Wow, that means HD DVD is not even good enough... me too always thought that older movies can't be "enhanced" to HD quality. I will wait, unlike when DVD first came out, the player costed $300+ and i jumped on it (Toshiba something, it's total crap now, not sure still plays...)

Well...that's the problem with DVD's (ESPECIALLY now), you're going to get a lot of people who jumped from VHS to DVD and don't understand that this is not where it ends. They think it's going to take 25 years for a new format to come along when that's simply not the case.

That being said, the HD-DVD titles aren't really interesting me. It's the Blu-ray titles that matter at this point.

Regarding TV-on-DVD though, I thought some older shows were shot on video. Can they still be improved with HD (at least more than a decent upconverting DVD player can manage)?

There are some shows (like Knight Rider and Quantum Leap) that are shown on Universal HD and I'm pretty damn impressed. They're not perfect but they do look a helluva lot better. Makes me wonder how many shows were filmed as opposed to recorded on video.

This makes a good point.

Anything that is shot on film (including tv shows) has the ability to look much better.

Stuff that was shot on video (All in the Family for example). Well, that's probably as good as it will ever look. Not the DVD's though. Poor masters even compared to the television masters used. But, that was just shoddy work.

A lot more of them than people probably realize.

And if they're filmed, does that mean they're all 1.85?

no DTS no sale...

The specs also show it as fullscreen and Widescreen - why would anyone watching a fullscreen non-HD TV need an HD-DVD player. I mean I know they made a few 4:3 HD sets - but really how many people need a fullscreen version - I thought HD would finally kill off foolscreen - and at least make a new 1:78 fullscreen.

Amazon's? Ignore it. The back of the case shows that the movie is widescreen and only the extra features are 4x3/480i.

You're misunderstanding how 4x3 HD sets work. The appeal of a 4x3 HD set is to have 4x3 material fill the whole height of the screen while HD material is letterboxed to widescreen. It works out pretty well if the majority of what you watch is 4x3 and in standard definition. Watching 4x3 material pillarboxed in a 16x9 frame would mean 4x3 HD owners would have to use a center-crop feature on their remote to fill the screen.

Well i'll be damned. I learn something new everyday around here. I guess that is more sensible than I thought - the 4x3 HDTV that is. I kind of thought amazon might have screwed up the specs. Thanks for the clarification and lesson.