Slickdeals "In The Red"

[blurayforever143]

Just a casual observation, but if anyone here browses slickdeals for good prices on Blu Rays, have you noticed that there is a post on a new HD-DVD price drop everyday, and the thread always ends up being one or two blu bloods fighting off dozens and dozens of fiesty HD-DVD supporters?
The threads always get TONS of thumbs up and reps, plus multiple pages, and posts like these can be read on a daily basis

Originally Posted by slickdealsuser Misconceptions:

HD-DVD is dead.
Well, for one, it isn't "dead". What most people are referring to is the recent decision by Warner Brothers to go exclusive to Blu Ray. Warners is the biggest distributor in Hollywood, so this decision is definitely an important one, and should be considered by anyone buying an HD-DVD player. That said, HD-DVDs are still being produced, and Toshiba isn't going to go down without a fight.

HD-DVD will be dead.
Possible. But so what? The value of these players aren't entirely in their ability to play HD-DVDs. They are also some of the best upscaling DVD players on the market. And DVDs will be the primary format for a considerable amount of time (at least a couple of years), regardless of what happens with the HD formats. Upscaling basically turns your regular DVDs into a sort of simulated High Definition. It is significantly better than the picture you would get from a regular DVD player. It isn't quite as good as an HD-DVD or Blu Ray, but it comes pretty close, and the fact that you can buy DVDs for extremely cheap now while HD-DVD/BD are still very expensive is making upscaling an increasingly popular option. A quality upscaling player costs itself in the neighborhood of $100 and doesn't come with any free movies.

It's "only" 1080i. I'm hardcore and only go for 1080p.
This isn't actually a big deal probably. For one, unless you have a really large television, you won't be able to tell the difference anyway. But even if you do have a large 1080p television, odds are the T.V. will display 1080p and 1080i the same. The difference between the two is in how they are displayed, not the actual content of the image. The "i" stands for interlaced. This means that the television displays every other line in one fraction of the second, and then displays all the other lines the next fraction of a second. The "p" stands for progressive, which means every line is displayed at the same time. However, most 1080p television also will do what they call "de-interlacing". The T.V. essentially takes the two images that the HD-DVD player tells it to display in two different fractions of a second and combines them giving you a 1080p picture. What matters more is your TV than the player

Very good post, slickdealsuser

I agree. I own Toshiba HD-A3 (1080i player) which I bought through an earlier SD deal. It does a fantastic job of upscaling the regular DVDs. They look almost HD quality. Another thing I noticed is the sound improvement. Even for regular DVDs, sound is so much better. I can hear subtle things that I never heard before with with my regular (480p) Panasonic DVD player. Also, 1080p is not really a big deal unless you have very large display. I have 42" 1080p LCD and 52" 1080i rear-projection. I hook up the HD-DVD player to both TVs and can't tell the difference.

So I'm kind of really annoyed with the site, because it's frustrating, and while I'm pretty much lurking, the guys who do post on behalf of Blu-Ray or just drop in a little message about Warner or the sales charts, they just get blasted completely. I think I might just stop browsing slickdeals..who have let the low price of HD-DVD get to them and think it's a good deal.