Things I've Learned about HD-DVD
Introduction:
::UPDATE:: As of February 2008, it looks as though I've chosen the Betamax. Warner Brothers seems to have been the turning point; their defection to Blu-Ray only has caused ripples in the high-def community. Just recently I was informed by Netflix that they would be phasing out HD-DVDs and will only rent them to me for the remainder of the year. I'm disappointed that my choice of format didn't "win," but on the same token I'm happy the industry has finally settled on one clear successor to DVD. At least I'm only out $300 and not $600-800. I'll be keeping an eye out and as soon as Blu-Ray players reach the magic price point that HD-DVD has already met and surpassed ($299 or below) I'll look into trying out the other side.
This page started out as a forum post on LinuxForums.org as a follow up to my story about buying an HDTV. Part of that story was my discovery of free over-the-air HDTV content. Getting free high-definition TV is great, but I still wanted to watch pre-recorded media (read: movies) in high-definition as well.
As I said in my previous post on HDTV, for most people a regular DVD player or one with an upconverter will make their existing DVD collection look just fine on your new HDTV. The market as of April 2007 for high-definition discs is still very, very small. Most people are still perfectly happy with their standard DVDs. I'm a bit of a gadget junkie however so I bought a high-definition player and set out to run some tests.
HD-DVD and Blu-Ray
If you're new to the high-definition scene, you might be surprised to learn that unlike the move from VHS to DVD, where there was one standard new format (DVD) that offered obviously superior quality to the previous format (VHS), the move from DVD to high-definition discs is not so simple.
If you want to watch high-definition pre-recorded media such as movies, TV shows, etc. on your new HDTV you'll need to choose a format. There are two as of April 2007 from which you can choose. One is HD-DVD. The other is Blu-Ray. Neither one works with the other, so you can't buy a Blu-Ray movie and play it on an HD-DVD player any more than you could buy a VHS tape and play it on a Betamax deck.
I brought up Betamax for a reason. VHS and Betamax competed for the US public's affection in the eighties and VHS came out the clear winner for home video watchers. Sony pushed Betamax and lost. Sony has also supported a number of other formats that have lost to their competitors (Sony Memory Stick, Universal Media Disc (UMD), Digital8, ATRAC). Sony does not have a good track record with proprietary media formats. They are now pushing Blu-Ray.
Let me reiterate here that the market for high-definition discs is still very, very small. The highest-selling high-definition disc so far was the Blu-Ray release of Casino Royale, which hit 100,000 units sold. This took roughly 9 months to reach. Compare that to the regular DVD release of Happy Feet, which sold 4 million in just the first week.
That being said there are a number of people in the vocal minority who stand behind their chosen format as though they were protecting a fortress from blood-thirsty usurpers. Much like video game consoles (Xbox 360 versus Wii versus Playstation 3) and personal computer platforms (OS X versus Linux versus Microsoft Windows), there are vocal opinions and general nastiness on both sides.
My reasons for choosing HD-DVD instead of Blu-Ray boiled down to two things: practicality and history. Practically speaking, I did not want to spend more than $300USD on a player for a new format. I got this figure by remembering what I paid for my first standard-definition DVD player to replace my aging VHS system. If the format I chose turned out to go the way of the Beta, I'd only be out $300USD versus the minimum $500-600USD required for a Blu-Ray player.
Another practical consideration was content. It should go without saying that if I choose to pay several hundred dollars for a media player that I expect to be able to use it, and use it a lot. This means that the format I choose has to have the highest number of movies and TV shows I personally want to watch.
Note my emphasis in the above paragraph. It doesn't matter to me if there are 3,000 titles out there in ZZZ format instead of YYY format if I only want to watch two movies in the entire lot. I'd rather have a smaller library of quality titles than a glut of crap. Even though Blu-Ray currently has the support of many more major studios than HD-DVD right now, the vast majority of the movies available on Blu-Ray (with the notable exception of The Fifth Element) are movies that I have no interest in watching.
Yet another practical consideration is the price of the media I'm going to be buying. As of the time I wrote this piece, Blu-Ray disc movies are $5-10USD more expensive than their HD-DVD counterpart. Paying $20USD is not out of the question for a movie I particularly enjoy, but paying $25-30USD for one is simply not an option for me.
Finally, there is history. There are those who argue that the HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray "battle" is completely different from that of VHS vs. Beta or Nintendo vs. Sony or any other entertainment "battle". I disagree, except for one point. I believe that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are just a new version of the VHS vs. Beta argument, but with significantly less substance.
