I've quit telling folks that I'm playing a tape.....they get so weird about it if I do. I'll tell 'em it's a tape after they're impressed. That's easier!

 

[TheLion]



Quote:
Originally Posted by joerod /forum/post/0


I have the JVC HM5 U and I use HDMI to my crystalio II which I then send out at 1080p to my pj. So set up most likely does have a large role in determining pic Q. I, ROBOT is still one of the mos impressive titles out of all of my HD movies (including 101 HD DVD and 37 Blu ray)... It was that good!

I kind of look forward to this summers I, Robot release on BD50, encoded in AVC. I think it will give my beloved King Kong a run for its money. I fully expect it to be the new reference for home video presentation.

 

[WiFi-Spy]

I recently looked back at the I, Robot D-th tape.... Its not holding up as my reference HD film transfer as it once did. Maybe its because I have seen the first 20mins of the movie so many times its getting hard not to HATE it.

 

[JulesH]

Can someone tell a newb what dtheatre is?

 

[Brajesh]

Copy-protected DVHS format from JVC that DreamWorks, Fox, Universal, & Artisan supported. Basically a niche format.


I owned a 30K, 40K & a 5U and I'd say the PQ via HDMI for most DTheater titles looked about the same as the HD DVD counterparts I now have. Simply given the convenience of disc vs. tape, I decided to sell all my DVHS stuff recently.

 

[Kris Deering]

I, Robot still looks damn good but I must say that Kong and Crank are right up there with it, if not past it at times.


I haven't seen any titles that are released on both yet that I would give the nod to D-Theater. All the HD DVD and BD releases have been as good if not better (though usually by a VERY slight margin).

 

[Brajesh]

Is 'Crank' any good? The price is pretty steep for this BR as a blind buy. I'm seeing raves for the PQ on this in the BR forum, but I'm afraid the movie might be crap. I kinda liked the 'Transporter' movies.

Update: Decided to go ahead & order 'Crank' from Amazon. Comes to $22 & change after the 10% discount, so not too bad.

 

[jhuehne]

As Brajesh said above, D-theater was a copy protected vhs format that holds up to 50gb of data per digital tape. The bitrate of the recordings can be has high as 28Mbps, which I think has to do with why some titles do look better on this format.


I also have some high bitrate recordings on dhvs from Wowow that rival the best d-theater and hd-dvd titles imo.


I wonder about bitrate versus codec. I believe the d-theater/d-vhs recordings are high bitrate mpeg2. I think hd-dvd uses vc1 codec for most of the movies. Can someone more familiar with the codecs comment on this?


As for Crank, I really like the movie, but I like the Transporter series as well. It is similar to that and I would describe it as more of a testerone driven rampage guy flick. I watched it with my wife and sister last weekend and neither of them really enjoyed it. My wife said something about too many boobs, swearing, and gross scenes for her.


I wish it was on hd-dvd. I'm hoping for a euro release.


Without a doubt, their is an added convenience of disc versus tape. Tensioning the tapes for d-vhs/d-theater is a pain. This is part of why I prefer to pickup titles on hd-dvd if they are available on both formats and I do not have the movie yet. The only stickler is if it has a reference quality review already on d-theater.

 

[Brajesh]



Quote:
As for Crank ... too many boobs, swearing, and gross scenes

Hmm, so what are the negatives?

Does sounds like a guys flick.


Re: VC1, it's a newer codec, but MPEG2 still delivers when it has the space to. I wish hi-def broadcasts in the U.S. were as good as Japan's. I have a copy of 'The Abyss' Japanese MPEG2 at over 20mbps/sec that's really good. I've transferred all my DVHS stuff to red-laser HD DVDs (using DL & SL DVD media) and the results are great for the most part.

 

[JulesH]

Thanks for the explanation!