HD DVD Price Drop

[Lord Helmet]

$179 plus 5 fre HDDVD Movies.

 

Might be time to get one

 

http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2007/07...e-hd-dvd-s.aspx

[Gregory DG]

Another step towards the end of the format. First Target now this...

[Foxsolo2000]

$179 plus 5 fre HDDVD Movies.

 

Might be time to get one

 

http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2007/07...e-hd-dvd-s.aspx

 

Naah I think I will wait a little longer before I test the waters

[moycon]

I snagged a used one with 2 movies for $145.

The picture is a bit clearer on my HD set, doesnt make my jaw drop or anything.

In my opinion neither format will "win" regardless what Target does, or who drops the price to what (altho I guess if they dropped the price to $100 and the movies to $9.99 as long as the player plays good ol DVDs people will buy them) Not sure that would be considered winning, but whatever. People like Gregory DG seem very interested it which is the bigger loser I guess.

Edited July 26, 2007 by moycon

[Hyper_Eye]

A price drop and 5 free movies is a good deal. If I didn't already have one I would be all over it.

[Mendon]

Still not a deal for me.

 

1) $20 isn't much of an incentive price cut, IMO.

 

2) As for the FREE movies, unless a product is something I'd actually pay money for to begin with, I can't really count it as any sort of savings if someone gave it to me. So based on that philosophy, I looked at the list of 15 movies you pick from and there was only 1 movie in there I'd actually buy, Blazing Saddles. But.... I really have no big urge to even buy that movie since I own it on regular DVD.

 

If the price of the unit was $129 or even less, I'd be tempted to maybe buy one. But $180 is still too much to lure me to another format.

 

I'll stick with what I have.

 

 

 

Mendon

[Hyper_Eye]

Still not a deal for me.

 

1) $20 isn't much of an incentive price cut, IMO.

 

2) As for the FREE movies, unless a product is something I'd actually pay money for to begin with, I can't really count it as any sort of savings if someone gave it to me. So based on that philosophy, I looked at the list of 15 movies you pick from and there was only 1 movie in there I'd actually buy, Blazing Saddles. But.... I really have no big urge to even buy that movie since I own it on regular DVD.

 

If the price of the unit was $129 or even less, I'd be tempted to maybe buy one. But $180 is still too much to lure me to another format.

 

I'll stick with what I have.

 

 

 

Mendon

 

You speak as if the formats are equal (DVD and HD-DVD.) They aren't. HD-DVD is a big leap. I know people put up posts saying they can't see much of a difference. Those people need to calibrate their televisions. The difference between 480i/p and 1080p is incredible. Anyone that can't tell the difference needs to get their eyes checked or they need a professional calibration of their television. Unfortunately most televisions are not calibrated properly and are not providing their optimal picture. If you were to pop in at my house and I threw an HD-DVD on my 80" 720p pj you would be stunned. If I put in the same movie in DVD format you would cringe after seeing what the picture could be.

[MCHufnagel]

You speak as if the formats are equal (DVD and HD-DVD.) They aren't. HD-DVD is a big leap. I know people put up posts saying they can't see much of a difference. Those people need to calibrate their televisions. The difference between 480i/p and 1080p is incredible. Anyone that can't tell the difference needs to get their eyes checked or they need a professional calibration of their television. Unfortunately most televisions are not calibrated properly and are not providing their optimal picture. If you were to pop in at my house and I threw an HD-DVD on my 80" 720p pj you would be stunned. If I put in the same movie in DVD format you would cringe after seeing what the picture could be.

 

Both formats are equal. You watch video content from both of them.

 

I switched to DVD from VHS because DVD's were so much easier to go through and had more content than tapes. HD format discs only offer a better picture. I do see the difference, but I won't be going to a HD player (HD-DVD or Blu-Ray) until there is a clear winner with more content to choose from and cheaper players. I'm not too thrilled to rush out and buy the next "Laserdisc".

