HD DVD

[MacGuffin]

Ok so this is a dumb question, but if I have a regular dvd player and an HDTV, can I watch non-hd dvds on my tv? I'm about to buy an HDTV from a friend, it's a good deal, but do I need one of those upconverting players?

You'll still be able to play standard DVDs fine. You don't need to buy an upconversion, but it's all a matter of how good a picture quality you want. You won't be getting the benefit of true HD, and the TV's capabilities, with a standard player. In terms of VHS, you'd be getting EP quality when you know SP looks better.

[Gamblour.]

ok thanks for that. To clarify my ignorant concerns, I will be getting rabbit ears for my tv. Ah technological pastiche.

[Ravi]

Gamblour, you don't have to buy an upconverting DVD player but its well worth the price.  I bought an Oppo 980H this week for $170.  It can also play discs from any region.

[Sunrise]

If you've got the hdtv and are looking to upconvert, there are two Oppos that get universally great reviews...Ravi's is one of them. But I would suggest just getting either an HD DVD player or a Blu-Ray Disc Player. The HD DVD/Blu Ray players are not that much more expensive (especially the HD DVD players) than a good upcoverting player, they upcovert SD dvds just as well as the Oppos of the world, and they also play high definition dvds. It seems to me that the upcovert player is just a temporary fix...potentially VERY temporary. I'd hate to spend $175-$200 bucks on something that you may not use in 6 months to a year. The other side of the argument is the format war and the risk with buying one of the high def players. I would counter that by pointing out a high def player you purchase now will always be able to upconvert your standard def dvds just like a stand alone upconvert player, and it will always be able to play the high def dvds you purchase specifically for that player. And if that particular format "wins", or there is some sort of arrangement to release everything in both formats, you are set for quite a while. Whereas with a stand alone upconvert player will only play standard def dvds. Just a few thoughts.

[Redlum]

I'll just chime in and agree with Sunrise that upconverters are just a temporary fix to deal with the fact that High Definition displays have matured much faster than High Definition media. And the price you'd pay for a good up-converter like an Oppo isn't much short of a HD-DVD player that does that job, too.

Now, I await a sale on a Blu-Ray player (eyeing Panasonic's DMP line which was voted runner-up).

Mac, have you considered the PS3 as a Bluray player? I've heard it is the best Blu-ray player available (including stand alone players twice the price) - fast load times, and excellent firmware updates. If Blu-ray were to fall through, it would still offer potential as a console, even if its just to sell on.

[MacGuffin]

Mac, have you considered the PS3 as a Bluray player? I've heard it is the best Blu-ray player available (including stand alone players twice the price) - fast load times, and excellent firmware updates. If Blu-ray were to fall through, it would still offer potential as a console, even if its just to sell on.

I looked into after NEON posted his PS3 review, but I was concerned about the audio on the player:

Movie watching
Since the PS3's debut, we've seen several Blu-ray players from Samsung, Panasonic, LG, and Sony itself. And none of them generally perform any better than the PS3, even though they cost more (twice as much or more in some cases). HD movies look superb on the PS3, which can output video at full 1080p resolution via its HDMI 1.3 port. The only slight downside to the PS3's Blu-ray performance is the audio: While the PS3 can decode Dolby TrueHD and pass along PCM output via HDMI, it cannot decode DTS-HD Master Audio and currently lacks bitstream output (for external AV receivers to handle the Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio decoding) which is available on newer standalone Blu-ray players like the Panasonic DMP-BD30 and Samsung BD-P1400. It's currently unclear whether Sony will be able to enable internal DTS-HD Master Audio decoding or bitstream output with a firmware update. The other disadvantage compared with standalone Blu-ray players is the lack of multichannel analog outputs, which means you'll need to have an HDMI-capable receiver to take advantage of high-resolution audio.

http://reviews.cnet.com/consoles/sony-playstation-3-40gb/4505-10109_7-32733577.html?tag=txt

[Ravi]

I haven't bought an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player yet because the discs are more expensive than standard DVD, and I'd only buy a select few titles right now anyways.  In a year the prices will be lower and the players will be improved.

[Gamblour.]