The choice between VHS and Betamax had some legitimate quality points. Betamax was at the time generally regarded as delivering superior picture quality, while VHS was known for significantly longer play times on a single cartridge. To date I have not seen any evidence that either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD have any difference whatsoever in the quality of their picture. Blu-Ray does for the moment have an advantage on maximum storage space (50GB versus 30GB for HD-DVD).
Another historical point is that in the wake of VHS and DVD, there were several proposals made to replace the aging format. The one that garnered the most support was DVD, and one of the largest supporters was the adult film industry. Regardless of whether you agree with their stance or not, pornographic movie sales reach billions of dollars worldwide.
As far as my current research can determine, the adult film industry is still in the majority supporting the HD-DVD format over Blu-Ray, for a number of reasons. One is that HD-DVD is simpler to manufacture than Blu-Ray because it uses the same size media discs as regular DVD. The thickness of the plastic on Blu-Ray discs is slightly less than that of regular DVDs and HD-DVDs, which means that large duplication factories would need to re-tool their machines to produce Blu-Ray discs.
Also, there is quite a bit of hostility between the adult film industry and certain members of the Blu-Ray Disc Association. Not the least of these is the Disney corporation. Disney is not keen on having their family-friendly movies reproduced by the same companies who also reproduce films for the adult industry.
Like anyone else, I'm of course concerned about the idea of a player I invest in becoming the next "failed format", but looking at the library of movies available currently in HD-DVD I will have enough movies to entertain myself for at least the next couple of years while this format "war" works itself out. By that time the price of the winning format's player (or one that can play both) will be significantly lower, and I will meanwhile have had a decent return on my investment.
After considering all of this, I decidedly leaned toward HD-DVD, but at the time I did the research I was still unable to make the plunge for either based on their price. Next I'll discuss my shopping method.
Shopping for a player
I did some research on all the high-definition players I could find for either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. The general consensus I reached was that the first-generation players had issues. This is not uncommon for new gadgets. They were heavy, bulky, ugly, and slow. They were also prohibitively expensive.
The second-generation players got much more positive reviews, so I decided at this point to try and find one in my price range. The cheapest, entry-level Blu-Ray player was $500USD (the Sony BDP-S300). That was still two hundred dollars more than I was willing to risk on a still unproven format. Not to mention that I refuse to pay nearly as much as I paid for my HDTV ($599USD) for a player.
I looked at, and subsequently decided to purchase, a Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD Player. The only thing left was to find one at the right price, which for me was around $300USD. I followed it on Amazon.com, watching the initial price go from $499 to $399, and from there it fluctuated wildly from day to day and week to week between $299 and $349.
Around Memorial Day (May 28th 2007) Toshiba decided to sweeten the pot, so to speak. They began to offer an instant $100 rebate with several major retailers, effectively bringing the price of their HD-A2 model down to $299. This was not a mail-in rebate, which is what interested me. I decided to pounce.
It took me a couple of weeks to work up the nerve (and the money), and by the time I did no major retailer other than Fry's Electronics was still running the $100-off promotion. Needless to say, Best Buy and Circuit City lost my business for that day. I ended up purchasing my HD-A2 player from Fry's Electronics (with a store warranty and my first HD-DVD movie) for $385USD. The player itself was a little over $300 after tax.
Since around February of 2007, Toshiba has also offered a separate mail-in offer for those who buy one of their high-definition players. I recieved an order form with my purchase that allowed me to mail in a copy of my receipt and UPC label for 5 free HD-DVDs. The available titles are listed below, with my choices in bold:
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At the current prices I found, these five movies are worth between $100 and $125 retail. I sent my rebate off as soon as possible. The offer said to allow 8-10 weeks for delivery of my titles (standard fare for rebates), and I expect to receive them in a month or two. I'll be sure to update this as soon as they arrive.
::UPDATE:: Almost exactly 8 weeks after I sent in the rebate, my 5 free movies have arrived. They are the full retail movies, shrinkwrapped, and the discs are in perfect condition. I emphasize *the discs* because in transit a couple of the jewel cases for the movies were slightly damaged. The spoke that holds the disc in place was missing some prongs. I've bought movies from the store that had this problem too, and it's not that big of a deal. I blame the US Postal Service more than Toshiba.
The total retail price for my player, minus the street value of these free movies, comes to a grand total of $175USD. That's nothing to sneeze at. Good job, Toshiba.
First Impressions
The manual for my HD-DVD player had a curious statement in it, but I've found it to ring particularly true. To paraphrase: "HD-DVD players have more in common with your computer than standard definition DVD players." The first indication of this similarity came when I powered up my HD-A2 for the first time. The LED readout on the front told me "WELCOME", but nothing else happened for roughly 45 seconds. I had read that these machines took a while to boot up, so I simply waited and took note of how long I had to wait.
