HD-DVD Nearly Here
Posted by: Allan Probin on 04 March 2006
Not long to go now before we'll have HD-DVD to play with. Initial prices are much lower than expected, which is a nice surprise. Toshiba look to be getting the ball rolling with their HD-A1 player at $499. You can visit the Toshiba HD-DVD website to see a list of early titles that will be available for the format here. Regular price on HD-DVD disks looks to be around $30 and around $25 from discount retailers. So not much different to DVD prices. Disks and players should be available by the end of this month.
I can order one of these players for £370 including taxes, import duty and delivery from www.movietyme.com . At this price it makes a format war largely irrelevant. I'm tempted.
Allan
I can order one of these players for £370 including taxes, import duty and delivery from www.movietyme.com . At this price it makes a format war largely irrelevant. I'm tempted.
Allan
Posted on: 30 April 2006 by Chris Morton
It's a funny thing, all this talk about the need for a higher resolution DVD format. I'm surprised that most people are talking as if DVD is flawed.
I'm amazed by the results I get--latest 55 inch Fujitsu plasma with a Linn Unidisk 1.1 connected together with a high quality 20 feet DVI to HDMI cable. I'd say it looks very close to HDTV but of-course not taking up the whole of the HD 16:9 screen (when displayed in original movie aspect ratio).
The biggest factor seems to be the quality of the mastering of the DVD in my experience. Some look absolutely stunning--so much so that I do not feel any need for HD DVD. What I do need though is for the industry to do a better job of mastering DVDs. Some can look quite grainy or noisy. Take for example the Deer Hunter. What an aweful picture. Then look at the re-release of the first three Star Wars movies. The picture is incredible. Look at more modern release like the Lord of the Rings movies. These are so clear on my set that it's like looking through a class window into a diffent world. Mind you, if you use progressive scan component video the picture deteriorates quite a bit. You've got to use the digital link to get the eye-popping DVD experience.
Take another old one--Blade Runner. This just really is great stuff. It just looks fantastic given it dates back to the 70s (this release doesn't quite hit the levels you get when watching the incredible landscape scenes of New Zeland in Lord of the Rings but it's still marvelous).
The big problem is quality of mastering. Sometimes you can see hair that was transferred from the master film onto the digital master--and the picture bounces around like it does at the cinema. This is just really shoddy work from the film industry.
Also, I don't want to watch movies in 16:9 aspect ratio. I want to watch them close to the way they were created and shown in the cinema. That's what makes DVD so wonderful when it is done right.
HDTV is quite something though. It's really amazing the colour and detail you get on the full 16:9 scale, especially with the new documentaries/nature programs etc. But that is not how I want to watch movies and for my screen size, which is pretty big at 55 inches, the resolution of DVD is more than enough and is close to being as good as HD.
I think you start to see problems when a DVD is presented in 16:9 format so that it fills the whole 55 inch HD display. Then it is clear that HD TV is superior to DVD (as it should be with the high number of scan lines).
If you're watching DVD on a display that is bigger than 55 inches then I'm sure that you start to see the limitations in the resoluton of DVD and this is where HD DVD makes a contribution in my opinion.
However, most people will not be watching movies on screens larger than 55 inches (probably mostly 42 inches for the forseeable future) and this will sink HD DVD as the replacement to DVD. HD DVD will go the way of the other high definition formats--niche high end with only limited number of releases, probably decreasing over time. The same will happen to SACD and DVD-A.
Like someone said, the iPod will win hands down.
Regards,
Chris.
I'm amazed by the results I get--latest 55 inch Fujitsu plasma with a Linn Unidisk 1.1 connected together with a high quality 20 feet DVI to HDMI cable. I'd say it looks very close to HDTV but of-course not taking up the whole of the HD 16:9 screen (when displayed in original movie aspect ratio).
The biggest factor seems to be the quality of the mastering of the DVD in my experience. Some look absolutely stunning--so much so that I do not feel any need for HD DVD. What I do need though is for the industry to do a better job of mastering DVDs. Some can look quite grainy or noisy. Take for example the Deer Hunter. What an aweful picture. Then look at the re-release of the first three Star Wars movies. The picture is incredible. Look at more modern release like the Lord of the Rings movies. These are so clear on my set that it's like looking through a class window into a diffent world. Mind you, if you use progressive scan component video the picture deteriorates quite a bit. You've got to use the digital link to get the eye-popping DVD experience.
Take another old one--Blade Runner. This just really is great stuff. It just looks fantastic given it dates back to the 70s (this release doesn't quite hit the levels you get when watching the incredible landscape scenes of New Zeland in Lord of the Rings but it's still marvelous).
The big problem is quality of mastering. Sometimes you can see hair that was transferred from the master film onto the digital master--and the picture bounces around like it does at the cinema. This is just really shoddy work from the film industry.
