HD DVD vs Blu-ray Direct Comparisons

An anonymous reader writes "With today's release of three movies on Blu-ray, Warner Home Video has become the first studio to release movie titles on both high-def formats, making it finally possible to do an apples-to-apples comparison of the same titles on both formats . High-Def Digest has just posted reviews of all three titles — 'Training Day,' 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' and 'Rumor Has It' — comparing video, audio and extras to the previous HD DVD releases. Their verdict? Due to issues with image cropping, audio selection and supplemental features on the Blu-ray discs, the HD DVD versions win this first face-off."

So what do we make of this?

[MindStalker]

So are the image problems are result of the encoding technique used on the blue-ray? You'd think with the increase in disc size that they would use a better scheme. Is this a fault of the movie producer or Sonys default encoding scheme? Anyone have any ideas???

Ha! My prediction comes true

[Reality Master 101]

Or, at least, my prediction has further evidence. :)

I have a simple rule these days about deciding what formats to pick. I simply pick "not Sony" and I'm pretty much always right. Sony stuff seems to look good on paper, but the implementation ends up sucking.

Re:So what do we make of this?

[laxcat]

Unless there is some problem with Blu-ray dual layer discs that I'm not aware of, your numbers are off there. Blue-ray can support 25GB per layer where HD-DVD can have only 15GB, which would make the dual layer sizes 50 and 30.

Am I missing something?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

PS3 is no longer a done deal

[Jarnis]

It's anybodys guess at this point. PS3 is so overpriced at launch that it's no longer a done deal by a longshot. It all depends on what each console has to offer to gamers next holiday season. Xbox 360 has suffered due to lack of good exclusive titles, which supposedly is getting fixed this winter. At the same time PS3s launch lineup is still very much in the dark.

PS3 may still turn out to be the biggest turkey in the universe of game consoles, or it might pwn everything. At 300$ at launch it would absolutely surely wipe floor with everything.

At 599$, with crippled version having no HDMI, nobody knows what happens yet.

My personal bet is that X360-Wii -combo will beat PS3 for the first year, until lot more games are ready, and Sony, after bleeding for a while, goes for broke and drops the price. HD DVD/Blu-ray fight will be an irrelevant sideshow, as the movies are way overpriced and offer no serious benefits unless you buy a super-expensive TV. Whoever first gets the standalone player price down and offers more *movie* features wins. Additionally, if, say, HD-DVDs DRM gets cracked first, and people can start making 'backups' of their HD content bit like you can muck with DVDs today, Blu-ray will insta-lose the fight right there unless they can counter with technical merits (none so far, the formats are almost identical) or price (not likely with sony).

Re:so glad to be an early adopter

[_Swank]

long enough for china to produce a device that will make their turning the flag on moot as well.

Re:What will be the "Matrix" of this generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a 19" sceptre lcd & recently bought a 37" sceptre hdtv (1080p)...
I've viewed the dvd version of the Matrix on my 19" (1280x1024) and looks good...
I recently got ahold of the 1080i version of the Matrix & watched it on my 19".. compaired to the DVD version on my 19" it looks a little better...

Now.. I started viewing the DVD version on my 37" (my res at 1920x1080) - it looked so-so .. I stopped it about 10 minutes through..
Went ahead and started playing the 1080i version on the 37" and the quality is phenomenal..

From my experience I'd say HD viewing is only worth investing in if you have the proper display...

Slow menus? What the heck?

[Jerf]

One of the reviews mentions the menus are even slower on Blu-ray than they are on DVDs, routinely taking two or three seconds for even the simplest of operations.

The reviewer said something to the effect of DVD being OK, but I disagree. Every DVD menu that I've ever seen on any player already trends towards the slow side. I understand taking a moment to load new content, but what's up with taking a second to register the pressing of the "up" or "down" button?

Why, in 2006, does every piece of consumer electronics feel (and often look) like it's being powered by a Nintendo Entertainment System, with some sort of auto-delay-on-input circuit added for extra measure? I understood it in 1996, but ten years later and if anything it's worse; every generation seems to get slower and slower. My TiVo Series 2 is actually a little slower than my Series 1, which I thought was impossible. My Comcast cable box when I tried it last year had multi-second response times for everything. My cell phone can't seem to do anything in less than half a second, except input text. For every DVD player I've ever seen (except the PS2), you can see it drawing the menus and stuff to the screen. Come on! You can't draw text to the text in less than half-a-second? My Commodore 64 seemed to manage that feat, even when running in BASIC!

I realize that not all consumer electronics are going to act as snappy as my computer, but must it feel like I'm doing everything over the web with a 9600 dial-up connection?

Re:DVD?

[Fezmid]

I had a Panasonic S77S upconverting DVD player - generally on-par with the highly regarded Oppo - and I can vouch that the quality of HD-DVD is leaps and bounds better than upconverted DVD. My wife was very skeptical when I told her I bought the player, but once we watched Chronicles of Riddick, she admitted that the picture was amazing compared to DVD (and she thought DVD looked fine before - and it does).

Have you watched any OTA HD? HD-DVD looks better than OTA HD, if that comparison helps you any.

Do you need to replace all the movies in your collection? Probably not. A lot of movies (romance, comedy) I don't care if the PQ is top notch. But for action/sci-fi/fantasy/adventure, it might be worth it. When Lord of the Rings is released on HD-DVD (supposedly later this year), I'll rebuy those, as well as Matrix and Batman Begins.

And as I said in a previous post - even if HD-DVD dies, this Toshiba player is an excellent upconverter, giving a slightly better picture than the S77S - so it's not like it's going to be an obsolete peice of junk for me.

Re:the telling comment...

[PRMan]

But if HD-DVD wins early enough, often enough and for long enough, there won't be a Blu-Ray anymore.

Re:Porn will decide ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Training Day wasn't the first HD-DVD, btw, Island Fever 3 with Tera Patrick was.

Island Fever 3 [digitalplayground.com] was false advertising. The DVD was labeled and promoted as "HD DVD," but it was actually WMV HD on a standard DVD. The HD version will not play on a real HD DVD player (unless the player supports WMV HD on standard DVD).

Many people argue that we won't really want to see porn in HD, but I have seen the HD version of Island Fever 3 (Note to self: check "Post Anonymously" box). IMO, HD makes good-looking porn stars look better and mediocre porn stars look worse. Those boob-job scars are very visible in HD. A true beauty (insert favorite porn star here) looks stunning in HD.