Not Early Adopting HD-DVD
Posted on: November 30, 2007Author: Cali Lewis
7 comments so far (is that a lot?)
A few weeks ago, I bought the HD-DVD player Wal-Mart sold for $100, brought it home, watched Serenity on it, and put it on a Brief. The menu graphics are phenomenal, but the actual video enhancements compared to my upscaling standard-def DVD player aren’t that remarkable to me. My big issue, though, and the reason I’ve decided not to early adopt, is that neither Blu-ray or HD-DVD can offer every possible thing I want to watch the same way Standard Def DVDs do.
I put it on eBay, along with the Serenity HD-DVD. Here are the results…
November 30th, 2007 at 11:09 am
What do you mean by "neither Blu-ray or HD-DVD can offer every possible thing I want to watch the same way Standard Def DVDs do"? I haven't had firsthand experience with either of the new formats and I'm just wondering what SD DVD's do better in your opinion.
November 30th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
I am always baffled when I see comments like this. Two questions for you two: Is your television properly calibrated for the input you were using the HD-DVD on? You have to calibrate each input separately. And two, what size is your Television? Either you are not sitting the recommend distance from the set, or you probably need your eyes checked! The difference between an HD-DVD and DVD should be like night and day.
November 30th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
I think she means that everything she wants to watch is available on DVD but if she wants to watch movie X then it's only on Blu-Ray or movie Y is only on HD-DVD so you have to buy two players or a player that plays both formats. While competition does help consumers because it forces both sides to make cheaper players, it hurts early adopters because they have to make a significant investment in the technology that might end up going away. The extra's the put on the HD-DVD might not have been true HD-DVD quality and whatever cheap upscaling was done on the HD-DVD or thru the cheap HD-DVD player probably didn't impress her much. Congratulations on being #5 of the 10 hottest women in tech :)
November 30th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
She's probably talking about how you can only buy certain movies on a particular format. I too am also baffled by people who don't see a dramatic difference between HD and standard def/upscaled. Maybe its because of that Vizio TV they have.
December 1st, 2007 at 4:57 am
regarding that askmen.com top 10 women in tech, i just can't believe that Morgan Webb beat Cali, Jessica Chobot and Veronica Belmont. Something is deeply wrong with that list.
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:01 pm
I got the same player from Wal-Mart during the same sale, and my take on it was somewhat different. First of all, I've got a friend who's a huge audiophile, and when this thing was hooked up to his UberSystem (the kind normal geeks like me wouldn't understand without diving into that specialized galaxy of the geekiverse), it was absofrikamazing the kind of sound it put out. It was even impressive despite the fact that the movie he was demoing it with was Batman Begins. At home, with my weak apartment-level electronics, what I've got is basically a very high-end DVD player that will play HD-DVD's when they cost less than $30 a movie. Even with DVD's, I notice a crisper image from the Toshiba's HDMI signal output than I get from the Xbox 360's upconverted Component output. The down-side for me is that my old receiver doesn't decode DTS, which means that while I get incredibly crisp sound from regular DVD's, all I currently get from HD-DVD's is stereo. A major let-down, but that's being rectified with the purchase of a more up-to-date receiver (love the excuses to buy MORE new electronics-Yay!). To tell the truth, the Toshiba HD-DVD player is definitely not something I need, but, hey, I'm a geek, and I wants my 'lektroniks. If you already have a good home theater system with HDMI and a good Hi-def monitor, getting the Toshiba from Wally World for $100 would have been a steal. Then again, it's not $100 anymore. Early adoption is almost always NOT a financial value – it's a matter of personal preference whether or not you'll get enjoyment out of the new gear. Fearless Leader made the financially responsible choice, but I'm happy enough gettin' my geek on.
December 31st, 2007 at 2:01 am
For us, content matters more than the sharper picture. Most of the movies and TV shows we want to own are not available on either Blu-ray or HD-DVD.