UUronL

Actually, the "best" self-contained standard def DVD players IMO are the Denon units that use the Realta HQV chips. The only gripe I have is that it seems silly/insane to spend that much on a DVD player now that there are newer formats. The Realta HQV chip originally debuted in Teranex scalers costing $50,000 to $120,000 - so... getting that in a $3500 DVD player is well, incredible.

Fortunately, I think we're supposed to start seeing "HQV Powered by Teranex" logos on more devices - players, TVs, projectors etc... Kind of how Faroujda evolved from the dedicated scaler space into consumer level devices.



http://www.siliconoptix.com/chipProducts/R...F1D79F0905FDE9C



FYI, the Toshiba HD-XA2, the top of the line HD-DVD player that has HDMI 1.3 and 1080p, has the HQV REON-VX, a slightly lower grade chip. The Samsung Blu-Ray player that was recently announced - the BD-P1200 also will use the same chip. These should be the best 1080i to 1080p deinterlacing High def players to hit the market thus far.

525iSE

This article seem to contradict all of you guys.

http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/768.html

As for me, I really dono, I haven't seen the quality of both on a decent TV or anything, so I can't really compare. I'm just reading your responses. But I've read in a few places, such as www.ps3forums.com that Blu-Ray are outselling HD-DVDs 2:1 or even 3:1. So I dono. Maybe Blu-Ray will win in the end. I need to get a good TV and watch both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD to compare. Hopefully end of this month. *fingers crossed*

katheikia

Since I have an xbox 360, I will buy there HDDVD attachment for $200.00

pinguhk

I was thing of getting 1 too but the quality is not that good so I left it, and wait until a good cheep 1 is out.

UUronL

Well, and now that a combo player is slated for release - who wouldn't just spend the money to be able to play both formats? Just like SACD and HD-DVD.



The real danger here is that the same dynamic that has damaged the high-end audio formats like SACD and DVD-Audio will hurt the adoption of the high-def movie formats. That dynamic is that basically, for the vast majority of consumers - DVD is enough. Just as CD is enough for the vast majority of consumers. Heck... most of them are buying sub-CD quality like it's going out of style on Internet music sites. Same goes for crap movie downloads - both legal and illegal.

My point is, with the newest generation of formats splintered in any way - the danger exists that mass adoption will always be just out of reach. Sony has too much invested to walk away like it did with Betamax. HD-DVD won't die either. The danger is that we just have two very boring formats with not a lot of interesting stuff to buy. Kind of like SACD and DVD-Audio.


FYI - you don't need an Xbox 360 to use the $200 add-on HD-DVD drive. It's pretty easy to attach one to a regular PC and use it to play HD-DVD titles. It just won't have the nice high-def audio, but this is also a reality with the Xbox 360 as well. IMO, which is also a widely held opinion on the HD-DVD forums - the most impressive aspect of the new format is the audio. The lossless audio format is truly a large step forward and is quite noticeable.

pinguhk

this sounds very good, I got 7.1 and the sound will be great so I will get 1 then

0700700

Have you tried the Meridian G98 or the Primare units ?


this might be of interest : http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/storage/displ...0207042021.html


as for the rest

UUronL

Yes, these are all fine players. I did see that report. Not totally convinced, but I was interested to learn the view of the disc industry - I wasn't aware that HD-DVD was being perceived as a bridge technology. It was sad to see that Sony hadn't learned a thing from SACD. One of the large hinderances (at least to quality) was that there was a huge lack of DSD authoring and processing equipment. The same seems to be an issue with Blu-Ray... the equipment is costly, sourced from a single provider, and scarce.


I was a few days early with the HQV... New article here:


http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2923

pinguhk

it`s not just SACD that Sony did not learn, there was MD, DV DVD so on......
Sony like to invent stuff but no 1 follow there trend.
the bad thing about Sony is itis like Mac. they are not 100% fully compatable :thumbsdown: