HD-DVD Roadshow impressions
Last week we told you that Toshiba was
taking their HD-DVD on the road and that we were waiting for them to make a stop by our local store. I got the call
yesterday and had a chance to spend a few minutes with Mark our regional Toshiba representative. To say the very least I was VERY impressed, it was a much more in depth demo than I saw at CES. The HD trailers were flawless with no sign of compression artifacts what so ever, the PQ certainly lives up to my expectations of HD. Among the movie trailers there was a SD vs HD side by side comparison that was one of the best demos used to compare the technology that I have yet to see. At one point they had a boat traveling across the screen, with the screen split down the center; the right side SD the left side HD. If you get a chance, you have to see it for yourself.
The HD-XA1 was connected to a DLP rear projection via HDMI. The player was outputting 1080i and the DLP was converting it to 1080p. The biggest disappointment was that the iHD interactive layer was not implemented on the demo unit. I had a chance to see this at CES and was looking forward to spending some more time with it. This makes me wonder if they will have this unit shipped anytime soon.
I resisted ordering one, but I will tell you it wasn't easy. There is a good chance that I will end up owning both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray at this rate.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Matt Gerlach @ Mar 8th 2006 8:57AM
Now, that is somethng really good to hear. If you own a 360, have you looking into the HD-DVD attachment for the 360 (ETA Unknown).
Hopefully it works as well as you said that HD-DVD player did.
Fastman @ Mar 8th 2006 9:16AM
My current quote: "If it ain't native 1080p, it aint HD."
Ben Drawbaugh @ Mar 8th 2006 9:19AM
Matt,
I have a Xbox360, but would never want to use it as a DVD player it is almost too loud to play games on. Before you respond, understand that I have an OCD for ambient noise and I am one that would turn off the AC and refrigerator while watching movies to avoid it.
I just hope the production models are on time and work as advertised.
hmurchison @ Mar 8th 2006 10:45AM
Fastman High Definition is 1280x720 or 1920x1080. You may have your own personal scale and that's your choice but 1080p is no more HD than 1080i by the spec.
Besides the data on the disc for both formats will max at 1080p/24. If the proper flags are present the telecine process will reconstruct a 1080i to 1080p in the set anyways.
Jeff @ Mar 8th 2006 10:46AM
I guess I wasn't impressed as you were. It sure wasn't as good as D-Theater tapes are or "were".
But it might be as good as we can get for a while.
Ben Drawbaugh @ Mar 8th 2006 10:49AM
Jeff,
I have never seen D-Theater, what was it about HD-DVD that you didn't like as much as D-Theater?
Keep in mind that the stores are a less than ideal place for watching HD. ie too much light.
As for the actual demo technique, I was not as impressed, it was in the back of the store, hard to find, and too much light.
BobMac @ Mar 8th 2006 10:51AM
I was hoping you'd say HD-DVD would suck, so I wouldn't have to buy two new players this year.
zombieflanders @ Mar 8th 2006 10:52AM
All indications point to a poor launch for HD-DVD. Every model on the tour is a prototype, there have been no ads, and worst of all, you can't buy any movies. According to TheDigitalBits.com, only 5 titles have been announced for 3/28, all from Warner, and (get this) they're not sure if they're ready. This is all at t-minus 3 weeks and counting. Between this and the ~$1000 Blu-Ray players, it's looking like anyone but desparate HD consumers should avoid 1st-generation *anything* like the plague.
zombieflanders @ Mar 8th 2006 10:54AM
Confirmation of problems for HD DVD retailers here:
http://videobusiness.com/article/CA6312824.html
Ben Drawbaugh @ Mar 8th 2006 11:20AM
zombieflanders,
Thanks for the link, look for a post later today.
Dan in DCVA @ Mar 8th 2006 11:48AM
On the subject of 1080i vs. 1080p,
I would love to see ExtremeTech (or someone else . . . HDBeat?) conduct a scientific blind test to see if the HD customers can really tell the difference between the two.
