Here's the deal. The Digital lockout is available to studios if they choose to implement it. Thus far there haven't been any movies that do use this option. The studios know it would piss people off. Thus, every movie out now will play 720p/1080i no problem. In the future IF they do decide to implement it on movies, then you will need HDMI/DVI or VGA or the video will be downgraded to 540p (still better the DVD). This applies to the 360 add-on and all HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players.
Watched my copy of the HD DVD movie this morning, and I am very impressed. Although I'm still waiting on my other ordered HD DVD's to arrive I'm more than happy with my setup (Toshiba HD-E1 showing 1080i on a Sony 40"). I know I'll be watching the film another few times in the next week or so.
My eyes may be messed but seriously I dont see enough difference between DVD and HD-DVD to warrant switching/buying a HD-DVD player... My TV shows amazing clarity and brilliant vibrant color and its not even plasma.. I am thinking of upgrading soon though just because i like bells and whistles.
You must have very, very poor vision. Have you seen this thread? (Note that the forum shrinks them and they need to be opened in a new window to gett he full size). And those are only 1280x720, not the 1920x1080 resolution that's on the HD DVD.
I agree if you cant see a differance take a 1080p still of the movie just one frame then take a frame of the DVD and then compare. Lets be fair now and say resize the dvd version in photoshop to the resolution of 1080p (1920x 1080) look at them side by side or not side by side, there is still a huge differance in granularity and clarity. Color Reproduction is also better on HD formats due in part to better codecs so the compressionists dont have to work so hard to get the same look as the orginal film. I honestly just love to pause the scenes with the bots to look at all the little details you miss during the action. case in point starscream's decepticon insignia is barley visable on the DVD but in HD you can see its nicked up a bit and well there. Also not sure if this was posted yet but HD-DVD standalone players (not the 360 add on mind you) Now on sale at best buy and other stores for $98. How awesome is that? Its also a pretty good model the HD-A2 and I believe the HD-A3 is only $169 aswell, but at $98 you cant go wrong.
those of you who are on the fence about the HD DVD, try to get the Toshiba A2 at Walmart tomorrow morning for 98.99. The movie looks amazing on it.
I just bought the HD-DVD yesterday. I was going to buy the regular version but I decided to pick up my X-Box 360 HD-player and buy the movie instead. The only thing I regret is right after I had it set up and everything, I go online to learn if I had bought the HD-player from Amazon.com I would have gotten Heros Season 1 for free. Thats $100 right there Anyways. The movie was beyond awesome. And the download videos where hit or miss. But I extremely love Grimlock going down the street and the tiny insecticon videos.
Hey everyone. I got the Xbox 360 HD DVD player with the movie today and I must say it is gorgeous. One thing though, involving the Tech Inspector feature again, is that I couldn't find any way to pause it. You play it and it rotates but all I could see to do was change it rotating left or right. No indication of any other features such as Pause and Zoom. I read in some quick reviews that you can pause and zoom.. but yeah, like I said, I couldn't figure out how to do it. Can anyone help? And thanks in advance.
The Xbox can do 1080 over component now, if I recall correctly. It's certainly not playing at 480!!! EDIT: lol! I see you've already gotten several answers
This is the full dvd quality screencap: Now compare the same image with the 720p HD cap: Double that for the full 1080p HD resolution and you can understand the difference *Open the images in the new windows to see the full sizes* More comparrison caps: EDIT: now let's say you are watching a normal DVD on your 720p TV or PC monitor in full screen. The DVD player will enlarge the normal dvd size to fit your screen resolution and you'll get something like this (again open in the new windows to see the ultimate horror): again double the quality loss for the 1080p resolution TV or TFT's and you can understand why I want to puke every time Im watching the usual DVDs on my PC monitor
Are those tapes of a porn star dressed as Wonder Woman to the right of your setup there? if so, PM me and I'll make you an offer... Ahhh, good man, snagged The Flash collection too... great minds think alike!
Here's a question that's been bothering me since they announced the exsistence of HD. Will an HD DVD look High Quality on a Non-HD-DVD Television? I own a Zenith Television, not of the present era though.
The HD-DVD is an awesome transfer, and is what I use to show off my equipment now. I have an older projector in my basement home theater (720P), but there is still an impressive difference between the SD and HD versions. The average person is going to notice zero difference between a DD+ and TrueHD audio track. Even sound engineers have stated that DD+ is hard to distinguish from an original studio mix. The LFE was a little on the weak side, however, as I had to turn my subwoofer up a bit. With my setup, though, I can still feel the floor shake every time OP takes a step! I recently purchased a 1080P plasma for my living room, so I brought up my HD-DVD player to test it out. I was thoroughly shocked with the difference between 720P and 1080P. It was almost as dramatic of a difference as from 480P to 720P. I'm now thinking of leaving my HD-A20 upstairs and seeing if I can snag an HD-A3 on Black Friday to put back in the theater. I'm anxious to get my HD-DVD calibration disc, too, so I can get an even better picture. Also, to address some of you that have had concerns about using the component out puts. My home theater projector will only accept an analog input. So far, all of the HD-DVD discs I have played have output at 1080i through the component outputs, including Transformers. My SD discs won't upscale beyond 480p, though. The only SD discs that will upscale are my home movies. A few people over in the AVS forums, my other home on the web, have mentioned ripping their DVD's and reburning them so that they would upscale, but I'm happy with 480p for SD material.
Transformers HD_DVD @ 1080p= 2 million pixels of pure viewing pleasure. I'm certain it's been said here several times but.....720p is just over 1 million pixels, so on the right equipment the difference is very distinguishable.
