A Discussion About HD Video Disc Formats. Presented in Glorious Adium Transcript-O-Vision!

This post was published more than a few years ago (on 2007-06-19) and may contain inaccurate technical information, outmoded thoughts, or cringe takes. Proceed at your own risk.

mboszko

22:38:40

Oh, finally picked a horse in the HD disc format race.

22:39:43

Costco had an instant $100 rebate on one of the Toshiba HD-DVD players, so I picked it up, along with a Jet Li movie. That was my "Father's Day" gift from everyone.

22:40:00

Oh, crap.

22:40:09

I just realized I don't think I called my Dad.

aalgar

22:40:20

Heh.

22:40:24

I called mine but didn't reach him.

22:40:31

I probably should try again this week.

22:40:42

Blockbuster picked a horse as well... it was the one you didn't pick.

mboszko

22:41:02

Well, that's fine, since I don't go to Blockbuster. 😛

aalgar

22:41:18

Yes, but a lot of people do. Don't you think that might affect the ultimate outcome of this thing?

mboszko

22:41:26

Maybe so.

22:43:25

Blu-ray has a lot of technological advances, but HD-DVD has the advantage of having better backwards compatibility-- not jsut for playback, but also for manufacturing. You can convert a current DVD plant to make HD-DVDs without too much fuss, whereas BD requires a whole new plant.

aalgar

22:44:04

Well, you know my thoughts... still way too early for me to worry about it all. But I hope you chose wisely.

mboszko

22:44:54

I think neither of them will live very long. They won't reach DVD's age before they start getting replaced with something else. Still, I wanted to play with at least one of 'em so I could speak intelligently about it.

aalgar

22:45:05

Heh.

22:45:17

I bet you end up getting BR as well, so you can speak intelligently about both of them. 😉

mboszko

22:46:05

Watched the first disc on it last night, and it crapped out 3/4 into the movie. Decided it couldn't play the disc. Even after I pulled it out, I didn't see anything wrong with the surface, but cleaned it anyway and popped it back in, then it insisted it wasn't a HD-DVD disc at all.

aalgar

22:46:23

Weird.

mboszko

22:46:42

Fortunately, it was a hybrid disc so we flipped it over and watched the rest in standard def.

22:47:12

So, gotta get another disc to figure out if it's the player or the disc.

22:47:24

Hope it's not the player. I think I got the last one at our Costco.

aalgar

22:47:28

Ugh, yeah.

mboszko

22:48:25

Picture quality was good while it lasted, tho. Very clean. Didn't see any of the compression artifacts I notice on the HD cable feed.