Get two identical 1080p displays, two identical content devices (a Blu-Ray player or whatever) that can push both 1080i and 1080p, put identical content on each box and then ask a bunch of HD enthusiasts (not technicians) if they can pick out the display receiving 1080p source material at the optimum viewing distance.
For the reasons that #4 above mentioned, my guess is that it would be very difficult to get a set of well-educated HD customers to consistently find the 1080p source material.
However, I would love to be proved wrong with some kind of real empirical assessment. The anecdotal I-saw-a-1080p-and-it-blew-my-mind subjective evidence is getting fairly tiresome. I think it would be important know whether 1080p is or is not another step up the steep slope of the law of diminishing returns.
Im totally going to check out the HD-DVD road show next week. I have to bring my 11-month-old as my wife is busy that night. So if you see an HD-DVD prototype ruined by drool show up on eBay, you know who to thank.
hmurchison @ Mar 8th 2006 12:11PM
Dan i'd love to see that as well. The problem with the rants about 1080i vs 1080p is that many of your higher end sets have scalers built right in. So they're going to take a interlaced picture and upscale it to progressive before display anyways. The best LCD IMO is the Sony SXRD and it's a 1080p set with 1080i inputs. I have yet to see a better LCD although I haven't seen the JVC Pro 1080p sets yet.
Truth is...1080 is a fluid thing right now..as long as my source is 1080p then i'm not worried about what the output is. Besides most of the people screaming about the 1080p mumbo jumbo don't seem to realize that the BEST output would be 1080p/24 or 1080p/48 which the Sony Qualia can handle. Any other flavor will involve scaling of some sort.
As always let your eyes decide what looks best and leave the specs to those who don't trust their eyes.
Jeff @ Mar 8th 2006 1:57PM
I went to a demo last week and a friend was there as well, I didn't notice until he told me. But he pointed out a few scenes that had artifacts. The hand shake in the Charlie trailer (the hands left behind a "slow motion" shadow), and a few others.
Now, I'm not saying that they make it un-watchable, because it didn't. Plus I'm not as picky as that friend is.
But I had always hoped that HD DVD in whatever format might that wins might be able to match D-Theater. But with D-Theater being a constant bit rate, I don't think we will see that because of the optical formats are using variable bit rates.
But, it's our next evolution of HD and most of us HD addicts will buy into one of the two or maybe both :-)
Borat @ Mar 8th 2006 1:58PM
Bah.
Spiderman won't be available on HD-DVD(and loads of other movies), so HD-DVD may work for now but not in the long run.
Btw, does anyone know if TV shows are going to be released on HD-DVDs and/or Blu-Rays? I want The Sopranos and Deadwood in 1080p!
hmurchison @ Mar 8th 2006 2:27PM
There will be some artifacts. MPEG2 is 20+ years old and has been dutifully mastered by compression masters. AVC (h.264) is improving rapidly so I don't expect to see many artifacts in most media. Hell I have some old DVDs that I pop into the player just to marvel at how todays 4-6Mpbs DVDs surpass the best 8-9Mbps DVDs that shipped shortly after DL discs became in vogue.
I know the Sopranos should be on HD soon. Don't know about Deadwood but HBO is pretty bullish about getting their best out there.
Joshua Nelson @ Mar 21st 2006 3:48PM
I saw the HD-DVD demo at the Fry's Electronics in the City of Industry, CA. It was kind of frustrating as a bunch of people showed up during their lunch break, but they had a "media" event going on where camera crews and journalists could take pictures and ask questions. So we all waited about 45 minutes for them to finish. The rep kept saying 3 more minutes for about 25 minutes, so I was late back to work.
They had a dark room with only the light of the emergency exit. The boat scene with split screen SD versus HD was pretty amazing. The flag was pretty neat. The flag looked like one color - blue - in SD, but with the HD you could actually see that it was blue and white stripes. The side by side was pretty cool - it sure beats hitting "previous channel" to go back and forth between HD and SD. Do you think they pumped the SD in through separate cables and the HD through separate cables or was SD versus HD done on the disc???