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."

Comments

yeah, but will it play in Peoria?

[yagu]

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:

• complex setups
• additional expense beyond new DVD players
• compatibility issues (real or perceived)
• DRM

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.)

Re:yeah, but will it play in Peoria?

[Jeffrey Baker]

One of the screenshots on the AVS Forum shows the Toshiba displaying an EULA on boot. That doesn't seem like the sort of thing that enhances the viewing experience.

Re:yeah, but will it play in Peoria?

[TinyManCan]

I think you are wrong on several fronts. Primarily the adoption rate. I believe that it will be very good.

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.

Re:yeah, but will it play in Peoria?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:yeah, but will it play in Peoria?

[TubeSteak]

I'm not sure what post you're talking about, but I did track down a EULA

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=6 67248&page=5&pp=60

And this is the message you get when upgrading the firmware:
http://www.cstone.net.nyud.net:8090/~dk/hda1legal. jpg

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 :o)

Save Your Money

[iamghetto]

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.

Wrong, not informative

[Wesley Felter]

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.

Re:Wrong, not informative

[Wesley Felter]

When converting from 24fps to 60fps, data is duplicated, not lost. When converting back, the TV knows which data is duplicate and throws that away, leaving all the original pixels intact.

If your TV runs at a refresh rate of 60Hz you'll have inevitable judder, but that's not HDMI's fault.

AVS Forums

[gravis777]

The article fails to mention the where the AVS forums and reviews of the new players are at. They are here