If you need a good DNS server, try Verizon's.
4.2.2.2
4.2.2.3

Thanks for the help. I getting ready to draft FF, so I will try it all later.

I will say, though, as much as I love it (and loved college football in HD yesterday), I do think this is a niche market that will be bigger than LD, but will not overtake dvd...at least in the next 3 years or more.

I agree. The difference in picture quality isn't that great, especially to the normal person. I can't see upgrading more than 100 of my current DVDs to be honest.

Yes, I'd be flabbergasted if HD DVD and BD sales got anywhere near DVD sales in three years. Even approaching 25% of DVD sales seems very unlikely. The hope is that the niche market will be large enough to get a wide range of high definition disc releases over the next few years. If not, upscaled SD DVDs are pretty good for the obscure titles that haven't been released in HD.

I'm with you there. There's a very limited number of my DVDs which I will upgrade. However, most new day&date releases I will probably get on HD.

Exactly.

If HDtv sales keep increasing like they are, then why wouldn't HD disc media make a big splash? So in 3 years when many more people have high-definition tvs, they're still going to settle for standard definition discs?

Probably. Some possible reasons why I think that HD discs will remain a niche market, for now, would include:

• Despite increasing sales of HDTVs a lot of people will still have SD TVs for some time to come.

• 100 million or so SD DVD players aren't going to disappear quickly in favor of the new HD players.

• Cost (1). The players will remain fairly expensive for another year or two. Anyone who expects them to be $50 to $100 by the end of next year is going to be disappointed, I think. The HD machines have a lot of processing power and expensive components in them and it should take some time for them to approach the $100 level.

• Cost (2). The discs will be somewhat more expensive than SD DVDs for some time to come.

• Upscaled DVDs on an HDTV look almost as good as HD discs, especially when compared to viewing them at NTSC resolutions on a SD TV. Some displays do an excellent job of upscaling DVDs (mine does), so even an upscaling player won't be necessary. For many people SD DVD will be "good enough" for awhile.

• The infamous format war. Need I say more?


I just don't see these formats taking off for awhile. I'd sure like to be wrong about that, however... Feel free to gloat in three years if HD disc sales approach SD DVD sales!

Another factor relating to the typical content of HD discs: while people can easily notice the clarity of HD video such as sports and things on channels like Discovery HD, people aren't as likely to appreciate the difference with film transfers. People can be annoyed that film with its natural grain does not appear as clean as HD video.

Wow. Apparently even the EXPENSIVE PS3 won't ship with an HDMI cable, or ANY HD cable whatsoever.

http://www.stageselect.com/News/News...2285&fromint=1

I think I ran into Blitz at my local Best Buy tonight. There I am, with 2 HD DVDs in my hand, scanning the rest of their selection, and this punk I've never seen before in my life (not an employee) just starts talking to me. He tried to explain how there's no sense buying those HD discs, because as soon as Blu-ray launches (and keep in mind that there's a bunch of Blu-ray discs for sale on the shelf directly behind him) that they were going to stop making those HD discs because nobody would need to buy them anymore. I said, "Yeah, that's nice" and walked away.

Didn't you heart? As soon as the PS3 launches, the Blu Goblins will eat our discs and make our purchase worthless! The "real launch" refers to Goblin-filled techno-missiles launched at all HD-DVD players who have no chance to defend themselves against something that is Beyond High Definition™®!

You'd know if you met me, you'd walk away with a feeling of amazement from my charm, not walk away with combo discs.

ha-ha!

More ridiculous claims from the Blu-Ray camp.

Um, not sure you have this understood correctly. Don't confuse grain with resolution. Perhaps you mean films from poorly kept masters that look bad.

Do I see many people starting to say that the video upgrade isn't necessarily the hottest thing? And many people saying the audio is really great?

Weird, that sounds....familiar somehow.

I think naysayers desperately hanging onto DVD are saying the video isn't better. I wouldn't say that is a representative sample though.

yeah....okay.

Not really (although bad masters can be at fault too). I'm just saying that there have been some complaints about films like Sleepy Hollow and Apollo 13 having a somewhat grainy look that is not as clean as recent films with digital intermediates like Aeon Flux. HD film transfers may not wow people the same way HD video (and films shot on HD video) do. Grain can be easier to see in HD due to the increased resolution, and people expecting HD to make everything as pristine as Discovery HD are going to be disappointed.

I got a flyer from Sony in my Sunday paper. On the back was an ad for blu-ray. In the description it says:

"Delivers full HD 1080p for over twice the resolution of regular DVD."

I thought the Sony was going to be better than the Samsung?

The Samsung has 5 times better resolution than DVD, but Sony is only twice the resolution?

They just meant over twice the vertical resolution (1080 vs. 480). Counting the overall resolution, HD-DVD and BD at 1920x1080 have six times the number of pixels of standard DVD (720x480).

I did say "almost"

Is the picture better with HD? Sure, it certainly is. But, in my experience, the step up from SD DVD on a conventional 480 line TV to a well upscaled DVD on a 1080 line HDTV is bigger in perceived picture improvement than going from a well upscaled DVD on a 1080 line HDTV to HD DVD on a 1080 line HDTV. (Whether this would be so using a 720p display, I have no idea.)

This has nothing to do with pixel counts (both have the same number of pixels) but in perceived PQ. Upscaling DVDs by interpolating lines of resolution can look pretty good if done well. This issue was much discussed (argued over, would be more like it) several months ago in this forum with regard to the step up from VHS to DVD versus DVD to HD. Some of us tried to make the argument that the perceived step from a crappy VHS picture to upscaled DVD was greater than from DVD to HD DVD, pixel counts notwithstanding. Others disagreed, to put it mildly. In their view, numbers of pixels were everything and they showed little understanding of the merits of upscaling. Qué será.

If you see things differently on your system, great. But I maintain that an average HDTV buyer will find the PQ of upscaled DVDs to be pretty damn good, especially if he/she moved way up in screen size at the same time.

But you're right: "Yeah....okay." It is just my opinion, after all.

Lizard, I've found the exact opposite. The only DVD I've seen that looked remotely HD when upconverted was Chronicles of Riddick. Everything else I've watched upconverted on DVD looks soft to my eyes. You just can't escape the fact that trying to simulate 1080 lines of information when you're only working with 480 lines of reference is not going to give you as good of an image as when you have all 1080 lines present on the disc.

I have to agree. The upconversion is pretty good, and a nice feature, but it is no match to a good HD feed. I watched Blade 2 today on DVD, and I remember previously thinking it was a fantastic transfer, but after watching it now, I cannot wait for an HD release of it.

Heck, even Star Wars: Episode III didn't look as good upconverted on the A1 as the HBO HD feed did.