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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."
From the article, I think the most key point is: Attentions will now be turning to how well these first-gen HD-DVD products meet expectations.
Considering I've still not been able to show my parents how to use their system easily, I'm wondering how much backlash there will be with the new DVDs. My prediction? (who cares?): I think HD DVDs will have moderate success but really run the risk of suffering the same fate as SACD (Super Audio CD). Good and interesting technology but not better enough to offset:
I'm not even considering introducing my parents to this technology. They're impressed when they see HDTV, but they're not inclined to jump through the hoops to get it up and running at their place. I'm also not recommending this to friends... I started out optimistic, but when they asked for advice (they always do), and I start laying out the logistical minefield to traverse to get all of the right pieces in the right places, their eyes quickly glaze... and for me, until this all settles and is easier, cheaper, more assured, and unencumbered, I'm just not going to push this stuff on others. And, you know what? They're not pressing to get it!
(Yeah, the slashdot demographic probably statistically will be high in adoption of this, but that demographic is going to be the exception for a while.)
Apparently some people are bit too enthusiastic about a product which may or may not end up like Laser Disc or BetaMax.
I'd least wait till Blue Ray comes out before getting one or the other...
Well if you've got the money to blow, the more power to you.
Although, I can't berate them too much, I used to own a Laser Disc player (but it was mostly for Anime imports back in the 90's).
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Am I the only one who thinks HD-DVD is a bit premature? Existing DVD products fail to add compelling extra features in most cases with well done bonus features being few and far between. What do they hope to accomplish with all that freakin SPACE!? (saddled along with all that extra COST no less)
These HD-DVD players being released right now do not support 1080p, only 720p for the time being. The Toshiba DVD players do not support the dual-link HDMI-B specification required for true 1080p output. At best, for all your money you'd be putting out you're only getting 4/9 or 44% of the resolution offerd by true 1080p. That's GARGBAGE!
Save you money. I watch 720p shows on the HD movie channels already, and its not -that- much better than a DVD. You can see the difference, but knowing that real -1080p- players are right around the corner, no way I'm being duped into HD-DVD.
We're all better off waiting until TVs widely support the HDMI-B specification for 1080p and the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray players support that output resolution as well.
The HD-DVD discs are encoded in 1080p however, and if watched on (for instance) a capable computer monitor the movies should show in true 1080p. Blu-Ray players, though non-existent, support 1080p output natively.
Regular HDMI type A (you know, like the kind used by the PS3) can carry 1080p. Since movies are stored in 1080p24 on the disc, the player converts this to 1080i60 (which causes no loss of data), and then the TV performs a trivial inverse telecine to recover the original 1080p24.
The article fails to mention the where the AVS forums and reviews of the new players are at. They are here
Their HD-XA1 player (the more expensive player) has this, but the HD-A1 (the cheaper player) does not. Does anyone know what it's for? At first I thought it was for key revocation (in case it gets cracked, like DVD did) but since it's not on the cheaper player, I'm guessing that's not it.
Why would my DVD player need to be hooked up to a network? Are they planning on letting me stream movies between the boxes in my house? Or is this just to set the clock with NTP (a rather stupid reason to put the thing on there).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
In the early days of stereo, recording companies made, and in some cases sold at bargain prices, demo disks that would show off the capabilities of the new medium.
These disks usually had a mixture of material on them, some quite gimmicky (marching bands marching across the soundstage, jet planes, steam engines, popular music arranged with extreme separation between left and right channels), but always recorded with truly high fidelity and often genuinely impressive.
Under the right circumstances... the difference between a high-fidelity mono recording of a symphony orchestra belting out something like the 1812 Overture and a stereo recording of the same material... was extremely dramatic. And wallet-loosening. Alas, the average classical stereo LP was not as well recorded as the demo disks...
Similarly, the early presentations of Cinerama, which represented very roughly the same improvement factor over traditional 35 mm as HD does over NTSC, were anthology-travelogues that just plain grabbed you by the eyeballs and thrilled you. OK, after an hour or so it was hard to maintain a constant "wow!" level, but just about the time you were starting to yawn at the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, boom! they'd stick you in a plane flying over the Grand Canyon.
So, where are the $3.95 demo HD-DVDs with, I don't know, slo-mo shots where you can count the stitches in the seam of the spinning pitched baseball, the glorious aerial shots of America from sea to shining sea, the shuttle launches in full surround sound.... what the heck, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir... or, if you prefer, Fifty Cent... something to show you instantly why you need this gadget NOW?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!