Got the new tv, gave it a test run with the final scene in Hot Fuzz, un-upconverted and everything. Apparently it was quite the upgrade for me, my old tv never had sound this good and the image is just great, even with the little bits of artifacts and such. I love it.

[NEON MERCURY]

first off, i am glad to see mac and redlum going high def.  is there anyone else that i've missed?  and gamblor went and grabbed an hdtv-nice   i got a few questions to all of the xixax hdtv owners...  what the basic specs of your tv?

for example, i own a: samsung 40" lcd 720p/1080i

do you guys have plasma, dlp, lcd?  whats the size?  did you pay up and go 1080p?

i did my research and popular opinion is that if you're tv is 40" or less, than there is no reason to go 1080p native.  (you won't tell the difference)  is this correct for any xixaxer that has 1080p and 40" or less? 

i agree w/sunrise on the upconverter sd-dvd player.  if you just bought or have a hdtv, then just go buy a hd-dvd player!  its a little more but besides the fact that you're experiencing high def film, you also have an upconverter too.  so, if you look at the worse case scenario which would be that if hd-dvd lost the format war, you still have an upconverter.  basically, if you are going to spend the money on a hdtv you are basically taking a step to the side when buying a sd-dvd upconverter, and not a step forward like you would be doing if you went blu/hd-dvd.  seriously, show off your hdtv with high definition films.  there should be no excuses! 

i also believe that by the middle of next year, everyone here needs to go high def.  i've mentioned before that you owe it to yourself as film aficionados to make the leap.  if anything, 2001 in high def will make a believer out of skeptics.  and hopefully we will see a cmbb high def release.

not everything is perfect though in high def land.  some times people get lazy (IMO) and the supposedly "high def" films no better than an upconverted dvd. this is a good website to keep you in the right direction:  highdefdigest.com 

mac, i still think in terms of price, features, easy firmware upgrades, and quality the ps3 is a great deal.  you are correct in terms of the audio though.  but right now i still live in a small apartment and i have 5.1.  i will be getting married by the end of the year and subsequently moving into a house (hopefully) and at that time i will upgrade to 7.1.  that's when i the audio issues of the ps3 may come about.  but who knows by then maybe there will be a firmware upgrade to improve this for the ps3.  the ps3 is too much of an all-in-one media center to not purchase it in my opinion.

anyways, glad to see people going high def, and i await to see what future purchases you guys get as far as hdtvs, high def players, and what films you got and your opinions in the "i just bought thread"   

[Redlum]

i did my research and popular opinion is that if you're tv is 40" or less, than there is no reason to go 1080p native.  (you won't tell the difference)  is this correct for any xixaxer that has 1080p and 40" or less?

I'm watching my HD on a good quality 20" Widescreen LCD computer monitor and there is most certainly a difference between 1080P and 720P. The 40" and under rule is kind of strange because it doesn't take into consideration an equally important factor, and that is how far you are sat from the screen. The other advantage to a 1080p screen is that it is displaying the source with 1:1 pixel mapping meaning that it doesn't have to do any resizing of the image.

not everything is perfect though in high def land.  some times people get lazy (IMO) and the supposedly "high def" films no better than an upconverted dvd. this is a good website to keep you in the right direction:  highdefdigest.com 

Highdefdigest is a good site but their terminology for the video portion of the review can be quite misleading. It is not possible for an upscaled DVD to get close to the resolution of a High Definition disc and I think they often take this as a given when reviewing a film. When they talk about a good transfer or a bad transfer they (and most other sites) are most often, referring to the condition of the negative, and the colour timing and the general image quality. So remember that DVD is still just DVD, regardless of whether it's been upscaled.

Right now all these reviews are tailored to tech-geeks who mainly want to buy films as demonstration-discs that will impress on their new equipment.

[NEON MERCURY]

i did my research and popular opinion is that if you're tv is 40" or less, than there is no reason to go 1080p native.  (you won't tell the difference)  is this correct for any xixaxer that has 1080p and 40" or less?

