Are there very many HDDVDs that are not Bluray yet?

[leglez]

I found a guy selling an Xbox 360 HD-DVD player with King Kong, Transformers, Shooter, Italian Job, Four Brothers (2 copies, one still sealed), Alexander, Last Samurai, Bourn Identity, Billy Madison for $80 and I am thinking about picking it up. I just picked up a PS3 last week and already have 10 blu-rays. I was looking at inetvideo and their hd-dvds are really cheap, around $3-$5 each. I would love to get the HDDVD player and pick up some cheapo hddvds, but not really sure. Is there much of a difference between HDDVD and Bluray quality of picture and sound? Is there anything a bluray can do that hddvd can't? Or hddvd can do that bluray cant?

 

[Muadib]

I don't know if it's worth it. Fry's has the drive + King Kong for $39 With the other $40, you could get the movies you want.

As for the differences between the HDDVD player & your PS3, that would depend on your audio setup. If you can play the new HD codecs, then the PS3 & Blu-ray will be better, as the 360 drive can't play the new codecs because it doesn't have HDMI. The PS3 can also do 1080p / 24p if your tv supports it.

 

[Rio Rebel]

The quality is the same (as you probably realize, individual movies vary in quality, but neither format is better than the other in picture or sound quality).

I agree with Muadib - if I were getting this, I'd get the new drive from Fry's, and then buy the HD-DVD's I wanted for $5-$10 each.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: Muadib
As for the differences between the HDDVD player & your PS3, that would depend on your audio setup. If you can play the new HD codecs, then the PS3 & Blu-ray will be better, as the 360 drive can't play the new codecs because it doesn't have HDMI. The PS3 can also do 1080p / 24p if your tv supports it.

This is pretty much the case, although the issue with sound on the 360 is more that the 360's HDMI _chipset_ doesn't support the newer codecs or LPCM-7.1 output. The 360 certainly has HDMI.

The visual difference between 1080p24 and 1080p60 with pull-down is somewhat more subtle - rest assured that the HD-DVD movies do look quite spectacular even without it. I kinda hope that the next Xbox will keep the support for the HD-DVD drive (if they move to Blu-Ray, it's not really much more work to maintain the HDi software layer) and add those missing features, but I wouldn't bet too heavily on it...

 

[mshan]

More HD-DVDs: http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=12...7JFWUPSYRTJ&rh=&page=1

 

[montypythizzle]

RIP HDDVD, loved the name though, still was rooting for Blu-Ray.

 

[Shawn]

I wouldn't bother with HD DVD at this point unless you don't care about ever being able to play the discs over a friends house, etc.

 

[leglez]

Originally posted by: Muadib
I don't know if it's worth it. Fry's has the drive + King Kong for $39 With the other $40, you could get the movies you want.

As for the differences between the HDDVD player & your PS3, that would depend on your audio setup. If you can play the new HD codecs, then the PS3 & Blu-ray will be better, as the 360 drive can't play the new codecs because it doesn't have HDMI. The PS3 can also do 1080p / 24p if your tv supports it.

Awesome that is just what I was searching around for but couldn't find a good priced one.

Currently I just have a 720p/1080i TV. I also just sold my current surround sound setup so that I could buy a more compatible setup. I think I am going to go ahead and pick the hddvd player up and then pick up some of the cheaper hddvds.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: leglez

Originally posted by: Muadib
I don't know if it's worth it. Fry's has the drive + King Kong for $39 With the other $40, you could get the movies you want.

As for the differences between the HDDVD player & your PS3, that would depend on your audio setup. If you can play the new HD codecs, then the PS3 & Blu-ray will be better, as the 360 drive can't play the new codecs because it doesn't have HDMI. The PS3 can also do 1080p / 24p if your tv supports it.

Awesome that is just what I was searching around for but couldn't find a good priced one.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=40&threadid=2291974

Currently I just have a 720p/1080i TV. I also just sold my current surround sound setup so that I could buy a more compatible setup. I think I am going to go ahead and pick the hddvd player up and then pick up some of the cheaper hddvds.

My rule of thumb with HD-DVDs is to buy ones that I would rent on Blu-Ray. Ultimately, the format war is over, Blu-Ray has won, and building up a huge HD-DVD collection may be a long-term liability if the hardware becomes unavailable or pricey due to limited availability.

For reviews and such:
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/reviews.html

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: erwos

Originally posted by: Muadib
As for the differences between the HDDVD player & your PS3, that would depend on your audio setup. If you can play the new HD codecs, then the PS3 & Blu-ray will be better, as the 360 drive can't play the new codecs because it doesn't have HDMI. The PS3 can also do 1080p / 24p if your tv supports it.

