PopcornTreeCt

I didn't think I'd ever say this, considering I always had a strong stance against High Def. It was mainly due to reasons that most have, two formats, replacing DVDs, etc. However, I have quickly changed my tune. I do most certainly love my 300 steelbook and my Hot Fuzz DVD with the Wal-Mart bonus disc, there's a part of me that wished I had simply went for the HD-DVD versions. While I don't intend to replace my entire DVD collection I do plan on always purchasing the HD version of a movie when available. In fact now I'm trying to get in contact with the Warner store to cancel my Kubrick box set and Troy DVDs.

I think everyone that's sitting it out is shooting themselves in the foot. Why bother to replace your Transformers DVD in the future when you can simply make one purchase now? One format may be killed off but that point is irrelevant as DVDs will eventually go away.

bikerfool

my only regret for going too early is my tv doesnt support HDMI, howere the picture is still amazing with my HD cable, HD DVD and im about to purchase a pse assuming BR will look amazing as well.

I agree those who are sitting out have no clue what their missing. My folks bitched a bit but since they got quality time with my TV, they bought a 50 DLP sammy and my brother bought a 36in LCD HD..so its all in the family..lol

mdc3000

Wow, I've read several posts by popcorn stating that you were against HD... welcome to the dark side, it's more fun over here!

RyoHazuki

I think Blu Ray and HD-DVD will take a dirt nap before dvd. VHS was still being made after laserdisc died.

shanester

I've only had my A2 player for month now but I'm really loving it. Watching Hot Fuzz or Blood Diamond in HD is fantastic.! Even older movies like Goodfellas & Purple Rain looked great. I don't see myself buying anymore standard dvd's unless there not available in HD

Cheers!

Shannon Nutt

Yes, but even as a "failed format", laserdisc was around a solid 10 years...so no matter what HD format you go with, I wouldn't worry too much about it being "obsolete" in a year or two...both have sold well enough to be around for a while, even if one of the two "fails". No matter what format you pick, you're still going to have 100s of great movies in hi-def on it, and your player is still going to play standard DVDs regardless.

But you're talking to someone who not only had a laserdisc machine...but an RCA Videodisc machine before that.

FantasticVSDoom

I think a lot of people have had this same reaction. I know I did, and I was a fairly early adopter.

Paul_SD

no offense, but I see this as a knee jerk reaction that isn't well reasoned out.

let's just take HD DVD as an example (because for several reasons, I feel it actually has the strongest attributes needed for long term survival)

1) HD content is best appreciated with true HD displays
2) HD displays are no where near being the majority of displays in homes at this point in time- this will change over the course of years, not months.
3) Large displays sizes in the past, especially in the form of CRT RPs required a very large footprint- with flat panels, this is no longer the case. People can now get very large screens that don't eat into their living space the way they once did. Price has been a factor determining peoples screen sizes in the past- but size of the hardware has also had an impact- both of these attributes are changing and in the future (over the next 10 years) will encourage people to opt for larger and larger displays.
4) as this re-orientation is size SLOWLY occurs, so will the appreciation for better, more refined sources. This will be slow, but it will be steady.
5) HD DVD production allows for waxing and waning of the interest in the media due to market forces (we will most likely see some form of a recession in the next 10 years that will impact the sales of HT gear across the board). When interest wanes, lines don't go fallow, they simply switch to a more popular, less costly media like DVD. They simply don't "go away" because they have the ability to transition in and out according to consumer interest and buying habits.
6) because of the flexibility in production, HD DVD can be slowly phased in without incurring a massive amount of debt up front ( that steadily accrues interest) while waiting for adoption to take hold- this is the exact problem that Blu-ray has, and which its most ardent supporters seem to dimiss with a cavilier "if only HD DVD could go away, then Blu-ray could immediately become dominant and therefore begin making a profit."

Regardless if there were one, two, or three formats, adoption is going to be slow because a NEED for better PQ and AQ is nowhere near being a reality at this point. But given the fact that HD on disc offers the same form factor, and roughly the same price points- it will transition and supplant DVD eventually- how long it lasts after that is anyones guess, but I would still give it another 5 years after DVD has effectively been marginilized to the point of low run, low cost independent studios and content.

HD is here to stay, but survival is going to be predicated on things like flexability and adaptability, not simply capacity and bandwidth. There is a reason the cockroach survived and not the T-rex.

speedyray

LaserDisc was around more like 20 years (although I would say Shannon Nutt is right about the really solid 10 years). I hope HD DVD and/or BD are here that long, but if not, there are already enough quality titles to justify my small investment (384 for my A1 and 599 for my PS3). I was very skeptical at first as well, but once I got my first disc and watched on my HDTV for the first time I was sold. Everyone keeps talking about HD VOD replacing disc, but I just do not see it within the next 15 years. My cable modem (not the same one of course - I keep upgrading my hardware) is not astoundingly faster now than it was in the fall of 1999 when I first started the service (companies can claim whatever speed they are capable of, but what you get is far different in practice). That said I would not even think of trying to get any HD VOD system currently.

lotsofdvds

The longer the war continues, the sooner combo units will become available. If combo units prove popular, then they'll be around for a long time, thus insuring that your collection will stay relevant.

I'm no longer worried about my choice. And if BR hits my magic number I'll probably get it as well.

Artman

I've been holding off on DVD purchases since May of last yr, and I wish I'd started earlier. But yeah, I've started the trade-in process on DVD's already... will definitely get a Blu player in Dec or January.

True_Story1011

This sounds really bad to some, but i dont even look in the other forums that dont pertain to HD (unless you count movie and exchange portions).

