Here's an explanation of the audio options on both formats and how they work:

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...Explained/1064

I am having a technical issue with my HD-DVD Player. It is the A20 model. On start up (even with a little time for warm up), the video often won't show on my Philips 47 inch 1080p screen. It will give a message like unsupported format or no video stream. To get it going, I often have to do one of two things. Either shut down the LCD screen on the TV for a few seconds (sometimes that works) or shut down and restart the dvd player. Eventually, it has worked with some combination of those fixes every time, but it's A: annoying and B: concerns me about burning up the LCD screen. Is this a normal issue or do I have a faulty DVD player I should return?

Will a BlueRay player and HD player give the same picture on the HDTV? Sony Bravia seems especially designed for BlueRay. Will it also accept HD?

(I don't like the name "BlueRay". Bad choice. It sounds like the picture will have a bluish tint.)

That sounds like an HDCP* handshake issue. If you don't do it already, always turn on your display before you turn on your player. If the player doesn't get the handshake signal from the display it gives an error message.


*High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection

Yes, both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc players will work fine with any display that has an HDMI input, such as your Bravia. Sony, of course, would rather that you just bought Blu-ray because that is the format that they developed and they are trying to vanquish Toshiba's HD DVD format. That's why Sony prominently mentions Blu-ray in the manual for your Bravia display. They'd prefer that you didn't know that HD DVD exists.

The "Blu-ray" refers to the blue/violet laser used to read the discs (HD DVD also uses a blue/violet laser). Because the wavelength of the blue laser is smaller than the red laser used with SD DVD, it can read pits in the disc that are smaller and closer together. This allows MUCH more data to be crammed on Blu-ray Discs and HD DVDs, as compared to regular DVDs. Since BDs and HD DVDs are digital media, the color of the lasers has nothing to do with the color of display picture.

Thank you lizard.

So why does Sony develop a BlueRay system that can take even more information than HD DVD? What's it needed for. Do they plan on even higher resolution in coming TVs?

^Blu-ray's 50 GB discs can hold more extras than 30 GB HD DVDs. Also, some BDs use uncompressed PCM sound, which is a huge space hog (but no better than compressed, "lossless" audio codecs like "Dolby TrueHD"). There are already a few titles released on both formats that are one disc for Blu-ray and two discs for HD DVD (the extras being on the second disc, as is often the case with SD DVD).

It is also possible that very long movies, such as the Extended Editions of The Lord of the Rings, might need to be split on two HD DVDs, as is the case now with SD DVD, but would need only one BD. However, as studios get better at using the VC-1 and AVC compression codecs, they might be able to put those long movies on one HD DVD without compromising picture and sound quality.

Basically, for the vast majority of movies, if properly coded, the 30 GB HD DVDs provide a picture and audio equal to those on BD. The HD DVD folks are working on a Triple layer 51 GB disc; whether it will ever leave the lab remains to be seen, but I have my doubts.

So, in answer to your question, the 50 GB Blu-ray discs give Sony and the other Blu-ray companies bragging rights; it has nothing whatsoever to do with "higher resolution" (both formats are 1920 x 1080p). HD DVD has the advantage that the discs are cheaper to make and easier (again, cheaper) to encode. Blu-ray has the space advantage for extras, uncompressed sound, and for very long movies on one disc. Don't get hung up on this stuff. Both formats can, and usually do, provide outstanding picture and audio quality on their discs.

There may, indeed, be higher resolution TVs someday. But the HDTV standard is locked in at 1080i for at least the next decade. (And it has taken many, many years just to implement this change from 480i NTSC TV; imagine how long it would take to implement another "higher def" standard!). So, a 1440p display would just be used to upscale HD material, whether from discs, over the air, or whatever. It will likely be many years before there is a "higher def" standard to worry about. For now, Blu-ray Discs and HD DVDs are as good as it gets. Enjoy.

My TV actually does this same thing. I have a Samsung 61" DLP. It will even skip the input if it doesn't "see" the player as turned on. After the player boots up the TV will see the connection and display the info. I also get the Video Not Supported message until that handshake is made.

My TV has the same issue, but as soon as I turn on the DVD player it recognises it. If the DVD connection isn't being recognised while the DVd player is powered up I'd say there must be something wrong - perhaps a faulty connection or a problem with the TV. TimT might be advised to switch the input from the DVD to another of the TV's input sockets (if there's one available) - that might do the trick.

