Holding out
I do not have any strong opinions on Tom Cruise's personal life/beliefs. If you can separate the man from the movie, MI3 is a decent summer action flick. So I picked up the SD DVD version of MI3 last night but was sort of kicking myself knowing that I will be buying the movie again in HD down the road. Will it be Blu Ray or HD-DVD, I'm not sure at this point (being a collector, I think I will always prefer a physical disc over any future download method).
Despite all the hype re: BR studio support, there aren't as many titles today on BR that I'd purchase compared to HD-DVD. Despite the BD50 capacity, the reviews, etc., I am not really convinced MPEG2 should still be used for encoding Blu Ray. It's been disconcerting to me that with all the purported benefits of BR along with the significant premium, the picture quality and features of BR has not exceeded HD-DVD. For me, the value proposition of HD-DVD is clear.. equal (and in many cases much better) picture quality, great sound at a cheaper price. The intent here is not to bash BR but I really think HD-DVD is the better deal today and will continue to be tomorrow.
With the current clearance pricing on the Toshiba HD-XA1, I've been really, really tempted. There is also a "three free HD DVD" promo going on. The glowing review on the HD-DVD version of "Batman Begins" just about pushed me over the edge. Of course I shot myself in the foot by telling Viks about the format war and now she doesn't agree on getting an HD disc player until the formar war declares a winner (doh!). But even if I had her blessing, I'm still on the fence as the HD-XA1 is a first gen unit... slow boot up time (it's essentially a HTPC), has some HDMI quirks, and supposedly has little tolerance of blemished HD-DVD discs..clearly a time to market product albeit a very respectable unit. Another barrier to entry for me is the fact that my old but faithful Sony SDP-EP9ES surround processor only has Dolby Digital (no DTS) and no analog inputs so I won't be able to listen to the newer Dolby Digital Plus / Dolby True HD soundtracks. I've been eyeing the current surround processors from Outlaw Audio that have 7.1 analog ins but I have been thinking to just wait til they or someone releases an HDMI 1.3 spec processor (I would like to have the option of having the newer surround formats decoded by the surround processor vs having the decoding performed by the HD disc player).
Watching on the sidelines since April of this year, the whole HD format war has been pretty frustrating for me. It's like David and Goliath. Back in 1997, I was an early adopter with DVD as the technology was compelling and there was no format war (Divx was never a real contender IMO). Hard to believe it's been almost 10 years since DVD was originally released (in US). With the limited release of PS3, the Sony and Pioneer BR player delays it looks like the format war is going to drag longer than I had originally thought. So it looks like I may have to wait a bit longer to avoid buyers remorse in 2007.
Despite all the hype re: BR studio support, there aren't as many titles today on BR that I'd purchase compared to HD-DVD. Despite the BD50 capacity, the reviews, etc., I am not really convinced MPEG2 should still be used for encoding Blu Ray. It's been disconcerting to me that with all the purported benefits of BR along with the significant premium, the picture quality and features of BR has not exceeded HD-DVD. For me, the value proposition of HD-DVD is clear.. equal (and in many cases much better) picture quality, great sound at a cheaper price. The intent here is not to bash BR but I really think HD-DVD is the better deal today and will continue to be tomorrow.
With the current clearance pricing on the Toshiba HD-XA1, I've been really, really tempted. There is also a "three free HD DVD" promo going on. The glowing review on the HD-DVD version of "Batman Begins" just about pushed me over the edge. Of course I shot myself in the foot by telling Viks about the format war and now she doesn't agree on getting an HD disc player until the formar war declares a winner (doh!). But even if I had her blessing, I'm still on the fence as the HD-XA1 is a first gen unit... slow boot up time (it's essentially a HTPC), has some HDMI quirks, and supposedly has little tolerance of blemished HD-DVD discs..clearly a time to market product albeit a very respectable unit. Another barrier to entry for me is the fact that my old but faithful Sony SDP-EP9ES surround processor only has Dolby Digital (no DTS) and no analog inputs so I won't be able to listen to the newer Dolby Digital Plus / Dolby True HD soundtracks. I've been eyeing the current surround processors from Outlaw Audio that have 7.1 analog ins but I have been thinking to just wait til they or someone releases an HDMI 1.3 spec processor (I would like to have the option of having the newer surround formats decoded by the surround processor vs having the decoding performed by the HD disc player).
Watching on the sidelines since April of this year, the whole HD format war has been pretty frustrating for me. It's like David and Goliath. Back in 1997, I was an early adopter with DVD as the technology was compelling and there was no format war (Divx was never a real contender IMO). Hard to believe it's been almost 10 years since DVD was originally released (in US). With the limited release of PS3, the Sony and Pioneer BR player delays it looks like the format war is going to drag longer than I had originally thought. So it looks like I may have to wait a bit longer to avoid buyers remorse in 2007.
posted by baconandeggs at 10:40 AM
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