Recent Comments:
Microsoft moves 92,000 HD DVD add-ons over the holidays {Engadget HD}
Jan 16th 2007 1:41PM I bought the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive and I love it! Like what someone else mentioned, if you have a large HDTV display it is definitely worth it. This player also upconverts standard DVDs to look better. At $200, it's not that big of a gamble.
HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray: Do you have one? {DV Guru}
Dec 27th 2006 11:49AM I wasn't planning on getting involved with the format war initially. I was also a little concerned at the quality of some of the initial Blu-Ray transfers as the demo material used in BB looked either very grainy (i.e Eight Below) or about the same quality as standard DVD (i.e. House of Flying Daggers). In the case of the Eight Below movie, this could have had to do with some of the initial issues that were in the Samsung Blu-Ray player.
After doing quite a bit of research and reading lots of reviews on each format, it wasn't too difficult of a decision for me to go with the HD DVD drive for the Xbox since I already own a 360. The $200 price was also not too much of a gamble, even if Blu-Ray does win.
Since buying it, I have had no regrets whatsoever and the picture quality looks better than what I expected. Another reason for my decision to upgrade to HD movies is that I have DLP projector that puts out a very large image. At 116", you can easily tell the difference between standard DVD quality and the higher HD resolution. For very small TVs or where the viewing area is far from the TV, the difference is not as noticeable.
Lastly, regarding all the hype and/or marketing that seems to surround the different technical specs of HD movies (1080i vs. 1080p, HDMI, lossless audio), 1080p is only beneficial to those who have one of the newer 1080p native HD displays. Furthermore, the difference between 1080i and 1080p is going to be so small that most people won't notice it unless they have a very large screen AND they are sitting very close to the screen. As far as HDMI goes, I have hooked up HDMI, DVI, VGA, and Component and from a normal sitting distance, there really is not much, if any, difference in the quality of the picture. Regarding lossless audio or some of the other new audio codecs appearing on both HD DVD and Blu-Ray, most of the receivers on the market don't support these natively. The optical cable from my Xbox to my 7.1 receiver still seems to do a very good job of outputting the sound. While the sound on the Xbox with the add-on may need to be turned up slightly, the sound appears crisper and clearer to me than standard DVD sound.
As to when the format war will end, I think that if consumers take a real long time to take sides, then it could take longer for CE companies to ramp up production and bring costs down and studios may be less likely to introduce bigger blockbuster hits until more people adopt a format that is seen to be a winner
