Why did you choose HD DVD over Blu-ray?

Hello everyone,

I’m a newbie at posting (been around afterdawn for years), so please let me know if I crossed any lines. I read the forum rules many times.

I’m in the market for one of the new High Definition players, either Blu-ray or HD DVD.

My questions is for all those HD DVD Owners out there...

Why did you choose HD DVD over blu-ray? Was there a deciding factor? If you have both players, please indicate if you prefer one over the other and why. This info will help many of us who can’t wait for the winning format.

Thank you!

 

I have both formats and I would say my level of enjoyment is fairly equal with a slight tendency toward HD DVD. If there is a movie I want to see that is released on both formats I always buy or rent the HD DVD version. The only time I buy or rent a BluRay disc is if the movie is not available on HD DVD.

The reason for this is I feel that HD DVD is the more polished and finished product with consistently fine transfers and good to excellent quality soundtracks (especially the ones with True HD). I also think the Toshiba players are excellent. I've had the HD-A1 and have recently upgraded to HD-XA2. I feel the XA2 is probably the best piece of video hardware I have ever owned. I know of two other people in these forums that have the XA2 and they both like it a lot.

 

Thanks error5! I’ve heard picture quality on the HD DVD is a little better then Blu-ray. I’m guessing you have all this connected to a receiver, can you tell me what kind of connection you’re using? Also, where can you rent HD DVDs? I use Blockbuster and they only have BDs.

 

I have my XA2 connected by HDMI to my Marantz receiver. I get Dolby True HD or Dolby Digital Plus depending on what's on the disc with the player doing the decoding. Another HDMI cable goes from the Marantz to the Sony LCD for 1080p video. If your receiver doesn't have HDMI use the 5.1 analog connection and you'll get the same result. Note that the XA2 is the only 2nd gen player with 5.1 analog outputs. The A2 and A20 have only HDMI for DD+ and True HD.

Majority of the HD media I watch are rented and I use Netflix. I've had pretty good service so far with both HD formats.

 

That was easy a no brainer cost less and suppose to show a better PQ.

 

I choose HD DVD for the same reasons Paramount does...

and...

-Alan Bell, Executive Vice President and CTO for Paramount Pictures
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Paramount/Paramount_CTO_Speaks_Out_On_Switch_to_HD_DVD/885

Couldn't have said it better myself,
Ced

 

Paramount chose HD-DVD because they were paid to become an HD-DVD exclusive. They paid them $50 million for HD-DVD exclusive and paid $100 million to Dreamworks for HD-DVD exclusive. Blu-ray is the better format though. It has more storage, and it will win the format war. The reason for this is because you find more Blu-ray players installed in more machines (computers, PS3) then HD-DVD. Blu-ray is selling a lot more than HD-DVD and because of that, Blockbuster decided to wipe their HD-DVDs off the shelf and only support Blu-ray. To sum it all up, Blu-ray can hold much more information than HD-DVD (I think it's 50 GB on a double-layered Blu-ray disc) and it's winning and will win the format war.

 

@ BrendanL,

What do you think Sony has been doing since last year? Don't believe everything you hear/read and don't take this thread off topic!

That kind of post belongs here:
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/552987

Ced

 

What Sony has been doing is implementing more Blu-ray players on more platforms so because people have Blu-ray players, they might as well buy the Blu-ray version of movies.

 

Thanks to everyone for contributing a lot of good information! I know a lot of people who went out and bought a HDTV, but didn’t make the leap into HD players due to:

1) High cost
2) Unsure outcome of format war

Prices are expected to come down more during the upcoming Holiday Season. I, along with so many others, will likely buy one this time around. Since most of you mentioned your likes, are there any dislikes about your player? Please include any recommendations if you have any. Thanks again!

