[goMac]

I think it all depends on the quality of the DVD. I've seen DVD's that (upscaled) look like crap in both the PS3 and XBox 360 (I know my copy of Austin Powers looks awful in my 360 upscaled). And I've seen titles that look just awesome upscaled in both the PS3 and 360 (Lost on DVD looked gorgeous on the PS3, and Stranger than Fiction looks gorgeous on my 360).

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by icruise 

5 minutes? I recall some discussion about this issue before, but that's insane! That would drive me absolutely crazy.

It is HIGHLY annoying. Luckily the reward is just enough.

[Montezuma58]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

They thing that bugs me is the little features that are absent. When I push stop on the HD-DVD player the movie restarts from the beginning, where as I can eject and reinsert a DVD on the Sony and it will pick up where it left off. I turn on the HD-DVD player and about 5 minutes later I am watching a movie. I turn on the Sony DVD player and I am watching a movie in 20 seconds or less.

FWIW, Blu-Ray players also have the stop/resume problem. With HD DVD I believe it is possible for the player to do the stop/resume thing if the disc is authored to allow it.

The slowness of the HD DVD player is annoying. It seems like it takes forever and a day for Transformers to get to a playable state.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by ort888 

To be honest, so far I am not super impressed with my HD DVD player.

The movies do look noticeably better, but the increase in quality is not that big of a deal.

We are talking about a 10% - 20% increase in noticeable difference between a regular DVD and an HD DVD.

In some ways I'm relieved. I was kind of worried that I would never want to go back to regular DVDs again, but I'm finding that normal DVDs look so good on the HD-A2 that it isn't going to be an issue.

On my 42" LCD from a fair distance away, the difference is noticeable, but often not an OMFG-that's-totally-insane-!!!11 type of difference.

On my 90" projector screen from 9', the difference is absolutely ginormous.

Originally Posted by Railroader 

Really? I find that even on my 720p TV that the cheapo Toshiba HD-DVD player has much better sound and picture over my top of the line sony DVD player.

They thing that bugs me is the little features that are absent. When I push stop on the HD-DVD player the movie restarts from the beginning, where as I can eject and reinsert a DVD on the Sony and it will pick up where it left off. I turn on the HD-DVD player and about 5 minutes later I am watching a movie. I turn on the Sony DVD player and I am watching a movie in 20 seconds or less.

If you put a DVD in the Toshiba player, it will also resume immediately.

As for taking 5 minutes for HD DVD, that's exaggeration, at least in my experience. Yes, the resume issue is stupid, but just FYI it's a stupid issue on both HD formats. The problem is that whomever designed these formats forgot about these "little" things most of us have come to expect.

However, DVDs resume normally, as do HD DVDs (and Blu-ray discs) authored in the basic spec. There are several HD DVDs that resume just fine. However, anything that is authored in the more advanced mode loses resume capability. It has to do with the design of the disc menus and screensavers, etc, and is a problem on both Blu-ray and HD DVD.

Recent HD DVDs have a bookmarking feature that compensates for this. You can simply press one button to bookmark the spot before you shut off. Yeah, it's another step, but it's better than nothing.

They really should properly set up automatic bookmarking and resume though, but so far haven't done it, which is dumb. What worries me is that they still haven't done it, on either hi-def format. One HD DVD guy told me that on their initial attempt, they had problems such as in the situation where a screen saver activates. If the person shut the machine off while the screensaver was active, resume would take you back into the screensaver, and you'd be stuck there. Lame. So, it's a lot more complicated than they originally imagined.

Playing DVDs in the Toshiba is a miserable experience. I find the picture quality is better on the Sony DVD player.

? As mentioned, DVD's resume on the Toshiba HD DVD player just fine. It's HD DVDs that don't resume. I find the upscaling on the Toshiba player pretty good (and better than the Xbox 360), but there are better upscalers out there (like the A20 apparently).

[jokell82]

The changelog from the latest version of SlySoft's AnyDVD:

AnyDVD 6.1.9.6 beta - SlySoft Forum

6.1.9.6 2007 11 07

* New (Blu-ray): AnyDVD ripper copies BD+ titles
* New (Blu-ray): Removed "BD+ not supported" warning, as all available BD+ titles can be copied with AnyDVD ripper, or can be watched on HTPC without HDCP using PowerDVD 3104 and AnyDVD. Reports indicate, that burned BD+ titles work on PS3 and standalone players as well.
* Note to Twentieth Century Fox: As you can see, BD+ didn't offer you any advanced security, it just annoyed some of your customers with older players. So could you please cut this crap and start publishing your titles on HD DVD? There are thousands of people willing to give you money.
* Note to people considering to invest in HD media: Please buy HD DVD instead of Blu-ray. HD DVD is much more consumer friendly (e.g., no region coding, AACS not mandatory). Don't give your money to people, who throw your fair-use rights out of the window.
* New (HD DVD & Blu-ray): Support for more MKBv4 titles
* Some minor fixes and improvements
* Updated languages

Couldn't agree more, SlySoft. Couldn't agree more...

[icruise]

Is it really any surprise that a company that specializes in defeating copy protection would prefer the format with weaker copy protection?

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by icruise 

Is it really any surprise that a company that specializes in defeating copy protection would prefer the format with weaker copy protection?

That's not surprising. What's surprising is that Blu-Ray's indestructible BD+ protection scheme has been broken.

