I haven't even received a backorder notice from the WB store.

I received a movie that I ordered at the same time but no word on Planet Earth.

Thanks, it was just posted!

In a word: the SD-DVD video quality is disappointing, even by DVD standards. The bonus material is interesting enough, but I'd gladly trade them in for better picture quality.

Oddly enough, a number of other sites give the SD-DVD visuals extremely high marks.
I have no idea what they were watching, but this is far from a perfect DVD presentation.

It's still worth picking up, but only on the strength of the main feature itself.

I got a backorder email last week. Today I got this:



So maybe next week.

And Warner doesnt consider Blu-Ray to be "Hi Def"? Ha.

Neither did I Thor so don't worry about it yet. I'm waiting on a few titles that they have not told me anything about yet.

I saw the SD-dvds on a friend's HDTV over the weekend, and it looked pretty damn good - while not perfect, they deserve the high marks they've been getting. BTW, my Planet Earth HDs are in the mail!

What B&M stores are carrying the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray versions?

I caught two episodes over the weekend and I want to get this ASAP.

You might be able to find it at a Best Buy, if you're lucky. Otherwise, you'll have to get it online and to get it ASAP, go for overnight shipping (which will still cost less than if you find it at Best Buy, since they're charging full MSRP for some reason).

How is that supposed to make me not worry?

slop101,
Even if ordering online, do you know of a store that can really get it out any time soon? Amazon looks like there is quite a wait?

It's not an isolated case.

The WB store just doesn't know what it is doing.

Don't be fooled by amazon's over-estimation. I ordered mine on Friday and (even though they "estimated" about 3 weeks until it would go out), they shipped it out today.

Thanks for the review. I've pretty much decided this will be the thing that gets me to HD-DVD. And my girlfriend watched the trailer and she's sold on it, so more justification = soon.

worth. Every. Penny.

My order from Amazon.com finally shipped this morning!

I got an email from WB saying that my order could ship in 7 days. Here's hopin!

I have the HD-DVD and LOVE this series

Just got the notice that my Planet Earth shipped on 4/30.

Well, like many of you who have posted here, I have gotten totally hooked on this series through Discovery HD. And I think this is the first thing to come out that has pushed me to actually want to go to a HD DVD format. From the comments here, I'm pleased to see that the presentation is stronger than the SD format reviewed here.

OK, sorry if this is a slight departure, but since I now want to upgrade to get this set, I just wanted to ask a quick question. I really want to get a Xbox360 and am considering getting the Elite bundle, since it contains the HD-DVD add-on. For those of you who have the add-on for the Xbox, would you say that the quality is worth it or would I be far better off getting a standalone HD-DVD player?

I just got that email too!!! Told ya not to worry.

Mine shipped as well.

Just an FYI... the Elite DOES NOT contain the HD-DVD add-on. (The only difference from the Premium is HDMI support, 120GB hard drive, and black finish)

I do however have the HD-DVD drive and would recommend it if, like me, you are a poor college student. If you can get it for $160 like I did, go for it. If money is not a problem and you'd like to utilize the newer uncompressed audio tracks on some HD-DVDs (not PE, however), I'd pick up a Toshiba standalone.

If you want to play games as well then the 360 is a great choice and the HD DVD add-on is a no brainer. You can also download and rent HD movies off of the xbox live marketplace which is another bonus.

My only qualm with it makes more noise then other players. It's quite noticeable if you're watching a movie at low volume which I do sometimes at night.

hmm... my 360 makes some noise when it's playing games, but makes absolutely no noise when playing dvds, HD or otherwise.

Question, Best Buy just put these up on the rack today for both formats and I rattled them around and it seems like every copy had multiple loose discs. Is this just the packaging or has anyone had any problems so far?

Aww, a friend of mine said the Elite had the add-on. I hadn't looked it up to confirm. So, when you say HDMI support, do you just mean it comes with the HDMI cable?

And I'm not a poor college student, haven't been in a few years, but that doesn't mean money still isn't an issue. Now, I'm a poor working man.

Well, I know I'm going to buy a 360, but I'm not sure, with the format war, if I would otherwise be ready to buy a standalone, mainly because of money. The add-on would certainly be cheaper than a standalone.

I mainly asked because I remember in the last generation consoles I heard complaints about how they played back DVDs. While the add-on would be a cheaper way to go, I wouldn't want to make a huge sacrifice in quality.

I use my 360 (via the HD-DVD drive) for all my DVD playback as well as HD playback. There are some varied opinions of this but, I think, when upscaled over VGA, the 360 is one of the better scaling DVD players on the market. I have mine hooked up to a 720p projector and the results are glorious. Go ANA upscaling chip! Yay!

I was just watching the new Entourage S3 DVD set on it last night and I swear it looks better than it does on HBO at compressed 1080i HD.