yeah they look better than a regular dvd player for sure...i did a side by side test with just my xbox drive and my sony upconverter at the time and the sony was far and away better...hardly any artefacting, sharper edges a bit richer. I sold the sony since I returned my 360 to get a 360 elite and then tried it through the hd-dvd drive since that also upconverts and that looked great. but then i tried a upconvert comparison between the samsung and the 360 and the samsung's upconvert was even better. sharpness, noise, colors etc. basically even the cheapest upconverter will be better than a reg dvd player, but there are some players that even better from what i have read the toshiba hd-dvd player (model ending inA2) and the samsung bdp-1200 are the two best upcoverters
Don't take it too seriously, one; the thrust of the point was that BluRay and HDDVD will eventually be replaced by a superior technology. Two, given that streaming video seems like the obvious direction, I imagine we'll keep working at it and it will eventually be possible in the future.
Why is Chris from "The Sopranos" telling everyone to get HD DVD? I guess he never hard of Blu Ray. Somebody off him! He's taking kickbacks.
Blu-Ray players now outnumber HD-DVD players by 5-1 thanks to the PS3. You have to wonder how much money Sony stands to gain with a Blu-Ray win and if that compensates for the money they have lost in the gaming department this fiscal year. One of the guys that commented on the article at giz said he worked at best buy and almost no HD-DVD players were sold during the last week. http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/format-war/blu+ray-players-dominate-5-to-1-over-hd-dvd-in-us-270696.php http://www.tvpredictions.com/bluray062007.htm
One thing I never thought about regarding the whole argument about whether these formats could replace DVD is that I wonder if studios will make combo discs standard (IOW, they no longer sell DVD-only or BD/HD DVD-only discs). If you're not aware of these, it is basically a disc with the DVD and Blu-ray/HD DVD version on the same disc (usually one on each side). Several HD DVD movies are released on this format. If studios want to promote growth of these formats while still continuing to sell tons of DVDs, this might be a decent solution. Granted, there are some issues to work out, including the need for at least 4 layers instead of 3 (unless studios don't mind "gimping" the DVD version I guess) and the need for these movies to be sold at a cheaper price (HD DVD combo discs go for like $30 IIRC...a 4-layer disc might be more expensive, not to mention Blu-ray's alternative). Even if those things were fixed, it would still be kind of confusing to consumers. I don't see this even being possible for a couple more years, when hopefully those issues are worked out and we have a clear format winner. Even in that case, I don't know if studios would resort to this, but I think it would be an interesting idea. I'll look more into this since I've know it has been brought up before (maybe even by a movie studio?).
We'll see if that 30-40% improvement in upscaling pans out. After firmware 1.80, the PS3 is already giving my XA2 HD-DVD player a run for its money and that sucker has the Reon chip which does a damn good job of upscaling. And regarding BD+, what happens if this gets hacked as well? Does that mean Fox/MGM will continue to sit on the sidelines like they've been doing almost all year? Studio exclusivity means dick to Blu-ray if no titles are being released.
I've never understood how HD-DVD has the combo disk out but Blu-Ray doesn't. Is it the tech. problems you mentioned, or did they just decide from the get go they'd go with stand alone Blu Ray disk?
its the way hd-dvd are formatting and produced. My understanding is a bit superficial but from what I understood Toshiba took the architecture of DVD and improved upon it. And since it still uses a red laser regular dvd content can be easily read. I dont think the combo discs are that great though, i mean i dont think anyone who has just a dvd player would buy one since its a significant price difference over the normal dvd and anyone who has a hd-dvd player wouldnt even bother with the dvd side of the disc. its a nice like marketing tool but i dont see its real-world practicality. sony on the other hand hand to start from the ground up with blu-ray and its totally different from the way dvds are made so i dont think they can make a combo at all esp since they use a blue laser over a red laser.
The Cell processor really excels at this sort of stuff (real-time media processing), so that isn't surprising. Actually, even though I'm not really familiar with the Reon chip or other chips used in upscaling, I'd probably be surprised if they were better at this kind of stuff than Cell is (at least in terms of raw performance). Unfortunately for us, Cell is a new processor with almost an entirely different approach to programming, so it might be taking the guys at Sony a little while to come with the software necessary to show off its potential compared to some of those other media processors. It certainly would make sense that the upscaling could improve by 30%-40% since I don't think anyone has really been able to "max out" the processor. Now that I think about it, I wonder if the RSX aids Cell in any of this work. Not quite. Up until a few years ago, HD DVDs were going to use just a red laser, but they switched to a blue laser as well. Obviously, this doesn't keep them from putting a HD DVD layer and DVD layer on the same disc (although it is easier to put them on separate sides AFAIK), so Blu-ray combo discs could have been done in a similar fashion. You are right that HD DVD is a little more of an evolution of the DVD tech than Blu-ray is, which kind of explains some of the differences between the two formats. Although in reality, I don't think they're really all that different. I'm still disappointed that they didn't unify the formats a few years ago because of the fact that they're so similar. They've shown off Blu-ray combo discs, but I don't think any of the studios have any interest in releasing them at this time. I think that they had a disc that was 4 layers (50GB Blu-ray, 9GB DVD), so maybe that was a bit too expensive and difficult to implement at this time (especially since it took a while for 2-layer 50GB discs to start being mass produced). There are probably a number of factors as to why they aren't using them at this time. BTW, I agree with what The_Yoyo said about the real-world practicality of the format (maybe why the BDA isn't trying to implement it at this time). That is one issue that would have to be worked out. If they even bother, that is (this move would be done to benefit the movie studios, not consumers).
I own a Toshiba HD-DVD player and a PS3, and I avoid the HD-DVD/DVD combo disks like the plague because they cost $5 more. Doesn't sound like much, but $5 per title adds up EDIT: Heroes Season 1 will be my first combo disk purchase.
I own both formats, but I'm still partial to HD-DVD, so I pay the extra 3-4 bucks on Amazon for the combo titles. Plus there are time where the combos are a better deal. WB has released several HD-DVD combos with Dolby TrueHD tracks that only have DD 5.1 on the Blu-ray version. And even though the upcoming 300 will have lossless audio on both versions, the HD-DVD will include the IME feature. As for Heroes, I thought it was announced that the HD-DVD set would NOT be combo disks.
The Departed is the only WB title I own that is available on both formats (well, I just got the Matrix Trilogy on HD-DVD for $20 from CC), and the Blu version has a PCM track. Lossless audio is a factor that would cause me to buy a more expensive version of a disk, but an SD version isn't.
