Yavin

I was HD DVD only for about a month, when the format was killed. I also went to the Red side because of the price of the player, though I also did think that HD DVD would eventually win ...

However, most of the movies I was into were only available on Blu-ray at the time (December 2007). I had always planned on buying whatever I was interested in on HD DVD if it was available on HD DVD, and on DVD otherwise. Pulling the plug on the format in January radically altered my plans. I figured might as well buy a PS3 asap so I don't blow any more money on DVDs that I would eventually feel the need to replace.

My one regret is not returning my HD DVD copy of Bladerunner for the Blu-ray version when I had the chance. Don't know why I didn't, it was still unopened and well within the return period. Oh well ...

BuckNaked2k

+1

I'm hanging on to Phantom of the Opera, on account of the Dolby TruHD soundtrack, along with several imports not yet out on BD. Also, I believe we will never see Streets of Fire (a personal favorite) on Blu, as it is such a niche movie with limited appeal.

Interesting. I wasn't aware of a difference in bitrate on certain Paramount titles. Is there a list somewhere, or a thread which would provide a summary of these titles?

Maxflier

I was HD DVD exclusive until Toshiba was forced to throw in the towel. I picked up a Blu-Ray player right after that, but I still have my HD DVD player and all of my discs, they aren't going anywhere. In fact, I still have more HD DVD's than I do Blu-Rays.

Gizmo

Somewhere on AVS...I think its about 30 or so Paramount titles with "superior" audio on HD and the same amount from Warner (TrueHD tracks/DD+ for HD DVD and basic DD5.1 for the BD). Only one title has been re-released with better audio from Warner and that is Superman Returns. All the Paramount catch-ups have TrueHD as well.

lizard

Lossless and good PQ were certainly possible on HD DVD, as numerous releases showed. That said, the perceived superiority of lossless is mostly hype. I know: HERESY! How dare he say that? I've looked into it and the reports I have read find that most people can't tell the difference between DD640, dts core and lossless on reference audio systems. When it comes to lossless versus DD+, forget it. With the exception of serious audiophiles, those who claim to hear a difference are experiencing a placebo effect, unless the tracks are derived from a different master mix, as may occasionally happen. Most people don't even bother to volume match the different audio codecs when comparing them, much less have the capability to do a blind or double blind test.

So, I don't buy the idea that lossless releases on BD are automatically superior to DD+ versions on HD DVD, much less that it is due to space limitations. (A Dolby TrueHD track just doesn't take all that much space.)

I'm as guilty of it as anybody. I've spent two years looking for an affordable BD player that is profile 1.1 and has well-implemented multi-channel analog out for my older receiver. Even though I "know" that it would sound no different than if I used the legacy S/PDIF on my system.

RocShemp

I still have both. Only recently has my BD collection surpassed my HD DVD collection. I've been in no hurry to upgrade unless I find a film on BD with better audio and at a reasonable price.

RocShemp

Only bother with the Paramount DD+ HD DVD discs. The tracks were encoded at 1.5Mbps. The Warner Bros. DD+ tracks were all 640kbps and thus were audibly identical to their DD counterparts on BD.

DthRdrX

I'm in the same boat. Have more BDs as of December. I'm not getting rid of my HD-dvds or upgrading them unless a much better version comes out.

bunkaroo

Regardless of the value of lossless, my point is it simply wasn't being done on Uni's HD DVD releases, and now they are using it. That's because of capacity. It's only been their bare bones shorter movies that have come out on BD-25 which have lossless. Conversely, longer movies on HD-30 used DD+. It's just one example of how added capacity gives you the freedom to expand in the future.

As far as comparisons, I won't argue most people will hear the difference. But that's not a reason to not include it. What I do like is I believe lossless requires less human intervention, and this has less chance for human error creating a poor audio track. Lossless *is* transparent to the master. Lossy may be transparent to the master, provided it's encoded correctly.

Gizmo

Uni was pushing TrueHD in late 2007/2008....and it would have continued had you know what not happened. Space was never really an issue as most like to claim. Laziness was the bigger issue - as we can now see with Warner.

JimRochester

Even though Blu had the larger capacity, HD was first to use more capability. In fact I am just now upgrading to a profile 2.0 player so I can do what I've been able to do for a year and a half with my HD player.

I went Blu first but jumped on HD last November when the prices started dropping to the point of "why not?".

Very unscientific however my first setup was a 47" Phillips LCD with a SONY s300 @1080P and an A3 @1080i. For the most part I found HD looked as good if not better than my Blu discs and the Toshiba seemed to upconvert better also. Even though I went Blu and was technically format neutral, I preferred HD.

Doughboy

Almost all of the early Paramount titles that had Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 on the HD-DVD and Dolby Digital 5.1 on the Blu-ray offered higher bitrates on the former(1.5 Mbps vs. 640 kbps). There are a few rare exceptions(Manchurian Candidate I believe is one).

A handful of the HD-DVDs had superior transfers as well. Paramount often used AVC/MPEG-4 for the HD-DVD and MPEG-2 for the Blu-ray on their early releases, and some came out looking better on the former. I've heard people say that Coming To America is one example.

bunkaroo

What's weird is Eastern Promises gets TrueHD, and is a fairly low key film audio-wise. The Kingdom comes out the same day - many shootouts, explosions and such, and it gets DD+. The Kingdom was a longer film, and it had more extras in HD which again makes me suspect capacity. But hey we got TrueHD on Cat People!