[Foxsolo2000]

Thing is though I dont want to fork out for a HD DVD player only to discover two years down the line that Blue Ray will be the winner. When Laser Disc came out a few of my friends were tempted enough to buy the players only to discover that it rolled over and died pretty quickly

[Artlover]

Laserdiscs were being produced through 2000, so the format was commercially alive for 22 years. Wasn't it's fault all the common venders stop carrying them or that the technically inferior dvd came out and wooed everyone with it's only valid good trait, convenience.

[Mendon]

You speak as if the formats are equal (DVD and HD-DVD.) They aren't. HD-DVD is a big leap. I know people put up posts saying they can't see much of a difference. Those people need to calibrate their televisions. The difference between 480i/p and 1080p is incredible. Anyone that can't tell the difference needs to get their eyes checked or they need a professional calibration of their television. Unfortunately most televisions are not calibrated properly and are not providing their optimal picture. If you were to pop in at my house and I threw an HD-DVD on my 80" 720p pj you would be stunned. If I put in the same movie in DVD format you would cringe after seeing what the picture could be.

 

Nope, not speaking as if the formats are equal because I know they are not. I'm only speaking for myself and from a cost perspective.... $179 is still too high a price for me to pay to lure another DVD format into my home.

 

Plus its not only the cost of the equipment but the costs of the HD-DVD's themselves. For example, on release day I can buy just about any new DVD for $15 - $20 at Best Buy. The same movie on HD-DVD will cost $30 - $35.

 

Sure, HD-DVD looks better in 1080p than my upscaled DVD movies, but is that better picture worth $15 more per movie? To some, yes.... to me, nope.

 

Costs..... that's all I was posting about.

 

 

Mendon

[MCHufnagel]

Laserdiscs were being produced through 2000, so the format was commercially alive for 22 years. Wasn't it's fault all the common venders stop carrying them or that the technically inferior dvd came out and wooed everyone with it's only valid good trait, convenience.

A friend of mine was a saleaman for Pioneer and he, like the company he worked for, was a big time proponent of Laserdisc. He still has a Laseractive Genesis unit. But the players were expensive, and to have the same content as one DVD you would need two 12 inch discs. And many times those discs were double sided, so you had to keep changing them. Can Laserdiscs do 480p? If not, then how can you say that it was a better format?

[Artlover]

Laserdiscs were being produced through 2000, so the format was commercially alive for 22 years. Wasn't it's fault all the common venders stop carrying them or that the technically inferior dvd came out and wooed everyone with it's only valid good trait, convenience.

A friend of mine was a saleaman for Pioneer and he, like the company he worked for, was a big time proponent of Laserdisc. He still has a Laseractive Genesis unit. But the players were expensive, and to have the same content as one DVD you would need two 12 inch discs. And many times those discs were double sided, so you had to keep changing them. Can Laserdiscs do 480p? If not, then how can you say that it was a better format?

Digital storage of analog signals is crap. Some not being able to to tell the difference aside, the simple fact is digital storage of analog signals results in content loss. This applies to CD's, DVD's, WAV's, MP3's, AVI's, MPG's, whatever. There is absolutly no way around that fact, period. The only way would be with an infinite sampling rate, which actually already exists, it's called analog.

 

To this end, LD's, while optical, are not digital in the same sence as the data is an analog fm waveform. More like a optical record then digital recording. One of the tangeable results of this; better color reproduction one for, being much more vivid and truer then any DVD I've ever seen. In simmilar fashion, movies shot on film are more vivid then films shot on video and transfered to film. It's just the way it is.

 

Oh I don't deny that there are positives. Digital storage is convienent, universal, transferable, portable, easy to work with. But it's still what it is, a malformed way to record/reproduce an inherently incompatable data source.

 

Most people just aren't perfectionist enough to notice or care me thinks.

[supercat]

Digital storage of analog signals is crap. Some not being able to to tell the difference aside, the simple fact is digital storage of analog signals results in content loss.

 

Doing anything whatsoever with analog signals will result in content loss. Conversion of an analog signal to digital, using an analog front-end that's optimized for the particular conversion, may result in less content loss than would storing the signal via conventional analog means. Once the signal is converted to digital, it may be copied with zero further content loss, and it can be manipulated in many ways with less content loss than would occur if the signal were processed via analog means.

