I agree.

I really want to pick up "Slither", but the very high price tag (even amazon lists at $28) is keeping me from ordering.

So do buy.com.

Someone here just picked it up for (i think) $21.

Also, I don't consider it something that HD DVD is doing wrong as a whole. It was asked at our "meet" who the hell is deciding this and the pricing is completely left up to the studios. If you want to blame anyone, put it on the studios.

No shipping to Canada, or I would!

I have some others. They are gripes more than anything.

Not enough TrueHD soundtracks
Warner Bros release window is too short
Some titles do not include all of the extras from the SD dvd (Superman: The movie is an example)
Need more titles!! :D

Buy.com/Google is taking care that problem for me. :D

$21 at Buy.com

Just at a $1.50 filler to your order

I don't blame it on HDDVD, I blame it on the studios.

Their actions are potentially hurting HDDVD on a whole, however.

I believe the "extras" issue with Superman is the first time it's happening. Although it does suck, I was buying the SD boxed set for 2-4 and the documentaries anyway.

And...yes...the others are gripes as opposed to genuine problems. ;) IMHO.

I'd love to, but as I stated before, they don't ship to Canada. :(

and again...the only people I hear bitching about it are people on these boards. The people that I encounter in stores (J6P's, if you will) absolutely love it. They're not buying into anything HD anyway so the price issue doesn't come into play yet. Hopefully by the time they're ready, that will go away.

Combos will only really have an impact when studios decide to stop releasing anything else but the combos. Otherwise, I see no reason why a consumer would spend extra money to have a format they can't use. Studios need to force users to buy the combos in order to make that strategy really work.

Another problem with HD DVD is the hardware, but I imagine that will be helped with the G2 stuff coming out. Has anyone gotten their hands on a A2 yet?

You mean the whole HDMI/DVI issue?

HDMI handshake issue
Audio dropouts/sync issues
Slow load times
Slow response time

Obviously, I don't have first hand experience with these issues, and can only go with what I have read on the boards. Once I read Gary's (AVS) review of the Samsung, and how refined it was in comparison to his much loved A1, it made the problem much more apparent to me. I'm sure these issues will be worked out when moving to a SoC application, but I would like to see some reviews to prove it.

The HDMI issue is still unresloved, but the other points were either resolved with the 2.0 Firmware or are simply a matter of opinion.

I have yet to experience any dropouts with 2.0 and have no issues with the response time on the player/remote.

I agree. But when I read Gary's review - a person I almost blocked because I couldn't stand his constant HD DVD trolling - and how impressed he was with the Samsung, that changed my opinion on the subject. The player was released 3 months after, and was said to be much more refined (and still is). Again, I have no experience with the A1, but hearing that kind of review from an ex-HD DVD fanboy, it was quite eye openning.

You know how some titles on DVD get two-tiered releases, with a single-disc version and a more expensive two-disc version? That's how the combos could work: make the two-disc DVD editions HD-DVD combos.

The average person who doesn't buy the two-disc versions will continue to buy the single-disc versions, so they wouldn't complain about being charged more. Those who automatically buy the most feature-packed DVD editions (who are more likely to be future HD consumers than the average person), would have to buy the combos. If they aren't more expensive than the current two-disc DVD versions, it could work.

The second disc would also give them around 9GB of additional space to use for extras, although of course it would be a standard DVD with no HD and/or VC-1-encoded content.

As far as combos, I dont care for the idea at all really, but I actually have some friends (and my brother) who are going to purchase Superman Returns and possibly Miami Vice combos. That way, they will have them when they get an hd-dvd player. So, it does have some use for some people. Just not us.

The Samsung is very slow to load too. Thats just G1 players. According to Robert, the load times for th G2 players is much faster. I have the XA2 on preorder with him.

When I was at best buy a few weeks ago looking at the tv that I eventually bought (hls7178w), I had the salesman turn on the sammy bd player. It loaded just as slow as the A1...my fiancee even commented about it. The salesman kinda laughed. The picture was decent, but not stellar (50 first dates). It could have been the settings too.

As far as the other issues, I havent experienced a handshake problem or audio synch issues at all. When I watch a movie, they play flawlessly. All, but Tokyo Drift from BBV. It had scratches though.

