My thoughts on the HD DVD demo tour

[zombie]

I went to the HD DVD demonstration at American TV in Waukesha, WI this morning and FWIW, here's my thoughts on the matter:

They had the $799 unit hooked up to a 1080p Toshiba that was $6999. When I first walked in the split screen HD DVD/DVD comparison was on. They showed a few images and a narrator explained the difference in clarity. For my eyes, the differences were minimal and I was less than impressed. Then the Toshiba guy came over and started talking to me. We watched the split screen together and he kept saying "amazing picture" over and over. I asked if I could see the movie clips and he changed the disc title. First was a trailer for Dukes Of Hazzard which looked decent but still not impressive. Then he played a clip from Corpse Bride. That started to get my attention. I've been very curious as to how much better animated material can look in HD over SD. It looked very nice. Then was the Kong trailer - WOW! The level of detail was superb! I was now as impressed as I think I could have been. I immediately wondered why the split screen wasn't as impressive. Anyway, I asked if the rep knew when Universal and Paramount would give street dates for their launch titles. He grabbed a printout from hdtvmagazine.com that was just the same old list without dates that we've all already seen. He told me that about 40 movies would be available when the player goes on sale on 3/28. I bit my tongue on that one. He asked what I thought of the demo and I told him the Kong trailer looked great but the rest was just okay. I thanked him for taking time to talk to me and left. In summary, the Kong trailer proved to me that HD can definitely look great on HD DVD. I hope a Blu-ray tour is forthcoming.

[Marwin]

Thanks for sharing

[monodc]

Very interesting indeed.
Seeing as it was HD DVD, it must have been 720p or 1080i, right? If it was the latter, did you see any tearing from the interlacing? I have seen horrible examples of how interlacing can mess up a movie. This is one of the reasons I have wholeheartedly sided with the Blu-ray camp; to get the full 1080 progressive scan.

[Knight-Errant]

Originally Posted by monodc

Very interesting indeed.
Seeing as it was HD DVD, it must have been 720p or 1080i, right? If it was the latter, did you see any tearing from the interlacing? I have seen horrible examples of how interlacing can mess up a movie. This is one of the reasons I have wholeheartedly sided with the Blu-ray camp; to get the full 1080 progressive scan.

Agreed, no more jagged edges for me.

[zombie]

Originally Posted by monodc

Very interesting indeed.
Seeing as it was HD DVD, it must have been 720p or 1080i, right? If it was the latter, did you see any tearing from the interlacing? I have seen horrible examples of how interlacing can mess up a movie. This is one of the reasons I have wholeheartedly sided with the Blu-ray camp; to get the full 1080 progressive scan.

I did not see any problems with interlacing. The Toshiba rep said some of the content was 720p and some was 1080i. I remember him saying how good the picture was even during fast motion - he was indeed correct on this matter.

[Digital Filmmaker]

I recently attented one of the Toshiba demos of HD-DVD.

I thought the picture was acceptable in most cases.

However, I noticed some severe contouring when it came to displaying subtle gradients. This was most noticeable in the King Kong trailer, with the blue skies, clouds, fog, and even the spotlight against black behind the names on the credit screens. This is usually associated with a bit rate that is not high enough to properly render the gradients with smooth tones. This artifact can be seen on DVD titles that are encoded in a lower bit rate.

I sincerely hope that this phenomena will be addressed with the Blu-ray camp and the fact that Blu-ray is capable of a 50% higher bit rate than HD-DVD.

The Toshiba sales rep was definitely dealing with a scripted presentation, as he was not capable of answering any question that deviated too far from his presentation material. He did admit, though, that HD-DVD was incapable of outputting a 1080P signal - something that the Blu-ray camp has stated will be available with their format.

Overall, I was impressed with the picture quality. It certainly looked better than standard definition DVD's. But, I was disappointed with some of the encoding and compression artifacts that were often distracting (at least to me).

I'll still put my money on Blu-ray. At the demos I've already seen of that format over the past few years, I do not recall the noticing the type of artifacts I just saw exhibited on the Toshiba demo. Or, at the very least, I'll go with one of the multi-format combi players that LG has announced.

[zombie]

Welcome to the forum Digital Filmmaker and thanks for sharing your thoughts on the demo. I'm admittedly not a technical minded person but from what I saw the Kong trailer looked the best of the lot. Seems you were able to pick out flaws in it as well. I certainly hope you are right and that Blu-ray uses their extra capacity to provide higher bitrates with crisper pictures, free of artifacts and the like. There's more potential for BD but it remains to be seen if they'll take advantage of it.

[Knight-Errant]

The higher bitrate means that it will be much more possible to avoid severe artefacting. I'm glad because its something I notice too.

[AV_Integrated]

I also went to the HD-DVD Road Tour last week at Myer-Emco in Fairfax, VA.

I was incredibly underwhelmed. Far moreso than I expected to be. Trying to keep an open mind, it may very well have been as much the fault of the Toshiba display as it was the source material, but there was no question in my mind that the video was subpar. Even questionable as to how they found that material acceptable for a kick off show.

The side-by-side comparison actually had the best video I thought of the entire presentation. Yes, the SD feed they specifically said was comparible to analog cable or the lower digital satellite channels - NOT DVD! - It was a much better demo than anything else they showed.

Yet, when the trailers started, and I got past the rainbows of the Toshiba 1080p DLP, I was impressed, but not floored. Almost all scenes had some minor anti-aliasing issues, some had severe issues. The video did not have the high contrast, vivid color punch that OTA HD broadcasts have. In fact, it looked to be a half step up from DVD at best. It definitely looked worse than broadcast/cable HD!

This was unacceptable in my opinion as the bit rate was supposed to be 2x what OTA HDTV delivers!!! The images should have simply blown everyone away and I didn't get the feeling that anyone really was blown away. Very little was said about the audio... and when questioned about the actual source content I was told that the material that would be on the discs would be 1080i, not 1080p - though nailing down a solid answer on this seems next to impossible.

They did point out that there was a section on the player that did not have a light behind it that said 1080p. They said they had no idea if that was potentially for that player to support it through a firmware upgrade (doubtful) or perhaps the same case would be used on an upgraded model (more likely). Either way, without 1080p soure material, a lot of scaling and changing needs to occur inside the player to really allow it to shine.

I have always favored Blu-Ray and 1080p... But, I also have always favored Playstation over X-Box... The X-Box 360 blows me away as being a great looking and well performing product and nobody is wasting their cash. There, I said it. The Toshiba HD-DVD? I would not recommend it yet. I would most DEFINITELY wait. It doesn't excite me as it should - not at all. It disappoints above all else as it really should be delivering content that bests OTA HD.

I will wait to see some Blu-Ray gear, then make a decision towards the end of this year. But, if Toshiba doesn't step things up a bit they will go down on quality issues alone. If I bought any of those movies and they had the quality they previewed I would return everything and stick with DVD forever.

[zombie]

Thanks for your thoughts on the demo AV_Integrated. I agree that this demo was no where near as impressive as it should have been if they really want to convert the masses to their format.