I think it might be useful to list where the studio allegiances currently lie, especially as we've just had a thread started on the topic.

So what if any of the older cheaper models of Blu-Ray will be produced with 1.1? Will the Sony bdp-300 be utilizing 1.1 or just the newer 500?

No standalone Blu-ray players can be updated to Profile 1.1 if they weren't released that way to start. The player don't have the necessary PiP decoder chips in the hardware.

The PS3 may be updatable, but Sony hasn't announced anything definitive on that yet.

Sony VAIO VGN-AR690U and VGN-AR51SU have screens which are not quite widescreen format (16:9), but a little higher (16:10). This gives 1200 vertical pixels instead of 1080.

When viewing a full-screen format (4:3) DVD or BluRay film on a 1920x1200 screen, will the picture be limited to 1080 pixels in the vertical, leaving black bars above and below? And is it the same for photos (jpeg and others)?

A 17" screen isn't very big from the start, so bars would make the picture quite small. I don't mind bars when it's needed for format, but bars all around the picture will undeniably feel like a waste of space.

Will BluRay discs used in a BluRay read/write drive, be able to burn down films in lower resolution than HD (like DVD quality)? And store 5 times the length of film compared to a DVD disc?

Or are BluRay discs only for HD material?

You can put any kind of data on the discs, but of course it won't work with BD players if it isn't authored properly. Since they can put SD material on discs for extras, it's just a matter of authoring it a certain way for it to be playable with BD players (I don't know how though). I mean, you couldn't just copy the data from a DVD over.

To answer your other question, the media player would scale the image (SD or HD, doesn't matter) to fit vertically or horizontally. So 4:3 material would go from top to bottom but have bars on the sides. Of course, 1.78:1 material will have small bars on the top and bottom because the screen is less wide than a WS TV. 16:10 is pretty much the standard for widescreen computer monitors, for some reason.

For photos, it would depend on the options in photo viewer. They generally display at their native resolution by default, so if a photo was in portrait mode and longer than 1200 pixels vertically, you would see the top 1200 rows of pixels and have to move the photo up to see the rest. Photo viewers have zoom and fill modes too, however. Now, if you're referring to putting photos on a disc that is playable in BD players, they would work the same way video does.

Thank you. That stopped my worries about a 4:3 picture being shrinked even smaller on a 17" laptop screen.

Saving space burning down DVD-material on BluRay disc would be nice , if it works to play on the BD player of course. I also asked because I don't know if I should get a laptop with BluRay drive or DVD drive only, for the DVD disc I tested in a laptop with BluRay looked fuzzy and bleak (while a BluRay disc looked fantastic). Can it be that so much technical focus has been put on the BluRay performance in some BD players/drives, that DVDs play less well in them than they do in the models that only have DVD drive?

just got an hdtv for christmas and wanted to get peoples opinions on whether i should go with a blu ray player or an hd player. What are peoples view on which format they think will win and which one will die like beta did. Also, I can play my SD dvds on whatever player I go with correct.

How does the PS3 upscaling/upconverting of SD DVD feature compare to many of the HD Players?

Short of having the Reon processor, it is one of the best upscalers ive ever used. VERY good quality.

I have to say, and I'm not knocking on the PS3, but I prefer the upconversion on my A1. It just seems cleaner. Granted, at this point I'm so used to real HD content that no SD disc looks very good, no matter what I play it on, but I've stopped using my PS3 for SD discs.

Thanks for the info

A couple of newbie questions that may be fully answered in this thread, but I only scanned a few pages I'll admit.

How is HD on SD TVs? The first post mentions that it works, but not much detail is given. But I think I've read that sometimes HD discs will look worse than SD discs. What's the full scoop?

My second question is, can anyone here read minds remotely? I've completely forgotten what my second question was going to be.

Out of all the HD-DVD players. Which one is the best? I have the A2 and it doesn't look that great.

There is a 3 month backlog to having questions answered here. Please be patient.

My friend and I have been shopping around lately for BluRay players, but have noticed a few things that don't sit well with me. I was watching Pirates of the Caribbean, and it looked great to me...almost a little to real and fake to be a MOVIE to me, but whatever. However, why does everything look like it is shot at 1.3x the speed? Everything is sped up a tiny bit. I also get a bit motion sick watching anything in blu-ray. He said the same thing. Is this a common compliant or am I missing something. Why would anyone want to watch a movie like this just to see it clearer? I get that the picture is amazing, but if there is a lot of action, I want to go puke. ...anyone?