I'm watching my HD on a good quality 20" Widescreen LCD computer monitor and there is most certainly a difference between 1080P and 720P. The 40" and under rule is kind of strange because it doesn't take into consideration an equally important factor, and that is how far you are sat from the screen. The other advantage to a 1080p screen is that it is displaying the source with 1:1 pixel mapping meaning that it doesn't have to do any resizing of the image.

you are correct in terms of viewing distance, but in the end...determining the size and viewing distance, 1080p is not a must...

here's a post from avsforum.com that breaks it down

Originally Posted by CruelInventions
The independent experts all tend to agree on this point.. 1080p is just about the least important factor in picture quality particularly if you are seated outside the physical boundaries where our human eye can no longer discern the resolution differences. This is a sliding distance scale which depends on screen size in relation to seating distance. Here's one such chart example:

http://hdguru.com/wp-content/uploads...ance_chart.pdf

Color accuracy, contrast, black levels, scaling/processing all come before resolution in importance. The smaller the panel, the less important resolution becomes UNLESS you will be using the panel as a computer monitor (where you'll often be seated within 4ft. of the display, and at a distance that close, you will much more likely notice & appreciate the difference). On a 37" panel, for example, you have to be within 5ft. to tell the difference. And that's under ideal circumstances.

Disregard any poster who suggests otherwise. They are seeing something other than the true difference between 1080p & 720p when they claim they can tell the difference even on smaller (37"-42") panels beyond 5-6ft. The difference they claim to see is likely to be in the processing of non-native signal, i.e., panels will typically display their native rate better than they can a lesser resolution which the panel then has to scale to match it's own.

If you have a 1080p 42" panel, for example, assuming for a moment that you are seated outside the optimal seating boundary for fully resolving (seeing) 1080p content, the panel will still often look better displaying 1080p content merely because it doesn't have to scale the resolution. Feed the 1080p panel some other lesser resolution which then must be upscaled to match the panels 1080p native rate, then on all but the most expensive panels with excellent processing, the image will look inferior not because 720p is a lesser resolution, but because the panel simply cannot do a very good job scaling it. Or, maybe the panel handles scaling these duties well, but the particular 1080p model just so happens to have better color rendition, contrast, etc., than another particular example of a 720p panel, and as a result, it looks better under any circumstances, regardless of their comparative resolution capabilities.

[Redlum]

I'm having trouble opening that pdf.

5ft for a 37" screen is pretty interesting. Yes, I'd agree 1080p is not a must but playing a 1920x1080 disc on a 1366 x 768 pixels doesn't make mathematical sense. Nor does 1280x720 (720p) pixels, for that matter. 1366x768 is a bizarre compromise with VGA resolutions for PCs and is not ideal for playing Bluray or HD-DVD.

assuming for a moment that you are seated outside the optimal seating boundary for fully resolving (seeing) 1080p content.....the image will look inferior not because 720p is a lesser resolution, but because the panel simply cannot do a very good job scaling it

If there was a true 720p screen (i.e. 1280x720 pixels) the financial saving would make sense, I think.

[last days of gerry the elephant]

I recently got the ViewSonic N4280p, which is a 42" 1080p, hooked up to my PS3.

So I'm not sure about the 720p issue going on here. But I am confident enough to keep my PS3 as a BD player and I'm going to be supporting the Blu-ray format now...

[MacGuffin]

Wow, I'm already impressed. The HD player upconverts to my 72" DLP (and although it says 1080p on the front, the HDMI in the rear only takes 1080i  ) beautifully; it really does look near-HD quality. I was having some issues with my old Sony player (seen on page 1) where, I dunno if it was the age of the player or my eyes are better trained in seeing picture quality flaws, I could see the pixelization of the picture. On Ratatouille, the scene on the bridge where Linguini is to dispose of Remy, the midnight blue sky showed no definement; the blues and the white street lamps looked like globs. But the Toshiba completely fixed that. And the sound is better enhanced. You can hear Remy scamper off screen right then behind you, then hear his footsteps come from the back speakers as he returns to Linguini.

I already sold off the Sony player on Amazon so I got some money back.

I don't have an HD DVD yet (I'll go tomorrow), so I haven't tested that quality yet, but I'm already happy so far.

[last days of gerry the elephant]

So Mac, does this mean you've chosen to go with HD DVD format for good? What persuaded you to go HD and not Blu-ray?

Now, I await a sale on a Blu-Ray player (eyeing Panasonic's DMP line which was voted runner-up).

Ah, never mind...