Usually pictures of screens don't do justice in hd vs. sd comparisons. I found this today here which actually does. This is the kind of difference I see on my display.

If this doesn't convince you, I don't know what to say. The SD DVD shots are from a progressive scan DVD player, the HD DVD shots are from the Xbox 360 add on (outputting 720p--- not even the full 1080p that is on the disc so it is possible to be even better).

SD DVD 480p:


HD DVD 720p:


SD DVD 480p:


HD DVD 720p:


SD DVD 480p:


HD DVD 720p:


SD DVD 480p:


HD DVD 720p:

Holy sh*t!!!

That still doesn't do complete justice. It is even more dramatic when you see it in person, but I agree that does present the difference better than most photos I have seen.

Apparently the HD shots were sharpened a bit... You can look at the speaker grill and the lightswitch for example. You can see that they are sharper in the HD pictures.

However, this is exactly the kind of night and day difference that I see on HD DVD vs SD DVD on my display.

I doubt any "tweaking" of the SD pictures would yield the results seen in the HD version. The detail is obviously not there in the SD versions.

Now I wish I would have ordered the Kong HD DVD instead of the Extended Edition. I may have to buy them both now.

I knew the HD DVD version was going to be spectacular. It was on the HD DVD demo disc and I can tell you first hand that the demo disc looked exactly like those HD screen shots do.

I especially remember the close up on Kongs eyes. That is exactly what it looked like when I saw the HD DVD demo disc in the store.

Very impressive (the best part of the demo disc for me). And it looks like the real transfer is every bit as good! Over 3 hours on an HD30 and it looks that good...

Yeah, there's some tinkering going on with those photos...kind of reminds me of the in-store HD displays where they showed HD on the right and standard DVD on the left...but the standard DVD side looked worse than VHS.

No "screenshot" will ever do this justice. You need to see it in person.

Agreed. It's disappointing. I wonder why the OP (not referring to you, awmurray) felt the need to bother. "Doctoring" screenshots to make one seem better than the other sort of defeats the purpose of a comparison.


As it is now, it just looks silly. The Kong HD DVD is so good, it even makes the room it's being played in sharper.

A digital camera snapping a shot of a TV and resized to a tiny JPEG is not going to be representative of the difference.

I know what you're saying, but these are the first screenshots I've seen which actually show what I see when I compare them in person on my display.

The original poster used a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi (it is embedded in the picture properties) and he answered to some of the criticism in the thread I linked to above (post #47-- here's a direct link:

You realize there are CRT based HDTVs, of course. Not only that, they're less expensive than other types.

The difference in the shots is night and day for me and that is exactly what the difference looks like on my display as well.

Also, the colors on HD DVD are so much better than on DVD it isn't even funny.

The blacks look better on HD DVD on my LCD projector, too. Obviously nowhere near CRT like blacks, but they improved with HD DVD (could just be the player, I suppose).

Also, look at that close up of the guy's face (moire pattern on the SD version). There are less artifacts like this in HD DVD than I see on SD DVD. I assume some of that is in the VC-1 vs. MPEG-2 encoding, but I don't know for sure. At any rate HD DVD beats SD DVD on many levels: picture resolution, color, stability, sound, etc..

Every time....geez. If #3 isn't enough proof that this is yet another waste of time, I don't know what is. Pornostar, comments?

Anyone who thinks there is no difference between HD (regardless of source) and DVD is nuts. Or using a 19" screen. Or both. But come on, these horrible pics are pointless. They just harm the point rather than proving it.

No, that is a crappy player on pause. All it proves is that people who bought $40 DVD players are now willing to buy $400-500 HDDVD players, even though they weren't willing to drop that on DVD.

Really, which is supposed to be better?

Agreed.

Which is why my HDTV is a CRT.

The pics are doctored, but they still made me make a final decision on getting an HD-DVD player.

I've been going back and forth on whether or not to get the 360 add-on, but this made it final.

Great! Please post your comments on it when you get it (positive or negative).

I assure you that you won't be disappointed. These pictures fairly represent the difference between 480p (i.e. not upscaled) DVD and HD DVD based on what I've seen on my own. I've seen plenty of others agree.

I don't see how anyone can say that the difference in those pictures is not dramatic. Everything about the HD version is better.

I know what you mean, but trying to educate people on DVD vs. HD DVD isn't totally a waste of time. You present your case and different people come to their own conclusions.

Apparently no one is ever going to convince Vandelay_Inds.

There are only two products I've ever used and felt strongly enough about that I wouldn't mind selling them. One is Martin Logan speakers. The other is HD DVD.

I doubt that's actually an artifact encoded on the DVD. Looks more like light refracting funny off the surface of the screen in the photo.

How much of a visual difference is there between a movie (standard DVD) upscaled on an HD DVD player compared to the same movie (HD DVD) played on the HD player?

It depends on the title, but the differences are sometimes amazing. There's a few threads over at AVS with some screenshots doing that very exact thing (Tokyo Drift and a couple of others are compared with their standard DVD counterparts upscaled).

The problem is that the differences are pretty difficult to get across in a screenshot. You really need to see the film (in motion) on a properly calibrated setup to fully appreciate. That elimates digital photos over the internet and floor displays at Best Buy, unfortunately.

The 480p shots are blurred (or the 720p shots were sharpened).. pretty shitty comparison in my opinion.

I am more curious how an upscaled DVD would look compared to an HD DVD. He should have compared the 360 HD to the 360 (upscaled) DVD.

If the 360 HD DVD add-on plays regular DVD's (which I would imagine it has to), then what is the point of playing the SD version on a whole other player? Why not do a direct comparison on the same player for both versions for a truer comparison?

Part of this is it is really 480i vs 1080p on disc, shown on a 720p TV. The Pause function is what is most directly being compared, here. And pausing interlaced sources will bring out all sorts of issues in the video processing. People have stated above that you really need to compare actual video, and that will almost help the DVD more than the HDDVD. At least in the above case.

I will say, the 360/HD pause looks pretty nice. That's about the only real conclusion I can come up with from this series of photos.