I'll add to your gripes list the lack of bookmarking (and zoom) on Universal titles (I'm not sure about Paramount, since I don't have any yet).

And don't forget the biggest gripe of all: the lack of certain BD only studios releasing on HD DVD. Not that there is anything that can be done about that except hope that it will change.
And I haven't paid more than $17.95 for any HD DVD. Yes, it's only a few dollars (usually $5) more for combos, but those few dollars add up over dozens of purchases. Most of us have spent lots more on DVDs than DVD players. The same will be true with HD DVD (and BD) players. The place to be frugal and shop carefully is on the discs because that's where the real expense is.

Combos are a complete waste of money and I won't have anything to do with them. I'll wait for the inevitable re-release.

I'm sure the player wasn't updated. I mean, if you really want to compare the pre-firmware A1 to the pre-firmware Sammy, we could do that :p

I was surprised to see Amir mention the problems he had with the HDMI handshake issues he's had with the A1. Of course, he was using it to praise the 360 add-on, but still. Didn't think I'd see that.

Since my viewing was a few weeks ago and since Samsung just released the firmware (very slowly I might add), its safe to say that it didnt have updated firmware.

Ive heard that there is a handshake issue with some displays, but on my old HLP and HLS, it isnt a problem. When I first turn on the player, it drops out for 1 or 2 seconds while loading, but then is fine after it. Never an issue during playback.

Both players have their quirks and annoyances, Samsung still hasnt fixed the noise problem and that would be a much bigger problem for me than load times. Thats Gen 1 for ya. Im highly awaiting my XA2. Looks like a late December shipment so far.

so how many of you with the XA1 are going to upgrade to the XA2? I think I'm sticking with my XA1 for awhile before I upgrade to anything else.

I'm not planning on spending $1000 for the XA2 (or any Blu-Ray player). $399 for the HD-A1 is quite the bargain, and works like a champ. When the XA2 (or perhaps XA3) comes down under $500, then I'll consider upgrading to get 1080p capability.

Im actually upgrading to the XA2 from the A1...ill sell my A1 to my brother for $250 or so....or sell it on ebay if he doesnt want it.

HDMI handshake issues have been experienced with virtually every product containing an HDMI port ever manufactured. This isn't an HDDVD or BD issue, it is an HDMI issue. There are many installers who refuse to install it, or refuse to provide any after-install support whereas they offer support to analog connections and their other work.

There's always my gripe, which I'll add on to Rock's about the lack of TrueHD:
Not ANY high-res TrueHD discs. -- About the only thing where BD has moved slightly ahead. (very slightly)

I heard that the XA2 was still coming in November. I believe Robert said that. Did you pre-order from Value, Rock?

I'm still debating whether to get it or not. I guess i don't REALLY need it. But for $899 plus 2 movies...i dunno.

Oh, I thought he said the A2 was november and XA2 was late Decemeber...did that change??

Remember, you can ebay your A1 to partially pay for the XA2....it was a good deal, so I jumped on it. I might even sell the 2 titles that Im getting....I just picked FatF and 2F2F...I dont really want them all that bad, but I didnt see any other titles that I wanted from him.

If I get it, I'd just wait until there are 2 titles that I'd want. Or I'll just wait for a refurb deal to come along like the most recent one. I'm not dying for it and I'm happy enough with my A1.

Yeah, that refurb deal for the XA1 from overstock for $428 is pretty good.

just think of all the discs you can get for that 900.00 though. :)

I'd pick up a refurbed XA2 for sub-$500 any day of the week. I'm holding on to my A1 because I can't afford an XA2, plus why upgrade my player when the A1 has everything I need? I could be spending that money on upgrading other parts of my HT, or just buying more HD discs.

I don't understand why you think that this is a non-issue. The MPEG-2 encodes consume more space and bandwidth than the VC-1 encodes do. I haven't heard anyone but Sony say that MPEG-2 provides better PQ than VC-1. I think the space savings is very valuable no matter what size disc you use.

According to Microsoft, VC-1 is 2-3 times more efficient in terms of disc space.

In the specific case of MI:3, we know that the average bitrate on the MPEG-2 version is about 4 Mbps higher than the peak bitrate on the VC-1 version. MPEG-2 is a significant resource hog just in order to break even on PQ!

