morriscroy

The only places nearby which still have hd-dvds showing up, are the local goodwill or salvation army outlets.

orangerunner

I have two A30 players and about four A3 players. I'm currently using one of the A30 players.

My question is when the drive in my A30 finally dies, can I swap the drive from one of the A3 players?

The A30 is 1080p whereas the A3 is 720p. Are the drives different because one player is 1080p and the other is 720p or is the 1080p/720p output just to do with the players built-in software?

Why So Blu?

A3 is actually 1080i. I still have two.

bruceames

I don't see why not. The A2 and XA2 use the same drive, so the same should hold true of the G3 players.

JimRochester

I donate a lot to my local library and they do not know what they are let alone want any. I'm just throwing them out as I replace them with 4K's or BR. I am taking my time so it will be quite some time before they are purged from my HT. They still play fine and are superior to the DVD counterpart. I just know they are obsolete so are in the burn pile.

Alan Smithee

As long as the drive is physically the same, you can swap it between any player- the 2's use one type of drive, the 3's use another.

orangerunner

I'm just bumping an old thread as I've had some time on my hands to go through my Warner HD-DVDs and see if there were any defective discs.

I went though each title, skipped to the menu and then selected a chapter that would be roughly 40 minute to 60 minute mark, which is usually around the layer break, and see see if they freeze.

Surprisingly only a few titles had the issue;

Adventures of Robin Hood
Matrix 3-pack (Matrix + Matrix Revolutions)
Harry Potter box set had three or four duds
Forbidden Planet (2 copies)
Full Metal Jacket (2nd version)

I didn't check the combo packs as I figured even if the HD side craps-out at least the DVD side is problem-free, or at least in my experience. Hopefully after 14 years we've reached the point where any discs that were destined to fail have all failed by now.

Ah! The joys of social isolation!

Alan Smithee

I've had more discs go bad since last posting here, total right now is 58. Just pathetic.

Adam Tyner

I wound up throwing all my HD-DVDs and my two HD-DVD players in the garbage. I figured it wasn't worth the hassle.

PhantomStranger

There would have been a huge class-action lawsuit if HD DVD had actually won the format war and this happened.

E Unit

You could have banked at about $1.50/movie on eBay. Of course, you'd probably have to pay for shipping...

kahuna

Last time I checked my open (112) HD-DVDs. I had 23 bad ones & that was years ago. I still have 66 sealed ones & years ago I sold off a about a 100 of them.
Everything is still sitting in my closet with 3-4 HD-DVD players. I'm just going to give them away on Craigslists.

Trevor

Maybe one May DVDTalk Make-Your-Own Challenge I’ll dig out my player and discs from storage, binge them and toss.

orangerunner

Even though I've been disappointed with the defective Warner Bros. titles, I wouldn't throw out all of the discs or players I have. From my experience the Universal, Paramount & Dimension titles have all been fine.

I think my HD-DVD collection of 300 titles worked out to about $1.50 each when I bought the majority of them back in 2011. Many of the titles are unique such as Cat People, Midnight Run, Streets of Fire, Mobsters, American Me, Hollywoodland, The Pianist, Half Baked, Accepted, The Getaway (1994), Black Christmas Unrated (2006) and Breach which either haven't been released on Blu-ray or would be $24.95 each to replace.

I'll keep watching them. If they die, I'll toss 'em.

Gizmo

Plenty of BDs and DVDs went defective due to rot and poor pressings.

Alan Smithee

Not this many. DiscoVision laserdiscs were notoriously bad but I've had far fewer of those be completely unplayable compared to 58 HD-DVDs. Turns out this is a case of rotting also, as I've replayed some that were fine before but now won't load at all or freeze up (verified on two players- I have an A35 and A20 hooked up as some play on one but not the other and vice versa.)

orangerunner

I think the fact they play on one machine and not the other is still a clear indication of poor manufacturing. As the "rot" progresses you'll probably find they won't play correctly on either player. I also also have a couple of Warner DVD titles from around the same 2006/2007 era such as "Cruising" and "The Hand" which have had similar playback issues as well. It seems the sealing on the outside edge of the disc where the layer-break occurs is the weak spot.

My other thought was whether this was occurring only on dual layer (30GB) discs? I think the only single-layer Warner title I have might be "Out For Justice" which doesn't have any extras. This title still plays fine on my players.

Alan Smithee

Yes, it only happens on dual-layer discs, but Warner used those for all but a few titles. The combo discs were holding up better but I've had a few of those go bad also.

Michael Corvin

Did you toss out the bad ones Alan?

Gizmo

We already know the answer to this.

Gizmo

IIRC, the BH200 player was able to play a lot of the ‘defective’ discs. Not sure if it was reading them differently, but I can’t imagine those players are hard to find nowadays.

Alan Smithee

I have a BH200 but it won't play any HD-DVDs anymore- just plays the opening logo (Warner or Universal) then goes dead. It still plays other formats but stretches 4x3 material.

Josh-da-man

If the discs will play on one player and not the other, could it be a hardware issue?

Either way, HD-DVD sounds like it was a shit format, and we're fortunate it lost the format war.

orangerunner

I can't speak for the early A1/A2 versions but the A3 and A30 players I have work just fine after 13 years. A manufacturing plant producing a large-scale amount of shoddy media can throw egg on the face of any format.

Dan

I plugged my Xbox 360 HD DVD drive into my PC awhile back, and used (redacted software name) to (redacted task) a couple films into a preservable digital uncompressed file.
I suggest doing the same if anyone still has these discs, and the 360 drive, lying around.