see my post above on why hddvd/bd require so much processing power. Watch a movie like bourne supremacy or dukes of hazzard (they knew their movie sucked, so the interactive extras are extra funny, like a countdown to when jessica next shows, and suggestions on how to spend that time). To answer your point, hbo-hd is usually lower bitrate, lower resolution and possibly transcoded. it looks & sounds like ass compared to hddvd on my setup.
if you're really an early adopter and care about HD, then the 400-500 you spend on the toshiba hddvd player should be chump change. runs linux to satisfy your anti-windows sentiment.
DRM accounts for probably about 5-10% tops. VC1 and especially h.264 high profile at 20+mbps are brutal on today's processors. Add to that, you're running java or jscript, drawing 1080p graphics on top of the movie, decoding audio, mixing, re-encoding audio, decoding secondary video/audio...and you can see why a dual core is needed without speicialized hardware decoders.
consumer players have specialized hardware codecs and thus don't need as much processing power.
local store setups are crap - the westinghouse used for all HD-DVD displays i've seen is one of the poorer sets i've seen. they're also all uncalibrated.
i've a well calibrated 60" lcd rptv, and i can say that hd-dvd's look stunning, even better than DVHS. DVDs do not cut it anymore. i've also seen an hd-dvd (last samurai in fact) projected at a local theater (about 500"), and it looked as good as film (1080i detractors should also get educated. with 24fps content you will see the exact same image with a 1080i player or a 1080p player. it's called inverse telecine, and TVs have been doing it for ages)
(for reference, i have a denon 3910 upconverting player, one of the best, and i cannot bear to watch much on it anymore)
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if you're really an early adopter and care about HD, then the 400-500 you spend on the toshiba hddvd player should be chump change. runs linux to satisfy your anti-windows sentiment.
DRM accounts for probably about 5-10% tops. VC1 and especially h.264 high profile at 20+mbps are brutal on today's processors. Add to that, you're running java or jscript, drawing 1080p graphics on top of the movie, decoding audio, mixing, re-encoding audio, decoding secondary video/audio...and you can see why a dual core is needed without speicialized hardware decoders. consumer players have specialized hardware codecs and thus don't need as much processing power.
i've a well calibrated 60" lcd rptv, and i can say that hd-dvd's look stunning, even better than DVHS. DVDs do not cut it anymore. i've also seen an hd-dvd (last samurai in fact) projected at a local theater (about 500"), and it looked as good as film (1080i detractors should also get educated. with 24fps content you will see the exact same image with a 1080i player or a 1080p player. it's called inverse telecine, and TVs have been doing it for ages)
(for reference, i have a denon 3910 upconverting player, one of the best, and i cannot bear to watch much on it anymore)