Also, I don't want to watch movies in 16:9 aspect ratio. I want to watch them close to the way they were created and shown in the cinema. That's what makes DVD so wonderful when it is done right.
HDTV is quite something though. It's really amazing the colour and detail you get on the full 16:9 scale, especially with the new documentaries/nature programs etc. But that is not how I want to watch movies and for my screen size, which is pretty big at 55 inches, the resolution of DVD is more than enough and is close to being as good as HD.
I think you start to see problems when a DVD is presented in 16:9 format so that it fills the whole 55 inch HD display. Then it is clear that HD TV is superior to DVD (as it should be with the high number of scan lines).
If you're watching DVD on a display that is bigger than 55 inches then I'm sure that you start to see the limitations in the resoluton of DVD and this is where HD DVD makes a contribution in my opinion.
However, most people will not be watching movies on screens larger than 55 inches (probably mostly 42 inches for the forseeable future) and this will sink HD DVD as the replacement to DVD. HD DVD will go the way of the other high definition formats--niche high end with only limited number of releases, probably decreasing over time. The same will happen to SACD and DVD-A.
Like someone said, the iPod will win hands down.
Regards,
Chris.
Posted on: 01 May 2006 by Two-Sheds
I currently own 3 HD displays, I started out with a 32" toshiba CRT HD display, then got a inFocus 5700 projector (projecting onto a 106" screen) and I have recently got a 26" samsung LCD for the bedroom.
For sources I have normal digital TV (from Rogers in Canada) and a sony (DVPNS75H I think) DVD player, the cable box is connected through a composite cable and the DVD player through HDMI. For my projector I have a HD Rogers cable box and the Arcam DV89 DVD player, both connected through component cable. In the past I used to have my Toshiba TV hooked up to both the HD cable box and the Arcam, but no more.
I first got HD TV about 2 years ago and used it on my toshiba 32" tv. At that time I thought my DVD pic quality was at least equal and probably better than HD TV. One direct comparison I made (although months apart) was of LOTR the two towers which I have watched both on HD TV and on DVD.
Since I got the projector (8 to 10 months) though I would say that some programming in HD TV (like prison break, 24, some sports programs) is substantially better than the quality on DVD.
Certainly HD TV is worth it, it is far superior to cable tv here in Canada, even on the 32" TV. Is HD DVD worth it? For me it will not be worth it until the format war is over, and definitely not until is proved that all movies (old and new) will come to the format and that they are not double the price of DVD's. I'm also concerned at how they are potentially trying to limit how you connect your player to your source (HDMI only for the best resolution).
For sources I have normal digital TV (from Rogers in Canada) and a sony (DVPNS75H I think) DVD player, the cable box is connected through a composite cable and the DVD player through HDMI. For my projector I have a HD Rogers cable box and the Arcam DV89 DVD player, both connected through component cable. In the past I used to have my Toshiba TV hooked up to both the HD cable box and the Arcam, but no more.
I first got HD TV about 2 years ago and used it on my toshiba 32" tv. At that time I thought my DVD pic quality was at least equal and probably better than HD TV. One direct comparison I made (although months apart) was of LOTR the two towers which I have watched both on HD TV and on DVD.
Since I got the projector (8 to 10 months) though I would say that some programming in HD TV (like prison break, 24, some sports programs) is substantially better than the quality on DVD.
Certainly HD TV is worth it, it is far superior to cable tv here in Canada, even on the 32" TV. Is HD DVD worth it? For me it will not be worth it until the format war is over, and definitely not until is proved that all movies (old and new) will come to the format and that they are not double the price of DVD's. I'm also concerned at how they are potentially trying to limit how you connect your player to your source (HDMI only for the best resolution).
Posted on: 13 May 2006 by Allan Probin
I was lucky enough to spend a couple of hours at a friends house last night watching a HD-DVD player hooked up to a projector similar to my own. The projector was an Optoma H78, I’ve got the H79, so almost identical apart from the DC3 DLP chip in the 79 as opposed to the DC2 in the 78.
My current DVD replay mechanism is an Arcam FMJ DV27A running through a DVDO VP30 video processor performing the de-interlacing and scaling duties prior to being fed into the projector digitally at the projectors native resolution. So, not too shabby and probably close to the top of the tree as far as standard definition DVD replay goes. I thought about bringing this setup along with me but decided against in the end. As it happens, it wasn’t really necessary anyway.
The HD-DVD player was the Toshiba HD-A1. The HDMI output from the player was hooked directly into the DVI input of the projector using a standard HDMI-to-DVI cable. The digital optical output was connected to a TAG AV32 surround processor, custom-built Lucid Technology amps and active crossovers driving JBL THX speakers, actively. The HD-A1 takes a while to ‘boot-up’ from switch-on, probably 40 seconds or so, but as the projector takes about a minute and a half it’s not really an issue.
