Should I upgrade to HD DVD?

[halpern]

I have been thinking over this topic for some time and I need a few opinions. What would be the true benefit to buying an HD DVD player and HD DVDs? I know technically the video and audio is of better quality but why should I make the jump and spring for the player. Is it really worth the extra money for the player and DVDs?

[prOnorama]

Personally I will wait until players/discs are cheap, and HD DVD and/or Blu-ray are mainstream standards. It's not as if DVD's are suddenly unwatchable or something.

And the actual content doesn't improve: a bad movie is still a bad movie, no matter if it's watched in HD or not :)

Then again if you have money to burn and (technical) quality is very important for you HD DVD might be worth it for you.

[DarkZell666]

If you don't have a HD television (or at least an LCD or plasma SD TV), you won't see any difference what so ever.

But the fact is, standard DVD's look like crap on HD TV's compared to HD DVD's, and that's the only reason you would want to switch to HD DVD's => get your clean picture back, like you had on your standard TV before ;)

[jolson]

Since you have the sense to ask that before the purchase instead of "why did I buy that?" you'd better wait. All players and discs sofar, both Blu-ray and HD-DVD, are only subsets of what is possible. Both when it comes to functionality, interactivity and connectivity. Also encoding quality, lossless HD audio and extra material is lacking.

While some players can be SW-upgraded (new FW) you would need to buy a new player if you'd want some HW (like HDMI 1.3) that's not at the model you buy.

[setarip_old]

@halpern

Since you appear to be interested ONLY in viewing (not being part of the leading edge group that's presently dissecting the new formats), I'd concur with the initial response you received from "prOnorama" - basically, "wait 'til the smoke clears" in the format battle between HDDVD and BluRay.

There's no reason to believe that this hardware's pricing timeline will be any different than those of its predecessors. That is to say, in a year or less (typically before Christmas), you'll likely see a DRAMATIC (more than 50%) reduction in the price of players - as well as a plethora of additional brand names and extended functionality...

[sjchmura]

And who knows who shall win the war..... blu-ray is surging but this could be do to the "free disks" given with the PS3 that count as purchases (hell, if Sony MADE the $500 PS3 it might tempt me to get one to play resisntance and blu-ray).

In terms of quality, as other posters stated, it is a question of encoder quality - NOT the format (a rip to the HD looks the same).

By 2008 we shall know who/if a winner exists.

[FishTank]

If you don't have a HD television (or at least an LCD or plasma SD TV), you won't see any difference what so ever.

But the fact is, standard DVD's look like crap on HD TV's compared to HD DVD's, and that's the only reason you would want to switch to HD DVD's => get your clean picture back, like you had on your standard TV before ;)

which sorta tells me.. DONT BUY A HDTV! :devil:

[DarkZell666]

which sorta tells me.. DONT BUY A HDTV! :devil:

Didn't I say the "HD" event was the next thing planned to have us all upgrade our hardware (including computer hardware) ? Oops, I said it xD (and I'm probably not the only one too).

As prOnorama said: "It's not as if DVD's are suddenly unwatchable or something." ;)

If my TV goes down in a couple of years, I suppose I won't even have the choice but to go HD anyway ^^'

[FishTank]

one of my tv's broke down 3 weeks ago. i looked into it and
decided to get the cheapest (and biggest - 72cm) crt tv i could find.
paid 180 bucks lmao, but the hdtvs around here are 1000+
and tbh i still prefer 4:3 for watching tv, and probably always will.

needless to say, i wouldnt get hddvd anytime soon.

[hmurchison]

If you got a HDTV I say go for it. Amazon has the Toshiba HD-A2 for $366 plus you 5 free movies (rebate form). That brings your "effective" cost to what..$260?

I'm ordering mine in the next couple of months. Hell even if there weren't 250 movies coming out for it in 2007 I'd still be able to author my own content and playback HD on this player (once I get my Canon HV20 that is)

[zambelli]

If you got a HDTV I say go for it. Amazon has the Toshiba HD-A2 for $366 plus you 5 free movies (rebate form). That brings your "effective" cost to what..$260?
Yeah, it's almost too cheap NOT to buy now. :) How long did it take DVD player prices to drop below $400? It must've been at least 4-5 years after they hit the market.