When I'm in Best Buy and CC I dont even look at regular DVD's, nor websites for that matter either.

MBoyd

Yeah solid 10 years of LD with letterbox transfers for the most part. This is why I got into it in 1990. I never had more than 40-50 movies and nine of those were various releases of Star Wars. LOL.

I probably puchased less than 10 VHS movies in my whole life. I thought it was such a waste of money with the poor resolution and pan and scan transfers.

I always felt like something better would emerge and it did with DVD in most ways. But here we are now with disc based HD content. Something I think most of us knew would get here even when we went down the DVD path (I started that in 1999.)

Sure there might be 4K discs someday, or downloads, but I cant imagine ditching my HD DVDs as quickly as I did LDs and some DVDs I have rebought in HD. If it looks like HD DVD is dying I will buy an extra player to hang onto. Lot's of people did that with LD I just never thought it was worth it for my tiny collection. Crap, some people did that for Beta too. Probably thanks to them doing so is probably one of the reasons we have so much classic cartoon, commercials and tv show footage on the web.

And I may yet get a Blu player yet. Same story there.

DVD Polizei

Yeah, I was about to buy the Troy Ultimate edition SD DVD only a short time ago, but jumped for the Troy Director's Cut on HD DVD when the WB store had the 25% off sale and free shipping. I'm purchasing nothing recent on SD DVD anymore. It's all HD DVD. Of course if a Sergio Leone HD DVD Anthology comes out, I'm gonna scream like a little girl.

For those who are sitting on the fence, I don't recommend it. Just take a quick tally of what your favorite movies are, then see if most of them are on HD DVD or Blu-ray, then start buying them accordingly. A few here. A few there. The players are quite expensive, but just think when a person eventually does get a player, they will have a nice collection of HD discs and won't have to go out and spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to be satiated by the amazing picture.

BuckNaked2k

With all the noise from Paramount this past week, I'm very close to jumping in to HD DVD.

I really don't care about the player price. I currently own a Denon DVD-3910 that ran me around $1,300 two years ago. I've got about 25 SACD and DVD-A titles. I know they are both "dead" formats, but I enjoy what I have immensely. So why not enjoy the best in HD media now?

I'm leaning HD over BR because I just like what's available in HD more. The Blade Runner set and the Kubrick films on HD are just too tempting to pass up. I just wish they were coming out as combo discs, so I'd have no fear of obsolescence

The few factors holding me back from getting in right now are:

- Fear of obsolescence I don't want discs that will be unplayable if someday the format has failed and my player has died;

- My HDTV is not in my HT. I have an older 480p Plasma that's mounted to the wall, and I'm not really wild about unbolting the mount and moving that beast downstairs where the new, (smaller) HDTV resides without a 5.1 setup;

- Outdated Receiver My Denon AVR-3805 still kicks ass, but is not HDMI, so I cannot enjoy the full force and effect of the new lossless formats.

Anyway, I am still riding the fence, filled with dread & uncertainty! At the very least, I've decided to wait until October, when the next generation HD players are released. Maybe things will be clearer by then.

DthRdrX

I agree. As one of the titles I was most looking to upgrade the Troy dvd sucks compared to the HD version.

Supermallet

1. By the time one format or the other fails, combo players should be pretty prevalent. I don't think this will be a serious issue for you.

2. You'll have to move your HDTV into your HT eventually.

3. Your receiver should have multichannel analog inputs. That's all you need to enjoy DolbyTrueHD as the players do the decoding and can send it out uncompressed via the analogs. Every HD DVD player on the market (except the 360 add-on) can decode TrueHD, and no HD DVDs have yet been made with DTS-HD MA.

4. The HD-A20 is an excellent deal right now, but if you want to wait for 3rd gen, I can't blame you. I'm looking at the high end one myself.

Anyway, hoped that helped allay some of your worries about the format. Once you buy into it, your anxieties will dissapate in a wave of HD goodness.

Artman

Those are on Blu as well.

darkside

This is why I jumped in on HD DVD day one and Blu-ray as soon as I could. The longer I waited the more stuff I would have to replace later. Once you have watched good HD transfers regular DVD is never the same again.

Josh Z

Unfortunately, not all HD DVD players have 5.1 analog outputs. He will have to be careful to purchase one that does.

All of Studio Canal's releases use DTS-HD MA.

kefrank

isn't it true, though, that only toshiba's high-end player (XA2) has the 5.1 analog outputs? so, if he were to get the A20, the best he could do with his current receiver would be the down-scaled audio via optical, right? just wanting some clarification, because i'm trying to make sense of all this myself.

Supermallet

You're right, I forgot about the lack of multichannel outs on the lower end players. *Shakes fist at Toshiba*

And Josh, I don't import HD DVDs, so I was not aware that Studio Canal's releases offered those tracks.

XavierMike

Also, there is some discussion that the a20 may not provide true 1080p. It sounds like there is some evidence that it pulls 1080i from the disk and deinterlaces to 1080p making it no better then what a 1080p TV does. Hopefully, the 3rd gen players will pull 1080p off of the disk.

bunkaroo

I was the same way. I had a pretty strong stance that DVD " was good enough". And in a way, it still is. But at the same time, once I can get it in HD, there's no way I would use the DVD anymore.

Josh Z

All "1080p" HD DVD players (and some of the Blu-ray players) decode first to 1080i and then deinterlace to 1080p. When done correctly, as the HD-XA2 does, there is absolutely no loss in quality.

The problem is that the A20 apparently "bobs" the picture to 540p and then scales back up to 1080p, which is a huge loss in quality. Using 1080i output on that player is recommended.