I watched about 20mins from each of the films: Serenity, Phantom of the Opera, Apollo 13 and Doom, plus the previews section for upcoming HD releases from one of the disks. Well, there was absolutely no doubt that what I was seeing was a high definition source, it is totally unmistakable. Anyone thinking that there can’t be much difference between good quality standard DVD and the new high definition formats is totally wrong. Maybe the differences on a small screen won’t be that great but the differences are most certainly there and clearly obvious to anybody on a 6ft projected image. Given the magnitude of the difference I would imagine it would still be obvious even down to a typical panel type display of 37 or 42 inches. Two things that really stand out are clarity and three-dimensionality. All the disks looked fantastic but for me Apollo 13 was the most impressive, it’s shot in just a natural, plain vanilla style but the clarity was so impressive it’s the closest I’ve ever seen an image come to that ‘looking through a window’ effect. One of the previews was for The Matrix, incredible, just incredible, looked absolutely pristine and 3-dimensional. Can’t wait.
The sound quality seemed very good to me also. The sound-tracks were encoded in the new 7.1 channel, high bit-rate Dolby Digital Plus format. Unfortunately the bit-rate for this format (and DTS+) are too high for conventional SPDIF and Toslink outputs so the player re-encodes the format on these outputs to full bit-rate normal DTS. Despite the re-encoding, the sound was still very impressive.
All-in-all, this is a revolutionary change, clearly in another league to standard DVD. The player we used isn’t perfect, it’s large, slow and clunky but remember that this is from the first batch of a first generation player of a brand new format. Despite its shortcomings it's still capable of creating the best looking images I’ve ever seen. Let’s hope high definition, of whatever format, gets established and this stupid format war doesn’t kill off the biggest advance in video replay in the home since DVD was introduced.
Allan.
My current DVD replay mechanism is an Arcam FMJ DV27A running through a DVDO VP30 video processor performing the de-interlacing and scaling duties prior to being fed into the projector digitally at the projectors native resolution. So, not too shabby and probably close to the top of the tree as far as standard definition DVD replay goes. I thought about bringing this setup along with me but decided against in the end. As it happens, it wasn’t really necessary anyway.
The HD-DVD player was the Toshiba HD-A1. The HDMI output from the player was hooked directly into the DVI input of the projector using a standard HDMI-to-DVI cable. The digital optical output was connected to a TAG AV32 surround processor, custom-built Lucid Technology amps and active crossovers driving JBL THX speakers, actively. The HD-A1 takes a while to ‘boot-up’ from switch-on, probably 40 seconds or so, but as the projector takes about a minute and a half it’s not really an issue.
I watched about 20mins from each of the films: Serenity, Phantom of the Opera, Apollo 13 and Doom, plus the previews section for upcoming HD releases from one of the disks. Well, there was absolutely no doubt that what I was seeing was a high definition source, it is totally unmistakable. Anyone thinking that there can’t be much difference between good quality standard DVD and the new high definition formats is totally wrong. Maybe the differences on a small screen won’t be that great but the differences are most certainly there and clearly obvious to anybody on a 6ft projected image. Given the magnitude of the difference I would imagine it would still be obvious even down to a typical panel type display of 37 or 42 inches. Two things that really stand out are clarity and three-dimensionality. All the disks looked fantastic but for me Apollo 13 was the most impressive, it’s shot in just a natural, plain vanilla style but the clarity was so impressive it’s the closest I’ve ever seen an image come to that ‘looking through a window’ effect. One of the previews was for The Matrix, incredible, just incredible, looked absolutely pristine and 3-dimensional. Can’t wait.
The sound quality seemed very good to me also. The sound-tracks were encoded in the new 7.1 channel, high bit-rate Dolby Digital Plus format. Unfortunately the bit-rate for this format (and DTS+) are too high for conventional SPDIF and Toslink outputs so the player re-encodes the format on these outputs to full bit-rate normal DTS. Despite the re-encoding, the sound was still very impressive.
All-in-all, this is a revolutionary change, clearly in another league to standard DVD. The player we used isn’t perfect, it’s large, slow and clunky but remember that this is from the first batch of a first generation player of a brand new format. Despite its shortcomings it's still capable of creating the best looking images I’ve ever seen. Let’s hope high definition, of whatever format, gets established and this stupid format war doesn’t kill off the biggest advance in video replay in the home since DVD was introduced.
Allan.