I'm not really interested in arguing the exact numbers, but there is a reason that studios chose VC-1 over other codecs like MPEG-2 and AVC.

From what I've read Amir said that studios evaluated these codecs head to head with their own material (not a canned one put on by Microsoft) and concluded that VC-1 was superior to MPEG-2 and AVC.

Even Sony is rumored to be looking into using VC-1.

What's wrong with Blu-ray using VC-1? I guess it must seem threatening because if studios switch to VC-1 for both platforms we're more likely to get the same titles released on both formats. At least we'd be a step closer.

Yea, really. I just spent $150 yesterday on HD DVDs.

No reason to upgrade for me.

Exactly....until Sony provides a better MPEG2 quality disc than VC-1, no one can say that MPEG2 is better.

Right now, equal picture quality between the two is a negative for MPEG2. UNLESS, the size/br is the same (which im almost positive it isnt).

Sony is able to provide MPEG-2 releases with PCM audio that deliver reference quality PQ and AQ on a BD-25 (Tears of the Sun). Its a non-issue.

That is yet to be seen. As I pointed out in the AVS Insider's Thread, Paramount titles are running low 20's ABR, which means that VC-1 would have to get down between 7 and 8 ABR to be 3 times more efficient - which currently it can't. And even the Training Day release was smaller using MPEG-2 than VC-1 by a few GBs (and yes, I know Training Day using TrueHD, but not half the disc size worth).

And we will have to see if that is true. They used a BD-25, so that means that they had about 20GB of space to work with (leaving room for audio and subtitles).

20 GB x 1024 = 20480 MB x 8 = 163,840 Mb
126 min x 60 = 7560s
163840/7560 = 21.67 Mbps AVBR MPEG-2

Are you telling me that MI:3 peaked at ~17Mbps when all other titles (including BB) peak in the 20's? I think I need some real numbers.

There is nothing wrong with VC-1. There is also nothing wrong with MPEG-2 or AVC. To think one is superior to the other in terms of PQ is a fallacy. Yes, VC-1 compresses better, but to what degree is yet to be seen in full. For the titles we know that are out there to compare, the difference is as great as people think.

Expanded, sure. But there aren't $900 worth of discs total that I'm even interested in. At the moment, there are only 7 discs that I'm interested in until the end of the year. I guess I just don't think that's a big deal.

Because Sony holds a stake in MPEG2, does it not?

Not really. They had to drop some of the extras from the Blu-rry version of Tears of the Sun, so sticking MPEG-2 video and PCM audio on a 25 GB disc is still a problem.

MPEG2 in and of itself isn't a problem, even on a BD25. Both Warner and Paramount have put out some very nice discs using MPEG2. The problem is when you pair MPEG2 with PCM audio and cram them both on a BD25, there just isn't enough room to breathe. Something's got to give, and on most discs that's been picture quality, extras, or both.

I haven't seen Tears of the Sun, but for all the fawning praise on AVS I've seen mixed reactions to it as well, such as John's review on this site. Also, that disc has clearly been stripped of the extras found on the DVD edition, which is enough tacit admission that Sony knew they had space issues.

That's why MPEG2 is such an issue. Either Sony needs to drop the PCM audio, ramp up BD50 production to the point where it's the default standard for all upcoming Blu-rays, or explore more efficient compression codecs.

First off, who cares about extras? PQ and AQ are ranked way above extras. And didn't they have to drop some extras from the Superman HD DVD? What happened there?

And for those who just gotta have extras - why not in HD? Use a BD50 and get it all. MPEG-2 HD features and extras with PCM.

Extras have been important since Criterion introduced them on laserdisc. Being a fan of a film means wanting to know more about it and its production. Glad you were able to find a single disc out of all the HD DVD releases that is missing something. The fact is we are getting it all with HD DVD. Sorry, but Blu-ray is very late to the party. Glad they have BD50 working, but we already have discs like Batman that show we can have great PQ, SQ and extras on a single HD-DVD. Blu-ray has no advantage. So enjoy your format that is final as good as HD DVD has been since day one.

Blu-ray has lost every single advantage it was supposed to have over HD DVD except for exclusives. It had better hold tight to that advantage so at least most of us will support both in the future.