Posted by Luke Curtis on 09/25/06 19:08

On Sun, 24 Sep 2006 00:53:03 +0100, "Gunther Gloop" <me@privacy.net>
wrote:

>I had my first demo of HDDVD today. Must say I liked what I saw, but it's
>obvious to me that there's no way Joe-public is going to run out and buy
>into it anytime soon.
>
>We played Serenity, Unforgiven and Training Day on a projector at 720p.
>Although colour/contrast/brightness seemed better on the HD, 'ordinary' dvd
>stood up well. Obviously those settings are just adjustments to be made on
>the dvd player or input settings on the pj -but just wanted to point this
>out... the 'DVD' player was obviously at a disadvantage right away in that
>regard.
>
>HD was connected via HDMI. DVD was via component.
>
>Clearly the picture _is_ better on the HD, but to be honest, it's like the
>difference between a BMP image file (HD) and a high-quality jpeg ('standard
>dvd')... it's obvious which one is better, but the differences can be quite
>subtle.
>Even paused images on both (we had both versions of Unforgiven and Training
>Day to compare) showed the dvd had _almost_ as much detail on each pause. It
>was surprising how little difference there was for the most part to be
>honest -again, it is clear that other movies might have greater
>differences -we just went with what we had.
>
>The nicest thing about HDDVD for me was the 'on-the-fly' menus... while the
>film is running, you can pull up the menu and change settings/jump to
>scenes, etc. without pausing. -Kinda no difference in one way, but _nice_.
>:)
>
>Will I be upgrading? ...Not this year certainly. I'm looking forward to when
>these new 3-in-1 dvds come out (with HDDVD/ Blu-Ray & DVD on 1 disc)...
>hopefully they _will_ come out!
>At that point I'm hoping we will all be buying the same discs, building up a
>collection... then when the time comes in a year or two to replace a current
>dvd player... and when the 'hd' hardware price has come down below
>£180ish... slowly but surely people will buy into it.

I will probably invest when I can get a decent 28" TV and HD player
for less that £500 combined.


>
>It certainly won't be the quick success that dvd was... then again I seem to
>recall DVD took a few years before it shot off too... 1998 - 2000 were
>probably the 'glory years' for those that knew... ahh. :)
I had a DVD for about a year before it really took of, I remember the
"DVD.. wasssat then?" conversations with nostalgia <G>

>
>Still, with nothing really "totally" new, manufacturers have their work cut
>out to get people to buy into HD. My advice would be to lace existing discs
>with HD-content that will entice people in over time.
>
>(Sorry if there are some mistakes above -had a few bottles tonight and might
>not be typing straight. I can't remember the HDDVD model offhand, but I
>think it was the Toshiba... without the firmware upgrade that fixes the
>audio -so that's why I didn't mention it.) :)
>
> -Kevin.
--
ButIstillneedtoknowwhat'sinthere! Thekeytoanysecurity
systemishowit'sdesigned! Thatdependsonwhyitwasdesigned!
Ihavetoknowwhatwhoeverdesigneditwastryingtoprotect!
(Blakes 7, City on the Edge of the World - Vila in typical panic mode)

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