 

To be sure, many digital formats are quite lossy (DVD, while better than VHS, is generally not as good as a professional Betacam (analog) unit), but that's just a case of economy. A camera which filmed 24fps at 5,144x3,072 at 48-bit color would be less 'lossy' than a 35mm film camera, but would require 2.1 gigabytes per second of storage. Simply not practical.

[MCHufnagel]

Digital storage of analog signals is crap. Some not being able to to tell the difference aside, the simple fact is digital storage of analog signals results in content loss. This applies to CD's, DVD's, WAV's, MP3's, AVI's, MPG's, whatever. There is absolutly no way around that fact, period. The only way would be with an infinite sampling rate, which actually already exists, it's called analog.

 

To this end, LD's, while optical, are not digital in the same sence as the data is an analog fm waveform. More like a optical record then digital recording. One of the tangeable results of this; better color reproduction one for, being much more vivid and truer then any DVD I've ever seen. In simmilar fashion, movies shot on film are more vivid then films shot on video and transfered to film. It's just the way it is.

 

Oh I don't deny that there are positives. Digital storage is convienent, universal, transferable, portable, easy to work with. But it's still what it is, a malformed way to record/reproduce an inherently incompatable data source.

 

Most people just aren't perfectionist enough to notice or care me thinks.

This reminds me of the argument about how vinyl records are better than CD's. I was big into vinyl myself, but the cost involved in equipment and buying albums made from top quality japanese vinyl and then keeping those records in perfect shape didn't make sense compared to using CD's. To 99% of the population CD's were a great replacement to vinyl records. And now that most equipment is digital, anaolg isn't the best answer anymore.

[supercat]

This reminds me of the argument about how vinyl records are better than CD's.

 

Many people like to claim that vinyl can record the phases of different waveforms more accurately than CD, since CD audio quantizes all timings while vinyl does not.

 

Although a CD-quality recorder does capture 44,100 discrete samples per second, a properly-designed unit won't simply ignore everything between the sample points. Before it takes the 44,100 samples/second, it will first filter the signal to remove any part that's over about 20,000Hz. This will cause any signal information between the sample points to get spread to them. When the audio is sampled, it may not necessarily look much like the original signal, but a properly-designed machine will be able to reconstruct the original waveform.

 

For example, suppose you're trying to record a 20,000Hz square wave. Without a filter, the signal would simply go high-low-high-low etc. but with an occasional extra 'high' or 'low' in the sequence. With a filter, the wave would be converted to a sine-wave before being captured; the captured signal would go high-low-high-low, but the amplitude would get louder and softer, with the extra highs and lows appearing at the spots where the amplitude was zero. Such a signal wouldn't resemble the original signal very well, but it would resemble what you'd get if you combined a 20,000Hz sine wave with a 24,000Hz one. A properly-designed player would filter off the 24,000Hz part of the signal, leaving a clean 20,000Hz wave.

 

To be sure, there are some limits to phase accuracy. On the other hand, the phase accuracy of a well-designed digital filter will be much better than that of the analog filtering in a typical record player.

[moycon]

I like records, and they sound great ...but man do the skip when jogging.

[Artlover]

Doing anything whatsoever with analog signals will result in content loss. Conversion of an analog signal to digital, using an analog front-end that's optimized for the particular conversion, may result in less content loss than would storing the signal via conventional analog means. Once the signal is converted to digital, it may be copied with zero further content loss, and it can be manipulated in many ways with less content loss than would occur if the signal were processed via analog means.

True, but there are ways to minimize loss. Even the biggest bane of the analog; making a copy from a copy can be done with high quality success. Besides, copying is not the goal here me thinks. You buy an album, you listen to it. Why the need to make a "perfect" copy for your cheap friend? At the professional production end of things, this is mostly an insignifigant issue

 

Anywho, what needs to be factored in at the end is does the content loss of handling analog equate to the same amount/type of loss as digitals distinct. Unless you have an insanely high sampling rate, digital is more lossy to me in the end. This is why I actually like the DVDA format, while it doesn't approach insanely high sampling rates, it does go WAY beyond the conventional standard and allows for a bottom line frequency responce that even exceeds most analog storage.

