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Retail Leaks of HD-DVD Players, Discs Reported
An anonymous reader writes "Though the market launch of the first HD-DVD players and discs does not officially begin until tomorrow (Tuesday), the online DVD community is already buzzing with fan reports of early street date violations at some retail outlets."
I also don't agree with your list of 'issues':
complex setups
Ummm, you plug the HDMI connector into the back of the HD-DVD player and the other end into your TV. There is no step 2. Audio and everything is taken care of.
additional expense beyond new DVD players
True I guess if you do not have any HDMI based equipment. Around Seattle, there are a _lot_ of people with Plasma displays and all the recent ones have HDMI. The number of those sets are going to be increasing in the future. And the people that already own HDMI equipment are the same kind of people who want better quality and will go for HD-DVD.
compatibility issues (real or perceived)
I predict that no one will have any compatibility issues. Old DVDs will play fine (and maybe look better because of the HDMI link, as a lot of older DVD players are using Component or worse) and new HD-DVDs will look great.
DRM
In summary, HD-DVD is set for a good run if you ask me. The new players will integrate nicely into newer home-theaters and are going to look stunning. Sure a lot of people who don't spend a ton of money on this stuff are going to be left out in the cold for a while, but remember how expensive DVD players were when they first came out. The price is going to drop.
Also, people who have to view a scaled down image because they don't have compliant equipment are probably not going to notice the difference. Believe it or not, some people watch DVDs on crappy 27" tubes from 1985 through the composite interfaces.
Sure, I agree that many people won't care about the difference between DVD and HD-DVD. I do, because:
- I own an HDTV,
- I paid many times more for it than I did for my DVD player, and
- I can clearly see the difference in quality between broadcast HD and DVDs, even though I have a relatively small screen (34").
I think comparing HD-DVD (or Bluray) to SACD is mostly bogus. Consider equipment: to get what you pay for from an SACD, you need at least the player, a "high-end" receiver, "high-end" speakers, and "high-end" cables. "High-end" isn't well defined because we're not dealing with video resolutions. And I think to most people the end result isn't tangible because they can't SEE the difference.
With HD video you need the player, the TV (which people already have) plus cables. Sure, there are details videophiles will worry about like are you getting 1080i or 1080p, but I'd think only a small slice of a small slice will care. And when you have your HD movies playing on your giant HDTV, you can SEE the results immediately: instead of looking at scaled up blotches, you're looking at sharp detail.
The fact is TV screen sizes will keep going up, people will keep buying bigger TVs for the "wow" factor, and bigger screens need more pixels.
It's about 3/4's of the way down in a different thread.
Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD - First End User Reports!
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/printthread.php?t=
If you poke around earlier/later in the thread, there are pictures of the systems with their innards exposed & a pic or two of the DVD-player menu when you connect it to the LAN. On page 15, there's a shot of the HDMI chip.
Apparently you can stream subtitles off your computer & onto/into the DVD player. That tidbit is on page 20.
(Just so you know, I didn't actually read any of the posts, I skimmed through it all looking for pictures. Works great in Fark Flame Wars
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!