Blueray-HD war over

[cjefferys]

As for the Blu-Ray HDDvd vs. Standard DVD thing. You wont notice any real difference unless you are watching an HD TV, and then it depends on the resolution of the HD TV. I have a 1080p machine. A decent standard DVD that is enhanced for widescreen viewing looks real good played on the HD machines (upconverted). Still, there is no comparision to a movie played back HDDvd or Blu-Ray that is presented in true 1080p. The difference is stunning.

Agree 100%. I have a 1080p television too, and upconverted standard DVDs can look very good (depending on the transfer, etc) and sometimes almost hi def like, but a properly done BD or HD DVD looks much better. I've done A/B comparisions going back and forth for the same film, and honestly, after watching a segment of a film in 1080p on BD or HD DVD, watching the same segment in 480i/p on standard DVD can look almost like VHS in comparison. Some scenes can look literally three dimensional in 1080p.

Still, there is an expense issue. I wouldn't buy old westerns or many older movies if they were released in an HC format at this point, but modern fx movies are just SO COOL on these new formats.

True, it's the newer movies that really benefit from the format, but I've heard some older films like THE SEARCHERS and 2001 look equally stunning in hidef (the latter because it was shot in 70mm, so the transfer has much more detail that BD or HD DVD can display).


Anyway, I fully understand that to many people, DVD is good enough, and there is nothing wrong with that. I guess things like that are more important to movie nuts or home theatre tech heads. Everyone has priorities on what they want to spend their spare cash on (like I have to tell anyone reading this forum that ). I like spending money on the latest electronics for my home theatre (and the movies to play on them), but I drive a completely plain, cheaper, ordinary car with no bells and whistles. It's all what's important to you.

[Werewolf]

Werewolf - Send me a PM, please. I'd like to hear about your experience.

PM sent.

[Corellian Corvette]

Werewolf - Send me a PM, please. I'd like to hear about your experience.

Regarding the RROD. Certainly the problem is worse than we would have liked. Unfortunately, in the days of the internet these things get magnified at an unbelievable rate, and many of these outlier stories you hear (got 5 bad units, etc.) become the urban legends that everyone is having a bad experience.

Much of the problem stemmed from a bad Customer Support issue. People were having bad experiences with our CS reps and we weren't doing as good of a job taking care of them as we should. I'm encouraged to hear this is getting better.

Interestingly – we get a lot of “NFF” consoles, or No Fault Found. One thing about the Xbox 360 is that if you do not have the AV pack plugged into the box tightly, even a little loose, the console gives you 4 red rings. We have had a lot of people who, obviousy, don’t differentiate “3 red rings” from “4 red rings” and assume their console is bad. This happens more often than you would think – in fact that’s been the problem with 2 people in my family; it wasn’t a bad console it was a loose AV cable.

The good news is, as a consumer you are safe. We take care of the console free of charge for 3 years no cost. In truth, the you’re really only likely to experience the problem with the older consoles. Any unit you're going to buy right now is much less likely to be a problem.

[Werewolf]

HD-DVD fighting back with price cuts.

“Effective on January 13, 2008 the MSRP of the entry-model HD-A3 will be $149.99, the HD-A30, with 1080p output, $199.99, and the high-end HD-A35, $299.99.”

http://www.dvdtown.com/news/toshiba-...-campaign/5120

[JPkempo]

In most walmarts and other stores the Hi-Def TVs arnt being shown with a Hi-Def signal so they don't realy look as good as they could.

[Mikey]

I don't own any HD's or whatever ........
But when I go to Walmart and the TV's are playing HI-DEF? HD? -- whatever....
To me, this stuff looks like a regular TV with the contrast turned up so high it gives one a headache.
I really don't like it.

[boss]

Dave... my wife and I watched "Surf's Up" on Blu-Ray last night (1080p) and you can really see where the "grain" is added to give it more of a film look. kind of freaky.

[Bo8a_Fett]

I've got a Wii....and i likes it alot.........