 

 

This reminds me of the argument about how vinyl records are better than CD's.

 

Many people like to claim that vinyl can record the phases of different waveforms more accurately than CD, since CD audio quantizes all timings while vinyl does not.

Well, that and the fact that the frequency responce of vinyl is 10khz greater. With propper equipment, 5hz-35khz.

 

 

For example, suppose you're trying to record a 20,000Hz square wave. Without a filter, the signal would simply go high-low-high-low etc. but with an occasional extra 'high' or 'low' in the sequence. With a filter, the wave would be converted to a sine-wave before being captured; the captured signal would go high-low-high-low, but the amplitude would get louder and softer, with the extra highs and lows appearing at the spots where the amplitude was zero. Such a signal wouldn't resemble the original signal very well, but it would resemble what you'd get if you combined a 20,000Hz sine wave with a 24,000Hz one. A properly-designed player would filter off the 24,000Hz part of the signal, leaving a clean 20,000Hz wave.

 

To be sure, there are some limits to phase accuracy. On the other hand, the phase accuracy of a well-designed digital filter will be much better than that of the analog filtering in a typical record player.

Acceptable. I have no problems with the fuzzy logic approach of pseudo storing/creating data for the inbetween bits of samples. As a matter of fact, if done properly can produce something that resembles the original analog form very well.

 

 

 

See, here's my thing. I'm very VERY particular and sensative to a lot of these issues. Let me elaborate.

 

I think the special effects of StarWars are mediocre. Sorry everyone, I can very clearly tell when they are doing rear projection on painted glass mattes. I can very clearly see the color shade difference created by the clear celuoid overlay of the fighters. The big battle scene, bah, it's just a big mess of shade varied splotches flying around the screen to me. Seriously.

 

I think DSS is crap, why? Because I can see the horrible mpeg boxyness during transitions and dark scenes. Remindes me of trying to view a nice high quality raytraced 32bit TGA picture at 12bit color; can you say color banding.

 

Even LCD & Plasama displays I think are absolutly horrendious to watch. I can see that black grid dead space between cells, I can preceive the lack of smooth transition between bordering cells. I actually prefer conventional CRT's despite their resolution limitations because they do provide a roughtly analogus blended image per line. Really, as far as moderns displays go, my issue is the fact that they have a 1-1 ratio between display cell & pixel, which makes it appear, well, pixelated to me. This is why I prefer CRT's, because even at high resolution, the display cells of the screen exceed pixel count. 1 pixel is made up by several clusters of interwoven display elements creating an overlapping aura around any given pixel, akin to dithering. I "could" like these moderns displays if they approached it slightly differently. 2 things. First, design the cells so they can physcialy align next to each other with 0 deadspace with regards to emitted light. Second, drop the 1-1 ratio and factor it up by 9. Where a cell was a cluster and would comprize of a large singular cell in the middle bordered by 8 very small cells around it. Primary display driver drives only the single center cell, while a fuzzy-math routine controls the other 8 in a simple method of displaying a blended color between the color being displayed in it's cell and the color displayed in the adjacent cell. Verticaly, Horizontaly and Diagonaly. This would create a transitional effect between pixels and eliminate virtualy all of the inherent harshness of the display. Unfortunatly, I fear this is something that is just physicaly impossible to achieve right now due to limitations of our existing manufacturing techniques.

 

My real hope is in the future, displays drop pixels and lines all together and we move on to a true electronic film, measured by grain. THAT I will accept as being a perfect display medium.

 

(Why, yes, I AM picky, thank you for noticing!)

[supercat]

Even the biggest bane of the analog; making a copy from a copy can be done with high quality success. Besides, copying is not the goal here me thinks. You buy an album, you listen to it. Why the need to make a "perfect" copy for your cheap friend? At the professional production end of things, this is mostly an insignifigant issue

 

At minimum, any major release record is going to be a copy of a copy of the original sound recording. In many cases, there may be one or more additional generations beyond that. "Cheap friends" have nothing to do with it.

 

True, high-end professional equipment can yield good results even with third-generation copies, but that equipment is very expensive. Digital equipment can yield comparable results much cheaper.

