Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems BR Is the King OF HD.

OK- so my first thoughts after playing with this for a while.

I get home and unbox the player. Again, Mark, thank you.

And thank you to Ken for coordinating it.

The player physically is a nice unit- a little heavy, and the remote frankly seems a little chintzy but enough of this drivel.

I hook it up to my plasma because its higher res than my projector and thats where I have my kscape setup for comparison. I am using component video into an extron video switcher. This makes it easy for me to flip sources.

I just turn the unit on for any setup and--- I wait. Yes its true, this player is a little slow to get going. But its not that bad and the boot time wouldn't stop me from pursing HD DVD. The onscreen menus are nice and clear. I believe I was looking at them rendered in 1080i.

All setup I go ahead and pop in the Apollo 13 HD DVD- time for lift off!

So Apollo 13 loads up and there are these nifty HD DVD graphics, which are nice but they also show more banding than Id like, but this is just computer graphics.

Then the menu comes up and the experience of using a HD DVD menu is very similar to a regular DVD. There is more motion and they have borrowed some concepts from Mac OS X and Windows Vista. I would call this part of the experience more like DVD 1.5 than 2.0.

So I launch the movie and... well... honestly I am a little disappointed. To me the image looks a little soft and grainy. But I do not want to make any rash judgments so I watch it for 20 minutes or so. I get to the scene when Lovell comes home and tells his family he is going to the moon. I then cue up the same scene on the KScape and pause it and then I can do my A-B comparison.

Now keep in mind the following is my subjective opinion and I am conveying my reactions to an experience.

The difference is stunning. The only way to describe it is the difference we all saw the first time we saw DVD compared to VHS and LD. All the shortcomings of those formats: the noise, the smearing, etc- they all became so apparent when we saw DVD and the DVD image looked so clear and three dimensional. I can tell the HD DVD version of Apollo 13 is probably not the best example of HD DVD but when I go back and forth the DVD version played back on the KScape looks soft, fuzzy, faded, even a little noisy. The biggest difference on this particular scene is the color depth. There is a vibrancy to colors on the HD DVD that the DVD just cannot approach- not in its wildest dreams.

I also bought a copy of Serenity. This is a fun movie. I feel it's "heart" is in the right place. Boy oh boy this must be the reference standard for HD DVD. IMHO this is "The Fifth Element" of this new format. Since that movie is on BRD and the people over at Amazon are mixed on the transfer - maybe The Fifth Element won't be THE reference disc this time around. As far as Serenity goes, the transfer is pristine. This movie has it all for a reference disc: skin tones, good looking people, all kinds of lighting, CGI, interesting natural scenery, etc. Comparing the first scene of this movie between the DVD and HDDVD tells the story- there are space ships launching from Earth and on the HD DVD the image is so clear and pristine that it feels like I can reach inside my plasma and grab them. The DVD by comparison is just like I described on Apollo 13: fuzzy, faded, weak. The most striking differences are the resolution and the color gamut. The HD color space is sooo much wider. The DVD rendition of colors looks much more homogenized. I cannot get over how much more vibrant the colors are on the HD variant.

I have no comments on audio as this is my library tv and I use the included speakers so I am listening in 2.0. Both HD DVDs are DD+ which is a higher bit rate version of DD. Surely this will be an improvement over the DVDs but how much, its hard to know. And surely a True HD soundtrack would be even better- but these discs lack that.

So I now know what I expected to be the case: HD DVD is better than DVD. What I didn't know was by how much. This is the clearest HD I have ever seen. No doubt that the VC-1 format is excellent. I am sure it has its shortcomings like all things, but I have yet to see any artifacts. One thing I do notice when comparing the HD DVD and DVD versions of these films is the HD DVD seems to exhibit a slight bit of what I will call "blue push"- whites and skin tones are slightly cooler. Is this a Toshiba player issue or a HD DVD issue? I think its the player.

Now that I have explored how HD DVD and DVD stack up- I figure lets check out how this player does with a DVD vs the KScape player. Movie of choice: Star Wars, Episode III- Sith. Why? It has actual people in it (even if they are being forced to act stiff!) and it has the benefit of being a very good DVD transfer. The result? I think the Toshiba HD DVD player makes for a very good DVD player! The images are similar. I think the Toshiba player really does have a little of that blue push I mentioned earlier. The result is things look a little more pleasing but I do not think its as accurate a result. Its not a major issue. I would call it even between these two for DVD playback.

So all this being said- I guess the big question is have I changed my opinion. I am sure it comes as no surprise that I have not. All of my marvel and praise above is for the technical merits of the format, and we know thats the last thing the general consumer market cares for. I also think regular DVD can look quite good- so long as you don't put it directly up against HD DVD.

My opinion is based on the viability for these formats in the consumer market. Although I have made a big investment in the K system, that does not affect my opinion because the system makes sense for me- I have a ton of DVDs, this is the best way to organize them and when it comes to kids DVDs- no more lost or misplaced or finger printed discs... And K has the ability to add HD DVD and/ or BRD to their system. They are a member of both working groups. What would be required by their customers would be a software update and the purchase of a player that could read and playback the new format(s). Of course the amount of discs that could be stored would dramatically decrease.

What has changed is the fact that I will now be on the look out for more HD DVD titles that I might acquire for my theater. I expect the differences I saw on my plasma (a 60" sony) to be magnified when I install that 3 chip 1080P DLP PJ in the next few weeks. To date, I have only found a few titles on either HD DVD or BRD that are of any interest to me.

So in short, Mark, you have succeeded in the sense that there is another person buying HD DVDs. And more importantly when I think about where I got this player from I will smile- to me that the best part of HD DVD so far!

best regards,
Jerry

PS- interesting article on why HD DVD will win vs BRD:

http://news.digitaltrends.com/talkback158.html

I am sure if I dug enough Id find the opposite argument for BRD

PS part 2: there is one place that HD DVD is just as bad as DVD and thats the amount of "security device enclosed" stickers all over the cases. Why is it that I am treated like a criminal by the studios when I pay good money for their product? This kind of attitude eventually gets you into the place the record companies are in. Good tactic: go after your loyal customers. Please, please, please stop making me have to dig out a knife just to play a movie I bought.