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Actually... http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/index.html

That page shows images from "The Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship of the ring" from the DVD version and from the HD-DVD version downscaled to the same resolution as the DVD version (480p Widescreen).

You should be surprised that even after downscaling to DVD resolution the HD-DVD images are still obviously better.

Hybrid players are a nice idea but the format war will continue until one dominates in the long term because it will be cheaper for all involved, and there are pretty significant differences in the two formats, unlike the DVD +/- R/W fight. The unasked question is whether the end of the format war will boost sales? No. A lot of my friends got dvd playback for free when they both their PS2s. The PS2 cost 200 bucks a year after launch. That won't be happening anytime soon with any next gen player. The dvd worked with existing TVs. Based on price alone, I cannot buy a PS3 even, let alone a HDTV - especially since the cheapo Westinghouse ones I could have afforded on my grad student stipend apparently don't work so well with the PS3 as it is. Then theres getting a HDCP compliant audio system next (something that people seem to forget about). Then there is the total dislike of HDCP to begin with. And my feeling that DVDs are good enough after I saw this comparison http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/index.html and figured I'd not really notice any difference without a good HDTV. Oh and then there is entire piracy thing, which IMHO will only get worse as we start to have PCs connected to the internet as "Media Centers."

"Blu-Ray doesn't look much better than DVDs"

That is really hard to believe, because HD can look MUCH better than DVD, if you pause it. See here: http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/index.html
These 2 especially: http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/FOTR_Compare3 _DVD.html

Remember the thrill when DVD first came out of pausing a movie and being able to read the writing on letters, signs, liquor bottles?
Now that will be expanded and you can read many more tiny objects, and the higher resolution will let you zoom in on women in the crowd with enough detail to really see if they are hot.

"Blu-Ray doesn't look much better than DVDs"

That is really hard to believe, because HD can look MUCH better than DVD, if you pause it. See here: http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/index.html
These 2 especially: http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/FOTR_Compare3 _DVD.html

Remember the thrill when DVD first came out of pausing a movie and being able to read the writing on letters, signs, liquor bottles?
Now that will be expanded and you can read many more tiny objects, and the higher resolution will let you zoom in on women in the crowd with enough detail to really see if they are hot.

See http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/index.html.

To me, the difference is not that big. It will not make a bad movie (on dvd) to be good (on hd), nor a good movie (hd) bad (dvd).

Besides, superbit(tm) would improve the DVD too. Hopefully this will become standard.

"All these idiots had to do was make their demo disc show the movies side by side with the DVD version and it would make the difference clear."

http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/index.html

It's a LOTR DVD/HD-DVD comparison. The page I linked to containes DVD captures compared with downsampled HD-DVD captures. You can click on each one to see an upsampled DVD capture compared with a 'native' HD-DVD capture.

Not quite the same as having FMV side-by-side, but it's the next best thing.

jump from a normal DVD on a 1080p television to a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc is more significant than VHS to DVD.

No, it isn't. The reason is that NTSC on VHS gets nowhere near the theoretical maximum, in neither (horizontal) resolution nor in color reproduction. MPEG2 on DVD does. Actually, it does very good picture on "good" content.

If you compare HD-DVD/blu _still_ pictures to DVD, you will notice improvement. But I doubt you'll notice as big difference on _live_ content than from NTSC/VHS.

See http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/index.html Difference? Yes. Drastic difference? No.

And then there is the convenience factor ... dvd wins hands down the tape. HD-DVD/blu is even worse (you must have hd-ready tv, "or else").

IIRC, ICT down-reses the picture to 540x960, which is then upscaled to 1080i, or 720p. I've seen a site that attempts to compare downresed hdtv with dvd. Although the comparison used photoshop, which has a good scaling algorithm, downrezed hdvd suffers from fewer artifacts, and apparently has better color definition than dvd. The comparisons were made before HDVD became available, so an update would be most welcome.

"should be almost no artifacting introduced (sorry, the BMP files were too large to use)."

jpg isn't really losless. How can you compare images being processed and compressed?
Added to that, two different players? (I used WinDVD 6 to capture files from the DVD, and Elecard Mpeg2 player to capture from the HD stream)
There will be more detail with the HD stream, but I think his cute mouseovers don't say much accurate in that way.

Here's the link.

This page has mouse-overs to compare the difference in quality between Return of the King from DVD and HD.

I can't resist, I just love this picture so much.

We have two cats, Felix and Oscar. Yes, they live up to their names perfectly.

I can't resist, I just love this picture so much.

We have two cats, Felix and Oscar. Yes, they live up to their names perfectly.

I can't resist, I just love this picture so much.

We have two cats, Felix and Oscar. Yes, they live up to their names perfectly.

does making a high definition recording of something originally recorded in some other definition (in this case celluloid) going to look "better"?