Blu-ray, in General

[jon]

This new THD disc idea is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. People are saying that this will end the war ><. What the fuck, so we are just going to release every single disc as a double sided HD and BR. Arghhh, I just want one of them to win. What is the true technology difference between the two formats? Is it just the capacity difference, or is there any other difference in the players or something.

Oh yah, THD has the grossest looking logo I have ever seen.

I want some sexy artwork on the cover and the disc, none of this double sided bullshit with the ridiculously obtrusive logo artwork.

[Cinesimilitude]

I just did this.



and a mock cover, but the merging plastic colors would probably be hard to get right...



eh... still looks crappy. I just want black hd-dvd cases and no blu-ray at all...

[denti alligator]

I think the whole new packaging idea for both HD and BD and this hybrid shit is totally WRONG! It's ugly and is one of the few things (like, um, money) that's holding me back from taking the plunge. I actually LIKE the look of DVD cases, but these are horrific looking.

In other matters: can someone (david?) confirm that regular ol' SD DVDs actually look significantly better when played from an HD-DVD player... Also, you say the Toshiba will be region-free hackable for SD DVDs soon? (Yes, I'm really tempted by this...)

And another question (Davey?): what to do about non-anamorphic and windowboxed DVDs? Does the Toshiba have any kind of zoom feature or do you have to use your TV?

[Darth Lavender]

There is a difference (I haven't done any direct comparisons, but watching SD on my computer (1024p) or my new LCD television (780) is an immense improvement over the old television (which was a particularly cheap model, anyway.)

If you have a DVD drive on your computer, I suggest you try watching the same scene in each of the computer's main resolution settings (on Windows, you right-click the desktop, select properties, and then settings)
The most obvious difference is, of course, the absence of the flyscreen effect on higher resolutions, but I think the upscaling improves the picture quite a bit, too.

Remember, also, if your computer can play 1024 (or whatever it is) that's basically HD-DVD quality (at least for 1.37:1 films) So you could try downloading some uncompressed screenshots to get some idea of what the HD-DVD looks like (that's what I did. Have no intention of buying a HD player for some considerable time.)

Now, what I would love to see, are some identical screenshots of movies like Casablance and Adventures of Robin Hood taken from the SD and from the HD release. That, I think, would be the best way for those without HD-televisions/players to be able to see the difference (especially on the older films, already in excellent DVD transfers, which is what I'm most curious about.)

EDIT
Rereading your post, it looks like you already have a HD-television and you're just asking if a HD-player will make a difference.
Basically, the answer is no (based on my limited knowledge of the subject.) The television is already upscaling the image, so the only way a HDDVD player will help, is if the player's upscaling technology happens to be better than the television (and, even then, I don't imagine there'd be very much difference.)

[exte]

Wow, talk about hamartia, there's news going around that Sony's refusing porn companies to release titles through Blu Ray. That should be the final blow, I suppose. (No pun intended!)

[porquenegar]

Apparently, Blu-Ray says no to porn

This could be a major factor in the success of HD DVD.

[Cinesimilitude]

And to think I was worried... That is great news.

[exte]

Math Question: The following is 108 inches in diagonal. Am I correct in assuming it's about 6ft wide across horizontally?

[davebert]

My math says 9 feet... and it looks good.

[exte]

Well yes, it's nine feet diagonally, at about 30 degrees, but my math is very hazy and google isn't helping... Anyone know the width?

[davebert]

Yeah sorry, I leapt all over the "horizontal" and simple division. If we know who's standing next to the set and if someone can research his height, then problem solved! I'm doing the actual math on it now.

[Cinéslob]

Presuming it's dead on at 16:9, I've got a figure arriving at a little over 7ft, although I'm sure that my Pythagorean equations are a little too rudimentary to be credible.

[davebert]

That's around what I arrived at as well (assuming its 1.85 widescreen).

[Cinesimilitude]

I want to play Gears of War on that TV. I also like Stephen Colbert's Idea.

I'm not going to tell you what a 108" TV would be good for but I will tell you it rhymes with PORNOGRAPHY.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Pythagoras would have said it was roughly 94" wide by 53" high.

[exte]

Yeah, including the actual tv frame bordering the picture, it's probably seven and a half feet wide! It's a beast! If it was a plasma, it would be really killer... Don't know if they make them that large, though... Can you imagine working on that thing with your desktop?! "Introducing the iBlind..."

[davebert]

It's somehow comforting to know that within my lifetime (nay, probably within a decade) such a massive screen will be readily affordable even to an artist type like myself. Still probably won't stop me from getting some 40-50" 1080p thing in a year or two, but at least the potential is there. Oh, and we'll all be able to fly in hovercars!

[jon]

wow...

but did you guys see the new samsung with the wireless receiver that (i think) displays 1080p. It has a 300 foot range on the receiver, so you can wall mount the television with only a power cord connected to it and hide all the AV equipment in some cabinet.

Everything will be huge and wireless in the future.

[cdnchris]

Reminds me of Ruthless People where Judge Reinhold is trying to sell the speakers to the kid:

"And when you die, they can bury you in it!"

[subliminac]

In spending the last several minutes scanning the AVS forum's listings on HD-DVD I'm led to believe that this format is region free. The question is do we have to worry about PAL to NTSC conversion as we did with SD-DVD? Is it dependant upon the model (say the Toshiba HD-A2)? I ask because a couple of those French Studio Canal releases look very nice, and are certainly tempting me to take the plunge.

[porquenegar]

In spending the last several minutes scanning the AVS forum's listings on HD-DVD I'm led to believe that this format is region free. The question is do we have to worry about PAL to NTSC conversion as we did with SD-DVD? Is it dependant upon the model (say the Toshiba HD-A2)? I ask because a couple of those French Studio Canal releases look very nice, and are certainly tempting me to take the plunge.

They are region-free and PAL to NTSC is not an issue. Buy away.

[Cinesimilitude]

HD-DVD is encoded at 24 fps, so it's converting for both types of TV's. I have HD-DVD's that say PAL and REGION 2 on them, but they pay beautifully on my NTSC HDTV with no modification to the player.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

HD-DVD is encoded at 24 fps, so it's converting for both types of TV's. I have HD-DVD's that say PAL and REGION 2 on them, but they pay beautifully on my NTSC HDTV with no modification to the player.

That's because they are not PAL and they are not region-coded despite what the cover says. HD DVD is the same resolution and (so far) refresh rate in all countries.

[Cinesimilitude]

That's kind of exactly what I said... ya...

[jon]

Is Blu-Ray not 24fps? How does the region encoding on it work, etc.