Note: If you have any Blu-Ray comments, please post them under a similar thread that I posted under the Blu-Ray Forum (link noted by diabolos above – Thanks diabolos)

 

oo good

 

I chose hd dvd for the price and I am not a big fan of sony when it comes to new technology. I was burned with beta and minidisc. I think they make great products but implementation is lacking. Regardless, when the bd player hits $200, I will get one simply for apocolypto and spiderman. I do think competition is good, without it prices for either player if it were the sole format would most likely not be affordable for most people.

 

HD Tv sets have a little under 3 times the resolution of a sdtv. Even at 30 gig, HD-DVD has more than 3 times the space of a dvd-9.
That extra 20 gig will go into useless filler. As for why I chose, same as all of the above. Price was good the picture was great and I like toshiba. I have to admit I do miss not having some of the blue-ray exclusive titles but I can get them on dvd a wait for now. Good point Burnasty. I guess the one good thing about the hi def war is the fast drop in prices.

 

sony paid blockbuster to only support them, hddvd will release a 51gb disc as well.

 

Toshiba are also making a 90GB HD DVD, I use the HD DVD format because I feel sometimes SONY get lazy and stop supporting there products.

For example if they really wanted UMD to become the standard like they did why bother making Blu-ray?
Sony get board and move on to the next thing, HD DVD for me has better image and sound quality, maybe because SONY skimped out and got lazy first time around and made blu-ray MPEG 2 wtf? That’s not a HD codec.
Also SONY try to sell you all this TrueHD crap, HD is a recorded resolution anything with a 1366x768 res on wards is HD plain and simple, it’s like saying SAMSUNG don’t make HD TV’s because it dosent have TrueHD stamped on it, but the SONY one dose as it has trueHD printed on a little crappy sticker.

 

90gb? wow thats alot of storage!

 

yea but there are people working on a 999GB DVD 1TB DVD's, were getting to a point in time were GB are slowly being replaced with TB one day it will be the norm to have 20TB HDD, GB will become the new MB and MB will be the new KB, just to think my friends could not understand why I had a HDD with 8GB on it all that time ago lol I used to have a 1GB HDD before that lol!.

 

Well the reason i have been more HD-DVD biased is becasue of a few things.

I believe the BDA has acted unethical with there FUD and viral marketing. Them claiming victory every month in the first quarter, really got old.

HD-DVD was endorsed by the DVD forum, and IMHO is the official replacement for DVD.

HD-DVD used advanced codecs like VC-1 and True-HD while blu-ray is still in the dark ages using bloated PCM encodes, and substandard MPEG2 rips.

HD-DVD specs were finalized before it was released. Blu-ray has been an adapting technology that IMHO used its consumers as beta testers.

Blu-ray has convinced many (Hmmm whats the nice word) uninformed people that what matters is bitrates and PCM audio, when in reality, bit rates and stage size mean nothing when using advanced next gen codecs Like VC-1 and True-HD or DTS-MA.

Blu-rays first movies (A vast majority anyways) were very pour encodes, not much better than SD DVD, IE The Fifth Element. Hence the reissue.

Blu-ray touted there size advantage, then the majority of there first releases were on BD-25 disks.

And with the recent news, ive sold my PS3 and my entire Blu-ray collection. I am now like paramount/dreamworks exclusive to HD-DVD.

 

Im still on the fence...
So everyone's comments and experiences will help me out alot in deciding as well.
Currently i am using a DVI to HDMI cable from my PC to HDTV to enjoy HD content.
Will i notice an increase in video quality if i switch to a X360 with a HD DVD add-on or a PS3?

 

A HD compatible monitor dose not have to say HD ready to have HD, some monitors have resolutions of like 1366x768(and more) and its on there PC but people only listen to media and think “oh I have to buy a HD ready TV to enjoy HD content”.

PC users have had HD content for years just it was never called HD.

HDMI is just DVI but DVI can’t carry sound I have my Xbox running on a VGA cable and there is no difference on my cousins HDMI compatible Xbox 360.

For all its worth I would buy a Toshiba HD DVD player as the Xbox 360 is a little loud at times but the HD DVD drive on the 360 is really good as it works with Vista/XP.