Blue Laser DVD's
 

Are there any blue laser DVD titles available yet? I remember at Sony's booth at CES they were showing off Bad Boys 2 on blue laser. Are there any released to the public yet?

Is there a standard for the resolution on blue laser vs. our current lasers?

Thanks

If you want to buy commercially released HD movies there are currently only two ways-

Microsoft WM9 DVDs (only playable on PCs)

or

DVHS tapes (mostly D-Theater titles).

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD titles should be available within the next two years.

Thanks, I honestly thought they'd be out this year for some reason. I know this is a stretch but if anyone knows how to calculate space used, I'm curious if a 2hour HD movie with full bit DTS would fit on a blue laser.

You can also subscribe to hidef showtime, hbo and ppv and either just watch live or invest a little in equipment and record them for your private collection. That may not be quite what one initially thinks of as "buying commercially released HD movies" but it is effectively the same thing.

There are some 200 dollar dvd players around that will play WM9'S(but they upconvert to 1080)

Yes, blu-ray is at least 20GB, maybe 30GB this first generation. HDTV is abotu 8.5GB/hour. That leaves plenty of space left over for a "full-bitrate" or even higher, DTS track.

But, commercial HD-DVD standards may end up using a more efficient compression algorithm - such as MS's VC9, which could mean either even higher-resolution in the same disc-space or longer movies in the same disc-space.

They will not play any title with DRM, which would be all the currently available WM9 titles.

Some D-Theater DVHS tapes have full bitrate DTS tracks.

Columbia will very possibly be releasing Blu-Ray discs within a year. (probably in Japan first, where the Blu-Ray recorders have been available for consumer sale since last year, so there is at least some small market penetration). Sony owns Columbia, so they will probably do this to get HD DVDs to market first, and get a head start in the format war that is likely to take place.

Only problem is that there is currently no player to replay them at 1080i.

Thank you for all the info!

I currently own a relatively new HDTV the Mitsubishi WS-65813 (I'm not sure how much specs very from TV to TV). I'm very pleased with it. Will I notice much of a difference between the HD dvd's and the current ones?

There's an AMAZING difference. I have the same TV and the difference between DVD and HD is like the difference between VHS and DVD.

Not sure what you're saying here, but DVHS will play back HD recordings in their native formats- 720p/1080i and even 1080p.

That sounds great! You shouldn't have told me that now I'll be jonesing for blue laser DVD's! :)


I just recently got my PC to plug into the TV using the DVI input (I was doing it for gaming). 856 x 480 isn't bad but everything is HUGE. I haven't found a higher resolution that displays perfectly - 1776 x 1000 isn't bad using some cutom timings on Powerstrip. I'd love to download some HD video to test out - any suggested locations?

P.S. I'll be calling Mits today at 866-252-4333 to see if they have a video driver for Windows XP yet.

Boe if you already haven't done so then head over to HomeTheaterSPot.com. They have a very large Mits forum and can help you with your PC hook up with Powerstrip and much much more.

Chipmac -Thanks - I've posted there and hopefully I can get some momentum going on this. I think it is time TV manufacturers started being realistic about the fact more and more people are going to start hooking their PC's to their TVs.

Dammit - Thanks! I'll download it and check it out. I appreciate the direction.

My bad, I thought you were talking recording onto DVD-R.

DVD-R, hard disk, whatever. A PC can easily playback 1080i, 1080p or even higher if you can find such a video source. Even if you don't want to connect tv or projector up as a monitor for your PC there are setop boxes that you can feed hdtv transports streams to via firewire that will take care of the video and audio decode for you. See the hi-def recording hardware section on avsforum if you want the details, there are plenty of options. All it takes is money and time.

I tried out the HD T2 - it looks great! Thanks

My computer isn't up to spec, nor do I have broadband to download such a large file, but I would be curious to watch a few.

I remember someone linking captures of the same movie on dvd and a HD showing on ABC but are there any comparisons between some of the offerings located on the WMV page linked above?