Well, it's not surprising to me. But it's probably surprising to Fox, Disney, and Sony.

[Dakarʒ]

Originally Posted by goMac 

I think it all depends on the quality of the DVD. I've seen DVD's that (upscaled) look like crap in both the PS3 and XBox 360 (I know my copy of Austin Powers looks awful in my 360 upscaled). And I've seen titles that look just awesome upscaled in both the PS3 and 360 (Lost on DVD looked gorgeous on the PS3, and Stranger than Fiction looks gorgeous on my 360).

I couldn't agree more about the 360. I was absolutely stunned by the quality of the Sopranos DVD, but a couple nights ago I was less then impressed by my Star Trek DVD. To state the obvious, I think it's mostly the source quality -- TNGs wasn't all that great back in 89-90, unlike the Sopranos from a few years ago.

[Eug]

The other problem is the 360 is a poor upscaler IMO.

I tried VGA for 1080p60 to my projector, and I was wholly unimpressed with the upscaling. Finally, I just switched to component to force the Xbox 360 to output only 480p, and let the projector do the upscaling. The result is much better. It's still not as good as some of the top end scalers out there, but it's pretty good... unlike the 360's upscaling which is at best mediocre.

[goMac]

Interesting article here:
Exclusive: The State of Blu-ray

Key Points:
• The Bluray camp is split on what version of the format to support
• Denon is going to go neutral

[starman]

Uh, wow. This makes this thread look like nursery school.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/annou...hp?f=150&a=116

[jokell82]

But...but...I thought Blu-Ray already won?!?!
Sony's Stringer: Blu-ray vs. HD DVD battle a "stalemate" - Engadget HD

[Eug]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

But...but...I thought Blu-Ray already won?!?!
Sony's Stringer: Blu-ray vs. HD DVD battle a "stalemate" - Engadget HD

Hey, cut him some slack. Stringer sort of sounds half reasonable here at least in certain parts, unlike some of his BD brethren.

Original article.

However, this statement seems a bit odd to me:

At the same time, he played down the importance of the battle, saying it was mostly a matter of prestige whose format wins out in the end.

"It doesn't mean as much as all that," Stringer said. He added that he believed there was an opportunity of uniting the two camps under one format before he became CEO, and he wishes he could travel back in time to make that happen.

That seems like a capitulation to me. He knows they have gotten a bit hit in the past couple of weeks, but now is trying to claim winning doesn't matter. Personally, I think it matters a great deal, as the end of the format war would spur consumer sales, and the winner would stand gain TONS in royalty payments.

If winning didn't matter, they should have said so last year.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Eug 

That seems like a capitulation to me. He knows they have gotten a bit hit in the past couple of weeks, but now is trying to claim winning doesn't matter. Personally, I think it matters a great deal, as the end of the format war would spur consumer sales, and the winner would stand gain TONS in royalty payments.

If winning didn't matter, they should have said so last year.

Hold your horses. Seems microsoft also had something to say today about it:
"Microsoft Consumer Media Group Director Kevin Collins seemed uninterested in making the format a cornerstone of the Xbox 360 package. "Microsoft knew if we put in an HD DVD drive that we would have to raise costs and disenfranchise our customers (that are primarily gamers) as the unit would become too expensive," he said.

Sony, MS downplay high-def movie war - Joystiq

While Collins said he was proud of HD DVD's strong performance against Blu-Ray, his desire for a fight to the death between the formats left something to be desired. "The [Blu-ray] camp's claims about Microsoft's desire to have a format war are baseless," Collins said."

The part that gets me is:
""Microsoft knew if we put in an HD DVD drive that we would have to raise costs and disenfranchise our customers (that are primarily gamers) as the unit would become too expensive," he said."

Last time I checked a PS3 with a BR player, bigger HD, free online play and built in Wifi costs $399.

Xbox 360 costs the same without an HD-DVD player, small hard drive, $60 a year online play and no damn Wifi.
To get the HD-add on is $150-$200 more
Wifi is outragiously priced at $110 when even the Wii and DS have it.
And that isn't even including a bigger HD or online play.

The only down side is the $400 PS3 has no backwards compatibility which isn't that big a deal as the 360's sucks and you can get a whole stand alone PS2 slim with DVD player for $99. Not good enough? Well then you only have to pay $499 for the 80 gig PS3 with BC which is still waaaay cheaper than a 360 with the mentioned features.

The value for your dollar of the 360 totally sucks next to the PS3.

[ort888]

Your really simplifying it. The 360 launched in 2005. how much would an HD DVD drive have cost back then. A whole lot.

Sony found out how well a $599 console sells. Like poo.

Also, the PS3 sells for $399 now, but it took a year to get down to that price. In the mean time, they have been getting outsold 2:1 by Microsoft and about 4:1 by Nintendo. The initial prce of the PS3 has left them standing in a deep hole looking up at Microsoft and Nintendo.

Did you see the current reports from Ea and Activision on software sales? EA sold about 218 million on the 360 and about 17 on the PS3. Those are sobering numbers.

Gamasutra - EA Filing Reveals GameStop/Wal-Mart Reliance, SEC Options Settling

I agree that the $399 PS3 looks like a bargain next to the 360 right now, but Microsoft has yet to respond to this latest sony price drop.

[pooka]

Yeah, they have already responded. They brought some games worth playing. So yeah, dollar for dollar, we've logged some serious game time on our consoles. How much Bluray time you guys pulling these days?