[BrunoBruin]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

"Not recommended under any circumstances."

OUCH!!

[Eug Wanker]

Yup, some units are reported to be buggy, although the bugs are supposed to be correctable with the next firmware update.

The remote apparently sucks according to people who have it. And yes it's reportedly slow.

Most people say the DVD upconversion is very good though, and better than most upconverting DVD players on the market.

[sabrejim]

The player does suck. But the video is sooooooo pretty. It's polar bear slow to start up. The remote is nearly unusable. The buttons are mostly the same shape and the labels are dark grey on black, that look like they should be illuminated but aren't. But you have to think early adopters have a decent universal remote already, I know I do. Apparently HDMI on the players is wonky too, although I have had no HDMI issues. But 2 stars out of 10, thats just ridiculous.

Upconversion is awful for me at least. I don't know If I have something setup incorrectly but the colors are oversaturated, blacks lack detail, it's unwatchable. I have another upconverting dvd player anyway, so it's not an issue with me.

[ort888]

Unless you are crazy rich, or dying to see the 10 or so movies that are out now in HD, it makes no sense to buy it.

I'm waiting until there is a library of movies I want to see. The only HD-DVD movie I even like is Serenity, and I didn't even like it enough to buy the regular DVD.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by ort888

Unless you are crazy rich, or dying to see the 10 or so movies that are out now in HD, it makes no sense to buy it.

I'm waiting until there is a library of movies I want to see. The only HD-DVD movie I even like is Serenity, and I didn't even like it enough to buy the regular DVD.

Good advice. I'm buying neither Blu-ray nor HD DVD for the time being. I'm waiting for a 2nd gen unit and lower prices.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

Most people say the DVD upconversion is very good though, and better than most upconverting DVD players on the market.

I dunno, my $150 sony up-converting DVD player does an astounding job. This reviewer scathed the abilities of the up-conversion on this HD player.

[sabrejim]

My main reason for buying it is because I'm gonna be buying movies anyway, why bother with SD versions anymore, although I'm still trying to ween myself off tv shows on DVD. Why oh why did I decide to buy the first season of the OC.

And I want to see how long I can go with owning every HD DVD. 1 month and counting.

[ort888]

Yeah, I remember a time when I owned every N64 game. I think it took almost 9 months for them to come out with more games then I could reasonably afford/want.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

I dunno, my $150 sony up-converting DVD player does an astounding job. This reviewer scathed the abilities of the up-conversion on this HD player.

Well, according to the home theatre type forums, upconversion is pretty well liked for this player by almost all of the people who have it. And several of them have several upconverting players.

Even if yours is good, doesn't mean the Toshiba has to be bad at upconversion. There are several good upconverting players out there.

They agree with the remote being sucky and some do report bugginess however.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

Even if yours is good, doesn't mean the Toshiba has to be bad at upconversion. There are several good upconverting players out there.

Hey he is the one that says it is sucky, not me.

[starman]

Paramount's titles start arriving next week

--

Paramount goes HD

Paramount Home Entertainment has finally taken the plunge into high definition with ten HD-DVD titles coming in the next few months.
On July 25th, Sahara, Tomb Raider, Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow and Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow will arrive. August 1st will include Four Brothers, We Were Soldiers and The Manchurian Candidate. Then on August 8th, expect U2: Rattle and Hum, Aeon Flux and The Italian Job.
An odd cross-mix of titles, but Paramount is welcome to the fold.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by starman

Paramount's titles start arriving next week

--

Paramount goes HD

Paramount Home Entertainment has finally taken the plunge into high definition with ten HD-DVD titles coming in the next few months.
On July 25th, Sahara, Tomb Raider, Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow and Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow will arrive. August 1st will include Four Brothers, We Were Soldiers and The Manchurian Candidate. Then on August 8th, expect U2: Rattle and Hum, Aeon Flux and The Italian Job.
An odd cross-mix of titles, but Paramount is welcome to the fold.

I have zero interest in buying any of those movies. However, Sky Captain and Aeon Flux... with Charlize Theron... would look pretty sweet in HD.

BTW, if the HD DVD trailer for Manchurian Candidate is any indication, it's not gonna look so great.

