so does anyone know if the hd-dvd drive will play regular dvd's?

and i heard that it upscales regular dvd to 1080p?

if this is all true what is the purpose of buying or watching a hd-dvd disc?

 

The clarity of HD-DVD is much greater than that of a regular dvd that is upscale to 1080P. The sound is no as compress as DVD so you get better picture and sound compare to a regular dvd. Also there like a bunch of other little stuff that hd-dvd does that dvd does not. Plus with Hd-DVD being two side you can play it on a regular dvd or on a hd-dvd and of course the quality being the differences.

 

I was going to buy the drive but I'm waiting to see who will win the hd dvd/blueray war first...

 

The point is resolution, or detail.
This isn't quite accurate, but it's close enough to make the point:

dvd: 720x480 = .33 Meg
720 i/p: 1280x720 = .88 meg (roughly 2.6x dvd resolution)
1080 i/p: 1920x1080 = 1.98 meg (roughly 6x dvd resolution)

Yes, you can interpolate the dvd up to 1080i. Is it the same? No.
Or let's rephrase it, with a camera metaphor:

Say you go from dvd to 720p.
Which would look better, a picture from a 2.6 MP camera, or a 1 MP camera interpolated up to a 2.6 meg image? Assume a good quality image, the 2.6 MP image wins, hands down.

Of course, other factors come into play.
How big of an image you are viewing (tv size + viewing distance)
what the image is of (if it's low detail, like say, disney cartoons, it'll look the same)
A bad 6 MP camera can easily look worse than a high quality 1 meg camera, upscaled.

The difference is more drastic if you go DVD -> 1080.

 

Heh... why don't we just visualize it.

Here's a "native" "1080p" image, a "480p" image, and an upscaled "480p" to "1080p" image:



Compare the first 1080p image to the upscaled 1080p image. Big difference eh?

Now imagine all that shittyness at double the resolution (so double the macroblocking) and at many times the physical resolution (TV screen is much larger then monitor).

On top of all that... "upscaling DVD players" are basically snake oil. Here's the rub. YOUR TV ALREADY UPSCALES EVERY PIECE OF CONTENT IT DISPLAYS.

Your TV has a native resolution (if you have a 1080p TV it's native resolution is 1920x1080). Your digital TV can only display images at it's native resolution.

Every piece of non 1080p content fed to your TV, your TV will upscale to 1080p.

Granted - yes - some DVD players, etc, have higher quality scalers then your TV and as such might do a marginally better job scaling what you watch. But marginal is the keyword here.

Main thing to understand is that upscaling is nothing like native resolution.

 

^^

O yeah quick question, what is the difference if any between 1080p and 1080i?

 

i = interlaced.

i remnant of the cold war, er, CRT era.

each frame consists of every other line.

modern TV's do not interlace, they will de-interlace the signal... and that causes `jaggies`, among other things.

 

^^ thanks...I've been trying to read up on the differences between the i and p and now get the differences in technology. However, will it really make that big of a difference to consider spending much more on a 1080p tv as opposed to i?

 

there's no such thing as a 1080i TV, unless your buying an old CRT based set.

digital televisions such as LCD, Plasma, DLP, LCoS/SXRD, etc, etc, can only display images in a progressive format.

yes, they will all ACCEPT a 1080i signal, but they will de-interlace it (using a technique known as 3:2 pulldown). in the case of a 720p television, they will also downscale it.

modern televisions are either 720p (well, most LCD's are 768p) aka 1280x720, or 1080p aka 1920x1080.

is there a huge difference between 720p and 1080p? it depends. on a smaller TV (a lower pixel density TV), no. especially from some distance.

nonetheless 1080p does have more than DOUBLE the pixel density of 720p. this isn't such a big deal on a small tv from a distance because the pixels are soo small they're nearly indescernable... but at 40" plus, it starts to add up.

keeping in mind that the only content available in 1080p right now is, technically, Blu-ray and HD-DVD (I'm leaving out online content)... it's a tough justification.

but... if you're going to watch Blu-ray or HD-DVD, plan to hold on to your TV for more than ~3 years, and plan to buy a TV larger than 40"... then yes... there's a difference and to ME it's justifiable.

 

yeah I just checked it again, its a 1080p DLP...I dont know why I thought it was i.

Thanks anyways for the information.

 

Question about HD and Blueray disks.

Since they are HD, is the content of the disks formatted to fit an HD screen, or do you still get black bars on top/bottom?

 

The picture will adjust to the screen and as long as your television is a wide screen you shouldn't have any bars, unless your playing a ultra-wide-screen movie then you'll have thin bars at the top and bottom.

 

most every Bluray/HD-DVD is mastered in the ever annoying 2.35:1 aspect ratio.

it's very wide and very cinematic, but if you have a 16:9 television under 50" it means you're only seeing about 30" of vertical resolution.

(sure you could stretch it and mess it up, but then that defeates the point of watching a high def film at your tv's native resolution, doesnt it)

the other annoying part about this is that it means these films arent TRULLY 1080p. 1080 meaning 1080 pixels of vertical resolution... but if the horizontal resolution is 1920 and the aspect ratio is 2.35:1 the vertical resolution is only actually about ~820 pixels.

 

If I'm watching a dvd on a tv bigger than 42" I don't mind having the bars, as long as the picture looks nice. But then again if you are watching a movie on a small tv less than 30" it gets annoying

 

i have a 46" TV and it's really annoying. it literally discards 25% of the vertical real estate of your television. and seeing as how a 46" TV is only about 23" tall to begin with, your left with a vertical image of about 16-17".

i don't know about you. but from average sitting distance, i don't find a 16-17" image all that engaging... somewhat defeating the purpose of the "cinematic" aspect ratio to begin with.

not all "bars" or letterboxing is equal either. many standard DVD's aren't 2.35:1 like, say, HD-DVD's, but 1.85:1 or 2:1 instead... both of which are significantly taller then 2.35:1.

 

What am I looking at here? At work I thought I was looking at a shoulder but now I think I'm looking at

 

yessir

 

HDTVs are 16:9.

HD-DVD/Blu-ray are OAR. So if they're wider than 2:35, you'll get letterboxes.
If it's 16:9, like say, March of the Penguins, no boxes.
Eventually there will be 4:3 material which is pillarboxed. (bars on sides)

Found these stats on avsforums:

Total # of HD-DVD titles: 177

Ratio....%

2.40...20.34%
2.35...31.64%
1.85...28.81%
1.78...14.12%
1.77-1.33...3.39%

 

That's awesome congrats on that

 

thanks