 

Anywho, what needs to be factored in at the end is does the content loss of handling analog equate to the same amount/type of loss as digitals distinct. Unless you have an insanely high sampling rate, digital is more lossy to me in the end. This is why I actually like the DVDA format, while it doesn't approach insanely high sampling rates, it does go WAY beyond the conventional standard and allows for a bottom line frequency responce that even exceeds most analog storage.

 

Storing data beyond 3x the highest frequency of interest is useless. With an ideal filter, storing data at 2x the highest frequency of interest would allow perfect reconstruction of all frequencies below that. In practice, filters aren't quite that good so it's necessary to go a little higher. But 3x is more than high enough.

 

Well, that and the fact that the frequency responce of vinyl is 10khz greater. With propper equipment, 5hz-35khz.

 

If one has a turntable and preamp that can go that high. Though I'm curious. By my math, a groove near the middle of a 33rpm record is going to be travelling at about 6 inches/second. Are you saying that the grooves on a record can manage over 5,000 wiggles/inch?

 

Acceptable. I have no problems with the fuzzy logic approach of pseudo storing/creating data for the inbetween bits of samples. As a matter of fact, if done properly can produce something that resembles the original analog form very well.

 

I think the special effects of StarWars are mediocre. Sorry everyone, I can very clearly tell when they are doing rear projection on painted glass mattes.

 

I thought they used bluescreen to generate travelling mattes. Rear-projection and front-projection have issues. From what I understand, the sodium screen used in Mary Poppins sounds like a good approach, except for the requirement of a two-strip camera.

 

I actually prefer conventional CRT's despite their resolution limitations because they do provide a roughtly analogus blended image per line. Really, as far as moderns displays go, my issue is the fact that they have a 1-1 ratio between display cell & pixel, which makes it appear, well, pixelated to me.

 

The crispness of displays can be good or bad, depending upon the content displayed thereon. A crisp 120dpi display can show 60 lines/inch cleanly, or 40, or 30, or 24, but not any number in between those. A properly-blurred 120dpi display can show cleanly any nunber of lines up to about 40.

[Artlover]

I thought they used bluescreen to generate travelling mattes.

Ever watch any of the 'making of' shows on Star Wars (or Indiana Jones)? They covered all the different tricks used. Lucas & Spielberg used them all; bluescreen, stop-motion, rear-projection. Whatever best suited the type of scene being done.

 

One example of glass matte: The distant slow zoom-out scene of the celebration in the wookie forest, just to name one.

[supercat]

Ever watch any of the 'making of' shows on Star Wars (or Indiana Jones)? They covered all the different tricks used. Lucas & Spielberg used them all; bluescreen, stop-motion, rear-projection. Whatever best suited the type of scene being done.

 

I've watched a number of shows, and I distinctly remember the space battles being done with blue screen. If I recall, it was much easier to manage the rigging to move the camera than to move the spaceships. Rear-projection doesn't work with a moving camera, and front-projection would have had some other issues.

 

Incidentally, according to the 'making of' featurette, the space battle in Moonraker was done using multiple exposure in camera. Nice job. Almost worthy of Melies.

[MCHufnagel]

I like records, and they sound great ...but man do the skip when jogging.

One time I visited an auto museum and one car they had from the 30's had a "45" record player under the dashboard. I wonder how that did on the dirt roads of the day?

[+RangerG]

I like records, and they sound great ...but man do the skip when jogging.

 

 

This is what I use when jogging, works great

 

http://www.soulexpressradio.com/MrDisc.htm

[Danno]

You guys keep yapping about picture quality.

 

The real difference, is SOUND quality. The difference between standard DVD & HD-DVD's Lossy compressed to hell Dolby Digital 5.1 and Uncompressed 7.1 channel audio of Blu-Ray is like night and day.

[moycon]

 

Check Danno's posts for the last month. I'm convinced that this dude is a plant that works for Blu-Ray that happens to own a PSP either that or he just has a very un-natural love for Blu-Ray. Dude...Give it a rest, we know you LOVE Blu-Ray.

 

Here ya go...

 

http://forum.blu-ray.com/

 

Get out the vasaline and kleenex and have at it.