Posted on: 22 May 2006 by Chris Morton
Hi Allan,
On my 55 inch plasma display using my Linn Undisk 1.1 connected with DVI-hdmi, there's not a significant enough step up in quality from DVD to HD TV (even Discovery HD with Sunrise Earth etc...). Sure HD TV is better than DVD: a little more detailed and what feels like a richer, more varied set of colours.
However, DVD in my setup is still amazing--like looking through a window into a different world. Okay so I have $10k player and a $9k display so it should be good.
There's no way I would buy another player just for HD DVD.
I was in the cinema yesterday watching the Da Vinci Code. The first thing I noticed was how much worse the picture was in the cinema compared to watching DVD at home. The second thing I noticed was how much worse the sound was than watching at home through a stereo setup.
For most people, however, the cinema will always be better than their home setup.
I don't think HD DVD and Blue Ray will make it. We're looking at another laserdisk scenario.
Chris.
On my 55 inch plasma display using my Linn Undisk 1.1 connected with DVI-hdmi, there's not a significant enough step up in quality from DVD to HD TV (even Discovery HD with Sunrise Earth etc...). Sure HD TV is better than DVD: a little more detailed and what feels like a richer, more varied set of colours.
However, DVD in my setup is still amazing--like looking through a window into a different world. Okay so I have $10k player and a $9k display so it should be good.
There's no way I would buy another player just for HD DVD.
I was in the cinema yesterday watching the Da Vinci Code. The first thing I noticed was how much worse the picture was in the cinema compared to watching DVD at home. The second thing I noticed was how much worse the sound was than watching at home through a stereo setup.
For most people, however, the cinema will always be better than their home setup.
I don't think HD DVD and Blue Ray will make it. We're looking at another laserdisk scenario.
Chris.
Posted on: 22 May 2006 by Mr Underhill
quote:Originally posted by Chris Morton:
I was in the cinema yesterday watching the Da Vinci Code. The first thing I noticed was how much worse the picture was in the cinema compared to watching DVD at home. The second thing I noticed was how much worse the sound was than watching at home through a stereo setup.
...and you didn't have to put up with anti-social audience members.
That said I still love the big screen, and the down-side hasn't put me off yet.
Martin
Posted on: 22 May 2006 by Allan Probin
Chris,
Wait until you see HD-DVD.
I've put off buying a HD player so far as I'm not too enamoured of the Toshiba player. Reports so far indicate that they can be a bit unreliable so a bit risky importing one into the UK. Love the format, just not sure about the player.
Next up is the Samsung BDP-1000 Blu-ray machine due at the end of June. Appears to be a more polished product than the Toshiba and hopefully we'll then start to see some head to head format comparisons.
Allan
Wait until you see HD-DVD.
I've put off buying a HD player so far as I'm not too enamoured of the Toshiba player. Reports so far indicate that they can be a bit unreliable so a bit risky importing one into the UK. Love the format, just not sure about the player.
Next up is the Samsung BDP-1000 Blu-ray machine due at the end of June. Appears to be a more polished product than the Toshiba and hopefully we'll then start to see some head to head format comparisons.
Allan
Posted on: 28 May 2006 by General Skanky
quote:Mind you, if you use progressive scan component video the picture deteriorates quite a bit. You've got to use the digital link to get the eye-popping DVD experience.
Really? I'm not sure I'd agree with that. Prog scan done well is superb. The DVD5 does it very well.
Posted on: 29 May 2006 by SimonJ
Have you any ambitions of getting a scaler? 
Posted on: 29 May 2006 by Chris Morton
In fareness, I think there probably is no single rule about connectivity / setup that will give you the optimum results. The player and display technology varies so much.
How the upconversion is done must be the big issue. Using a Unidisk 1.1 into a Fujistu 55in plasma (latest one) with progressive scan component video misses the mark. Other scenarios might be much better on component video. I think making the display smaller also hides the problems from many people's eyes. Go up in dimensions and you'll start seeing the problems.
External scalers I presume will help to solve this conversion problem in an optimum way.
I'm using progressive scan component video from a HD receiver and the HD TV picture is absolutely astonishing. Case in point.
My DVD picture is close to this but not quite as good and of course does not take up the whole of the HD display (I like the cinema aspect ratio for movie rather than 16:9 ).
Chris.
How the upconversion is done must be the big issue. Using a Unidisk 1.1 into a Fujistu 55in plasma (latest one) with progressive scan component video misses the mark. Other scenarios might be much better on component video. I think making the display smaller also hides the problems from many people's eyes. Go up in dimensions and you'll start seeing the problems.
External scalers I presume will help to solve this conversion problem in an optimum way.
I'm using progressive scan component video from a HD receiver and the HD TV picture is absolutely astonishing. Case in point.
My DVD picture is close to this but not quite as good and of course does not take up the whole of the HD display (I like the cinema aspect ratio for movie rather than 16:9 ).
Chris.