First HD-DVD Disc Reviews - Mixed Marks

An anonymous reader writes "As the first HD-DVD players and discs hit store shelves nationwide today, the new site High-Def DVD Digest has posted extraordinarily detailed reviews of the HD-DVD disc releases of 'Serenity' and 'The Last Samurai,' with more reviews to come later today. The site gives both discs mixed marks, with the Tom Cruise flick edging out the Whedon-fest for demonstrating more pure high-def eye-candy appeal. Also worth a look-see: a detailed account of their 'review reference system' (ie: their gear)."

Reference System

[msaulters]

The core of our system is the HP Pavilion MD6580N 65" Widescreen Rear-Projection DLP display device. It is currently the only consumer monitor that can accept full 1080p via its HDMI inputs, allowing it to display every last line of high-definition's maximum resolution of 1920x1080.

Uh, nope, not right... Westinghouse makes a very nice 42" LCD with 1080p resolution. (on both DVI and HDMI connectors) http://www.westinghousedigital.com/c-7-1080p-monit ors.aspx [westinghousedigital.com] Maybe the HP is the only 65" monitor with 1080p? I have the 37" Westinghouse, and it's a GREAT 1080p monitor for a decent price.

Re:Reference System

[Anonymous Coward]

Smoke random crap scraped off the street much? Specs here [westinghousedigital.com]. Note the "1 HDMI(R)-HDCP" at the top of the list.

Now, it's not 65 inches, which may be what the article author had originally meant by their statement.

Re:all nice

[az_bont]

The HD-DVD format allows you to burn high-definition content onto standard DVD-R discs. A single dual-layered disc will hold around 135 minutes of 1080p24 content, and that is the method Warner Brothers are choosing for their upcoming HD-DVD releases.

The latest version of Final Cut Pro has allowed you to burn perfectly valid HD-DVDs for months, and they have been tested to work perfectly with the just-released HD-DVD players.

It really surprises me that this is not a well known or much talked-about fact. It seems to me to be the single largest difference between the two formats, and the one which puts HD-DVD in a far superior position in my mind.

there's plenty of 1080p displays out there...

[YesIAmAScript]

I didn't think the Westinghouse was one of them though. I thought it only accepted 1080i input (same as a Sony SXRD), despite having 1920x1080 resolution.

Note that although the HP accepts 1080p, it isn't true progressive display. There is no such thing as a true 1080p DLP, as 1080-res DLPs use wobleration and thus are inherently interlaced.

Sharp has sold a couple 1080p-inputting, 1080-res, true 1080p output flat panels for a while now, long before the woblerating DLPs came out. These are available affordably up to 45" ($3K), and up to 65" if you can sport $20K for one.

Re:cracked ?

[Jeremy Erwin]

No, but hdcp (the encryption regime used on dvi/hdmi video signals) is known to be insecure [freedom-to-tinker.com]

Re:Something else to consider...

[trix7117]

As for screwing with people's display, of course they don't like it. Many people have their sets set to stretch 4:3 images to fill the screen to avoid uneven burn on their display, something that drives the fiddlers nuts. Colour balance is subjective with the environment, and everyone thinks their particular tweaks are correct. Detail is completely subjective as well, as to what is most asthetically pleasing. Don't screw with people's sets.

I'm sure there are some people who stretch their picture to avoid burn, but the majority of people stretching their image are doing it because they want to watch everything "widescreen". When my roommate moved in with his HD set, the first thing I did was turn off the stretching so the picture wasn't distorted. His immediate response was "Why did I pay for a widescreen if you aren't using the whole picture?" He doesn't care about burn, he just doesn't want to waste one inch of his screen, even if that means that all non-widescreen content is distorted. After two years, the screen is still on either stretch or zoom whenever he has been watching non-HD channels, and his argument has never had anything to do with burn.

This is far from an isolated incident as I have visited several friends who stretch their picture (many are so used to stretching that they stretch widescreen content too). The response from all of them when I asked why they stretched their picture was that they paid for 47 (or whatever their screen size is) inches of screen and they aren't going to waste any of it with black or gray bars.