Unfortunately WB has been an embarrassment on audio no matter what format. At least they didn't screw over the Batman films.

namja

With DVD, I bought 100+ DVDs almost immediately (a few months). With HDM, I was much more selective from the getgo. I bought the A2 in January 2007 and a PS3 soon afterwards. By the end of the year, I had <20 HD DVDs and <10 BDs. When HD DVD folded, I sold my A2 and the movies and slowly grew my BD collection (still <30).

JimRochester

My first HD player came with 2 plus 5 free. My second came with 2, plus 5 free, plus 2 in store, the next day they changed it to 3 and they gave me 3 more so I had 19 just from the freebies. I still have more HD than BD but that's because HD is $6.

naitram

Still have more than twice as many HD DVDs than Blu...I'll keep them til they rot. Forbidden Planet, American Werewolf in London, Dune, Star Trek TOS, The Thing, Army of Darkness, Big Lebowski, Children of Men, Dante's Peak, etc etc

darkside

I bought more HD DVDs in 2008 than Blu-rays so that says something. Still have half my collection in HD DVD, but when BDs drop in price I may start replacing them. There is honestly little reason though since most of the BDs coming out have little advantage besides the lossless sound. As much as I want that I'm not upgrading an HD DVD for it.

I have 3 devices now that play HD DVD so I'm pretty secure with holding on to them.

darkside

Absolutely. The HD DVD tech was fine and in my opinion better than BD out of the gate and overall still just as good. No profile 1, 1.1, 2.0 bullcrap with HD DVD and first gen HD DVD players weren't total junk like first gen BD players.

Laziness is still the biggest issue. For every great Disney release we get lazy crap from other studios with Warner at the top of the lazy list. For all the talk in the beginning about the higher bitrates BD could produce we are still not seeing many discs pushing those limits.

Gizmo

The LG 200 got a firmware update today as well

DivxGuy

I was purple, but rooting red. I thought that HD-DVD's less-expensive replication and licensing would lead to a faster adoption of HDM, and a greater selection of indie-fare. Also, it had less-obtrusive DRM.

NiCK Crush

I just waited until there was a clear winner.

kefrank

Though I've had a Blu-ray player since well before the format war ended, I still have my HD A35 and the 25 or so HD DVDs in my collection. I recently bought The Thing on HD DVD, since it is superior to the BD. The A35 is still my preferred upconverter for DVD. I have no plans to get rid of it or my discs anytime soon.

That being said, I've had my 40GB PS3 for over a year and it is definitely the best overall media player I've ever owned. I'm really loving Blu-ray and am slowly building my collection, which is right at 25 also.

KingSmoth

Price was one consideration for me to choose HD-DVD. Stand-alone Blu-Ray players were expensive, and the 360 add-on was an excellent cost-effective method of jumping on the HD bandwagon. The PS3 was(and still is) overpriced for a gaming system, especially since Sony has decided that a disc format is more important than what is encoded on said discs...
For now I will remain HD only. I currently have about 30 titles, but I'm buying on a regular basis now. I have no problem buying titles for a dead format, because they still work, look great, and are cheap. I bought an A20 off of eBay a few weeks ago for $42 shipped and use it as my primary player.
Since I have decided to quit buying SD-DVDs(other than TV shows), I will make the jump to Blu sometime this year, probably with a stand-alone player.

DVD Polizei

1) I still buy HD DVDs when I can. It's getting difficult, because I'm almost at 300 HD DVDs, and I pretty much have everything on the domestic front. It's the foreign titles which I'd like to get but they are still rather expensive. I think Europe had a more solid HD DVD acceptance than the US did, considering how many titles they have versus the US.

2) Space can become an issue, and I think the extra 5 GB on a BD-25 can really make a difference if studios have the intelligence to use it, such as adding a lossless soundtrack which can easily take up around 3-5 GB. Of course, as we know, studios have to use their smarts, and some are really retarded When it comes to using Blu-ray's additional space. Also, with the new features and higher bitrates for movies, an HD-30 disc would probably be inferior, and a BD-50 allows for much more room to play around. But again, the studios have to take advantage of it. And who knows what the HD-DVD equivalents would have been, but it did seem at the time, Blu-ray discs had more space to begin with, and studios who were red, just crammed stuff on the HD-30's and HD-15's. Luckily, the picture is still good. Read between the lines on that one (i.e., how your current DVD collection could be looking several times better if only VC-1 encoded on a typical DVD DL disc--price would be the same...only your video would be several times better; audio is another issue, however).

3) Replacing HD DVD titles with Blu-ray? Probably none of my HD DVD titles will be replaced. King Kong comes to mind, but technically, I won't be replacing it. I'll keep the HD DVD version as well. Some titles might be better if a studio relaxes a video codec, but I won't hold my breath. But if reports say it is better, I will get the Blu-ray version. I think we have enough titles on HD DVD which are superior to the Blu-ray versions due to studios playing around being stupid, so I don't plan on getting rid of anything.

Eve Brown

Brought HD and still buying deals. Probably go Blue this year waiting for a good price