HD-DVD players have persistent memory storage (similar to a harddrive), network cards, CPUs (mine uses a variation of a Celeron M if I remember correctly), and RAM. They also share the need to "boot up" like their computer brethren. Most consumers these days are used to waiting no more than about 5-10 seconds for their TV or DVD player to become usable after they power it on, so a gap of 45 seconds is noticeable. Notice I didn't say "intolerable", because to me it's not a great hinderance.
Another interesting parallel between my player and a computer was the idea of downloading updates off the internet, directly to the player. When I opened the box for my player it informed me that there was a firmware update available and that I could receive it either by mail on a disc from Toshiba or by hooking up my HD-A2 (via the Ethernet port on the back) to my internet connection. I chose the latter.
To do this I had to boot the player with no disc in the tray, go to the setup menu and configure my network settings. I turned on DHCP, got an IP address and set my DNS settings. All was well. I figured I'd just go to the "Diagnostic->Update" option and all would work. No network connection was detected.
I banged my head against the wall for about 15 minutes trying various IP and DNS settings (even setting a static IP and default gateway) and still nothing. Finally, I got the bright idea that perhaps it just needed a reboot. Bam, all was well. These players really do have a lot in common with computers.
If I could come up with one word to describe the update process, "speedy" would not be it. It took the better part of half an hour to download, extract and install the updates on my player. That being said, although the process was slow it did eventually complete successfully and with no interaction neccessary on my part. I simply set up the network connection, hit the "Update" menu option and let it go.
Once I got my player all updated and shiny I moved on to the movies I had bought, Discovery Atlas: Italy Revealed ($17.99USD) and The Italian Job ($19.99USD). By this time I was pretty eager to actually get to use the player.
Tester Movies
The silver lining to the fact that the player takes a while to boot up is that once it's booted, there's no more of a wait to start playing a movie than there is on a regular DVD player. This is a feat considering the sheer amount of raw data that these players has to load, process, and display off a 30GB disc.
I watched Italy Revealed first. This series was filmed in high-definition, so it pretty much went straight from the camera to the disc with no extra processing needed. The picture was beautiful, however you won't get the same "wow" factor when you compare something like this to its DVD counterpart as you would if you looked at a VHS and DVD side by side.
Let me elaborate on that. High-definition shows and movies are noticeably sharper, larger, and more detailed than standard-definition TV shows and movies. If you've looked at over-the-air broadcasts of CSI or House you can tell the difference. Movies are the same way. However if you have a decent standard definition setup with a big TV and a progressive-scan (480p) DVD player, the difference will be subtle. The best way to describe what I see is looking at the same image through smeared glass versus seeing it with your naked eye. The tiny details in high-definition content are the difference, and in some movies they give the whole experience a feeling of "newness."
I noticed in a couple of spots on Italy Revealed that the image would have errors in it. The best way I can describe this is if you've ever watched satellite television during a storm and noticed little lines or square blocks that appear as a different color or look like they aren't updating as fast as the rest of the picture. I played that specific section (the scene with models going down a catwalk at a fashion show) on two different TVs with two different HDMI cables and received the same problems.
The thing that further perplexed me was that this disc seemed to be the only one with this kind of display problem. I watched The Italian Job and Jet Li's Unleashed in HD-DVD with no such image issues. My hunch at this point is issues with the disc transfer on Italy Revealed, judging from the fact that the other discs in this series have shown issues on some players.
The Italian Job was not filmed in high-definition, and it showed. Although the picture was noticeably clearer than the standard DVD release, the colors weren't nearly as vibrant or detailed as Italy Revealed. There were no image issues at all however, on either TV I used.
This picture quality experiment is not over. I have a theory to test out that will only tell me something when I'm able to get my hands on another unrelated movie that was also shot in high-definition: the BBC's Planet Earth series. If I have image errors watching that one I'll revisit my previous conclusion that the problem was in the disc itself and not my equipment.
::UPDATE:: I have now watched the first disc of BBC's Planet Earth and I can say with pretty good authority that the image problems present in my Italy Revealed viewings were not caused by my equipment. Planet Earth played beautifully from beginning to end with no image blocking whatsoever. I'm debating now whether I want to return my Italy Revealed disc as defective, but at least I know the rest of my setup is sound.
References
You don't have to take my word for any of this. If you're not willing or able to try out either high-definition format on your own, please refer to the sites I've listed below which helped me decide on a course of action.
WikiPedia article on HD-DVDWikiPedia article on Blu-Ray
Official HD-DVD site
Official Blu-Ray site
Home Theater Blog: My Choice in the Format War
Home Theater Blog: Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD Myths
Home Theater Blog: My Choice, 1 Year Later
High Def Digest
Ars Technica - Why Early Hi-Def Numbers Don't Really Matter