This is pretty much the case, although the issue with sound on the 360 is more that the 360's HDMI _chipset_ doesn't support the newer codecs or LPCM-7.1 output. The 360 certainly has HDMI.

The visual difference between 1080p24 and 1080p60 with pull-down is somewhat more subtle - rest assured that the HD-DVD movies do look quite spectacular even without it. I kinda hope that the next Xbox will keep the support for the HD-DVD drive (if they move to Blu-Ray, it's not really much more work to maintain the HDi software layer) and add those missing features, but I wouldn't bet too heavily on it...

Yes, you are correct about the 360 itself having HDMI now. I vaguely recall some being upset over learning the Elite's HDMI only supported the 1.2 HDMI spec. Is that still the case with the newer models? However, I guess it doesn't matter, as the HDDVD drive connects using USB. That totally kills any shot for HD codec support.

Thinking about it, it does matter if Microsoft is still using the 1.2 HDMI spec. That means a Blu-ray drive for the 360 would have the same issues. That explains why we haven't seen it yet.

Pretty foolish move on Microsoft's part if you ask me. They could make a killing on a Blu-ray drive for the 360, if it was done the right way. It would have been easy to do if they didn't cheap out with the HDMI on the 360. Whoever decided to save that nickel or less per console two years ago, must be kicking themselves now. That move will cost them millions in potential revenue. Releasing a Blu-ray drive without HD codec support now would really be a bad move. Sony's marketing department would eat that up.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: Muadib
Yes, you are correct about the 360 itself having HDMI now. I vaguely recall some being upset over learning the Elite's HDMI only supported the 1.2 HDMI spec. Is that still the case with the newer models? However, I guess it doesn't matter, as the HDDVD drive connects using USB. That totally kills any shot for HD codec support.

Connecting via USB has nothing to do with it - the bandwidth is definitely there, and it has no impact on HDCP. It's entirely in the HDMI transmitter. The 360 itself supports HD codecs just fine, as evinced by its ability to decode TrueHD tracks down to DD-5.1 or DTS.

Pretty foolish move on Microsoft's part if you ask me. They could make a killing on a Blu-ray drive for the 360, if it was done the right way. It would have been easy to do if they didn't cheap out with the HDMI on the 360. Whoever decided to save that nickel or less per console two years ago, must be kicking themselves now. That move will cost them millions in potential revenue. Releasing a Blu-ray drive without HD codec support now would really be a bad move. Sony's marketing department would eat that up.

It strikes me as somewhat unlikely that a $100-$150 BR-D drive for the 360 would really move all that many units, given that you can buy a stand-alone player for that price (or close to it) these days.

 

[Rio Rebel]

Originally posted by: erwos
My rule of thumb with HD-DVDs is to buy ones that I would rent on Blu-Ray. Ultimately, the format war is over, Blu-Ray has won, and building up a huge HD-DVD collection may be a long-term liability if the hardware becomes unavailable or pricey due to limited availability.

Agreed. Some people overstate the fact that HD-DVD is "dead". There will come a day in the not-too-distant future that I wish I had all my movies on Blu-Ray, because I won't want to maintain a separate player and a separate format that is an increasingly shrinking percentage of my HD movies.

But when I bought my HD-DVD players, they were under $100 each, and Blu-Ray players were still about $400 and up. I got 7 free HD-DVD movies (promotions with the players), and have picked up most of the rest for $5-$8 each. I would think that by the time both these players break, and Blu-Ray movies come down to a reasonable price (it's getting there), there will be some cost-effective method of playing these HD-DVD's, either by copying them onto BD disks, or ripping them onto an HTPC, or some such solution. And even if not, it will have been worth it.

Now that BD players are under $200 and BD movies are coming back down a little in price, I'd be slower to invest in HD-DVD. But if you can get a player for $50 and 10 movies for $50 more, why in the world wouldn't you?

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: erwos
Connecting via USB has nothing to do with it - the bandwidth is definitely there, and it has no impact on HDCP. It's entirely in the HDMI transmitter. The 360 itself supports HD codecs just fine, as evinced by its ability to decode TrueHD tracks down to DD-5.1 or DTS.

I must disagree, as the maximum speed for USB 2.0 is 480 Mb/s. Even the initial HDMI spec surpassed that. DD and DTS are standard sound tracks on both HDDVD & Blu-ray disk. The 360 uses those, not the TrueHD track.

It strikes me as somewhat unlikely that a $100-$150 BR-D drive for the 360 would really move all that many units, given that you can buy a stand-alone player for that price (or close to it) these days.

I said the same thing about the HDDVD drive when it was first released, but it sold pretty well. Due to Toshiba giving away their players to win the war, HDDVD players could be had for under $100 if you knew where to look.