My only complaint about HD-DVD
 

They didn't do anything to make the discs more scratch resistant. I opened Knocked Up and was unpleasantly surprised by a few scratches on both sides of the discs. Also, today I bought Heroes and two of the discs had several scratches on them. Hopefully they will fix this in the near future. Aside from that I am really enjoying HD-DVD.

My least favorite thing is waiting forever for the HD-A1 player to start up. And I especially love it when I hit 'eject' on my A1, and it interprets that as 'turn on first, then play the disc'.

It still takes forever on my new HD-A30 model that was just released. It is like waiting for a computer to boot up.

My least favorite thing about HD DVD is that they haven't released enough of 'em! ;)

agreed :thumbsup:

I'm getting use the slow start up time on the A2. I'm usually in the kitchen finishing up something or getting something to eat so it gives me a bit more time by the time I get to the living room :D

Ditto on startup time, especially when I just want to test discs out. The other small disappointment is that at least on the A-2 there is no "play resume" memory of where you left off as there is on many DVD players.

Look at your owner's manual. Mine for the A2 states:


I see so much whining that it take SOOOO LOOONG for their HD player to start. Mine takes a minute tops. Maybe if you understand how it works, it won't bother you as much. It didn't bother me before I read this section but after anyone reads this, a minute wait should be understandable. Is a minute or two that big a deal for a quality product? Do you cry and pout when your computer takes several minutes to boot up? :hscratch:

I will agree that it sucks that there is no "play resume memory" like on normal dvd players. It sucks to stop playback and then have to go back to the chapter section and then fast forward to where I was. The manual says to hit the "Play Resume" button after stopping playback but that hasn't worked for me yet on any of the disc I have tried. Either I am doing it wrong or their "resume play" does not function properly. This is probably the item that bugs me the most about HD-DVD.

What's weird is I have to hit "Pause" and if it sits long enough it will go to a screen saver. Hit play again and I am where I left off. On dvd players, if it stays on pause long enough, the dvd will start itself back or stop playback completely.

As far as scratches go, I get most of my HD viewing from Netflix and thus they are received with scratches. I clean every disc before it goes in the player and have not had any trouble yet, knock on wood.

Next to the slow start up time with my A1, this is my biggest complaint. It is uncommon to purchase an SD-DVD that has scratches nowadays. Why can't HD-DVD's be replicated scratch free?

I guess I'm being picky, but when an HD-DVD title costs between $19.99 - $34.99, I expect it to be flawless...that's what I paid for and expect from the studios.

My DLP takes just as long to fully heat up as my HD-A2 takes to be "disc-ready." It doesn't bother me in the least.

My add-on plays right away.

Not more than 10 seconds to be sitting at the menu.

I would have to agree with above, my only complaint is that there isnt enough titles out!! grrr!! lol

same deal for me. :)

my only complaint is that my Harmony remote won't send the "Eject" command to my A1 before "Power on", but I'm a dork that way...

Same with my add-on. The 360 HD-DVD drive takes a lot of criticism but I think its great.

The PS3 works the same way, except that loads even quicker than the 360 does.

...but the PS3 boots up pretty much instantly, so it's not as if there's a technical requirement that these players take so long to launch.

In all honesty, the glacial speed of my HD-A1 -- a first gen player, admittedly -- coupled with some sporadic flakiness has moved me to buy Warner's multiplatform titles on Blu-ray. I haven't sat down with a stopwatch or anything, but if the HD-A1 takes less than 2 minutes from powering on to seeing the first image from the disc on the screen, it ain't by much.

Does the scratching create playback problems?

My 360 add-on is super quick, no complaints here. My PS3 is in the mail.

Yeah, now waiting with my setup either...I couldn't imagine waiting 90 seconds for a disc to fire up...I'm spoiled.

I have yet to have any scratches on my HD DVD discs bought new. Though it seems every 3 or 4 Blu-rays I buy the damn pieces of the spindle which hold the Blu-ray disc are broken off, floating around in the damn case. I might have 5 or 6 of them like this.

As for load up times...what do you expect? These are 1st-3rd gen players, its not going to be lightening fast. My PS3 is obviously faster then my A2, but my 360 Add-on is faster then the PS3.

The startup time is annoying when changing discs. I'll often have a disc in the player, so I need to wait a minute for the thing to boot, eject the disc, put a new disc in, and what another minute. It also bothers me when listening to CDs, since I want to pop in a disc and listen to it. The HD-A1 is a good CD player. I wish it did SACD and DVD-audio. I can understand no SACD since its Sony backed, but my Toshiba standard DVD player does SACD and DVD-audio. I would imagine there is enough hardware in there, and since it 'acts like a computer' it wouldn't be a huge stretch for DVD-A. I do understand it is booting like a computer. However, there are electronic devices that don't require as long of a boot up time.

This is a dumb question, but is there any way to skip past the WB or Universal logos when starting up the disc? I can't do it on my A1 or XA2 players. Yet the PS3 is able to skip right past the WB logo. Couple that with the load time, and I might have to start buying dual-format titles on Blu-ray.

On this subject, the new Anchor Bay/Starz Blu-ray releases are pissing me off with the way they force me to sit through 4 or 5 FBI warning and studio logo screens.

I will almost always buy dual format releases on Blu-Ray. The only way that I wont is if the HD-DVD version has some really cool features that the Blu-Ray release doesn't have.

Interestingly, I also had two scratched discs on Heroes, and one on Planet Earth, but none in single-disc titles. I guess discs in box sets are more prone to coming loose (which is why I'll probably buy Blade Runner on Blu-ray).

None of the discs were actually loose they were just scratched. It is unfortunate that they haven't developed some kind of coating a la Blu-Ray to put on the discs for added protection.

One minute to load :eek: sorry... that's unacceptable, my old PC loads faster than that...

Wish my new PC did.

good thing some of you guys don't own the HD-XA1 since you'd also have to wait a few extra seconds for the motorized door to open so you can gain access to the disc tray...

;)