[Dave Mc]

Back to HD and Film. The company I work for owns and Uses the Sony F900 HDCam to shoot some high end stuff. Lucas used this when shooting the new Star Wars films. There are a lot of things you have to do to make this look like film. Grain attachments and such. Basically you do things to degrade the image.

More and more filmakers are using HD tape to make "films". It's just so much easier to use.

As for the Blu-Ray HDDvd vs. Standard DVD thing. You wont notice any real difference unless you are watching an HD TV, and then it depends on the resolution of the HD TV. I have a 1080p machine. A decent standard DVD that is enhanced for widescreen viewing looks real good played on the HD machines (upconverted). Still, there is no comparision to a movie played back HDDvd or Blu-Ray that is presented in true 1080p. The difference is stunning.

Still, there is an expense issue. I wouldn't buy old westerns or many older movies if they were released in an HC format at this point, but modern fx movies are just SO COOL on these new formats.

I'm guessing eventually the price on the machines will drop enough that people will replace their old DVD players with blu-ray and eventually convert. The industry will only stand for releasing everything in multiple formats for so long. They'll make it so you'll switch over time, and not even mind it.

[ZICA]

It is honestly fairly obvious.

Think what you want but I've owned pretty much every game system since the Atari 2600, most of which I still do, and have never seen a console with a failure rate like the current XBox 360, never.

[Werewolf]

I realize I'm coming across like a Sony fanboy

It is honestly fairly obvious.

The PS1 and PS2 also had more than than their fair share of hardware issues early on. Certainly didn't hurt them in the long run and their warrenty wasn't nearly so good. People tend to forget that. But that was before blogs and the Internet fanboy craze.

I personally still can remember the hassle of calling Sony's help line. Anything from non Sony memory cards to AV cables voided their very limited warrenty. I had to play my first PS1 upside down just to get the audio to stop skipping. My second PS1 just up and died. Same as my first PS2.

[edit]

On a side note for PS3 fans, I bought a import Dualshock 3 a couple of weeks ago. It is awesome! Not only does it bring back (sweet, sweet) rumble, the analog sticks are improved and it is just an all around better quality control pad. Some have said the the rumble is a bit on the weak side, but I've found that actually just depends on the game. Unreal in particular rumbles quite strongly. When something explodes, you know it!

[MegoSteve]

I don't mean to be a naysayer or anything, but buzz on the internet doesn't mean squat in reality, or else Snakes on a Plane would have been the #1 movie last year, Apple would manufacture the best selling computer, and Ron Paul would win the election in 2008, replacing our outgoing president Howard Dean.

[ZICA]

I guess time will tell. If what some of you say is true and consumers continue to be happy with the current POS that Microsoft is selling as the Xbox 360 then the company has nothing to worry about, except for the constant high shipping bills they're getting form UPS and FedEx for returns. And FYI, the new Falcon boards haven't fixed the RROD problem. There's a huge thread dedicated to the Xbox 360 hardware issues on the Cheapassgamer.com forums and this has been mentioned there.

I realize I'm coming across like a Sony fanboy but that couldn't be further from the truth. Like I mentioned before, I own both consoles and enjoy both of them equally. It's just too bad that Microsoft can't get their act together and make a more reliable console.

[MegoSteve]

My Premium is pretty loud, especially when I'm playing something intense like Gears. Thanks for the info on the Elite... so tempting!

[Werewolf]

Sorry to hear about that!

Yeah, I was pretty bummed about it. I was able to re-download all my arcade games but four of the Venture Bros episodes I bought off the video market place got corrupted.

How's your experience been with the Elite vs. the Premium? Is it quieter? I already bought a larger hard drive because I love demos, but I'd be tempted by the Elite if I could get a quieter machine with HDMI.

It's really nice. Unlike a lot of them, my launch 360 was really never all that loud. My Elite does seem even a bit quieter though. The biggest thing is the massive hard drive and HDMI. Halo and Gears look pretty sweet upscaled through the HDMI port. Oh, it also has the new lower wattage power brick and it came with an HDMI cable.