Meanwhile... No love for Blu-ray in Europe until 2007

"Pioneer, one of the stalwarts of the Blu-ray camp, admitted this week it would not be ready to launch the players by the time of the Sept. 1 to Sept. 6 trade fair IFA in Berlin, the principal European consumer electronics show.

Toshiba, leader of the camp that makes the rival standard, the HD-DVD, insists it will be ready to roll in Europe when the Berlin show opens. Both camps have had a rocky beginning in Japan and the US.

At a briefing in Germany, Pioneer said it still had no "concrete" plans for a European launch, but believed the January 2007 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where Blu-ray makers hope to offer movie-players in bulk, would "lay the ground" for a Europe launch."

[kaze0]

Ugh
Paramount just made it so much harder to keep up with buying every hd dvd. Although I think I missed a few hd net ones

[Landos Mustache]

Yep, just like I though. Typical **** Samsung.

The Blu-ray player is set wrong so the pic is soft:

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-...ber-188847.php

[kaze0]

Idiots ^^^^^

[BrunoBruin]

Originally Posted by Landos Mustache

The Blu-ray player is set wrong so the pic is soft:

On the bright side, though, if this is indeed the cause of the poor picture quality, it may mean the compression and mastering of the discs themselves are okay. (And it makes sense, since there have been reports that picture quality was much better when using component output rather than HDMI.) If it were the discs themselves that were bad, that would be a far more serious problem for Blu-ray; it certainly would keep me from buying.

[hickey]

since it takes so long for the dvds to load, and since its apparently a linux box, could you open it up and put in more RAM to speed it up?

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by hickey

since it takes so long for the dvds to load, and since its apparently a linux box, could you open it up and put in more RAM to speed it up?

You usually don't need much RAM for this type of application.

[hickey]

so even if you found out what speed of RAM and all that, it wouldn't help at all.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by hickey

so even if you found out what speed of RAM and all that, it wouldn't help at all.

Seems more of a CPU and software problem.

[Eug Wanker]

Review: House of Flying Daggers (Blu-Ray) (Sony Pictures)

I'll start with a couple of good things. The Blu-ray has lovely colors that run deeper and sparkle better than any previous home video edition. Also, in direct comparison to the Sony DVD, the new disc has much less edge enhancement (though minor halos do still pop up in some places) and better detail in certain textures like clothing fabric, hair, or on-screen text such as the opening prologue. I've owned many copies of this movie from different parts of the world, and of them I'd have to admit that this is perhaps the best it's looked by some very moderate degree. That will do it for the good stuff.

Here's the problem: although this disc is an improvement over the comparable (mediocre) DVD, it's quite awful by High Definition standards. It looks essentially like the DVD should have looked, not like an HD disc should look. In fact, I'd go so far as to say this is the worst HD image I've ever seen. The picture is distractingly soft. As mentioned, certain textures like clothing look decent in close-up (by DVD standards, at least), but wide shots lose definition and the actors' faces look waxy if not outright blurry. It's true that if you check the same shots on the DVD, they're also soft on that disc, but the problem was less obvious on the lower-resolution medium and stands out in stark clarity here. There is no detail at all in things like skin pores or complexion as you'll see in the best High Definition sources. I'll concede that the movie may have a deliberately soft photographic style, but the disc goes too far and looks excessively filtered and compressed. The image is often dupey and flat, with no sense of depth. Compression noise and image shimmer are problematic in scenes with high levels of detail; for example, keep an eye on the beaded curtains in the background of wide shots inside the Peony Pavilion. Film grain is poorly compressed and looks noisy as hell, especially during the bamboo forest scene. To put it bluntly, this disc is a disaster.

By virtue of the fact that it does indeed look better than the movie's DVD edition, I'll be generous and give this Blu-ray's picture quality a couple of stars. However, it's plainly obvious that the space constraints caused by using inefficient MPEG2 compression on a single-layer disc cluttered by space-hogging PCM audio has taken a serious toll. For a premiere launch title intended to sell the public on the merits of the new Blu-ray video format, this disc is an embarrassment.

[MindFad]

o snap

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

Review: House of Flying Daggers (Blu-Ray) (Sony Pictures)

Please don't tell me he watched it on the samsung player.