[UK] Xbox 360 HD-DVD -- cheap!

I just picked up the HD-DVD player for Xbox 360 for a mere £19.99 at Gamestation in Dundee, for anyone interested in cheap HD action -- brand new, boxed with remote control and all leads. (Actually, it was [as an option] £24.99 with a choice of 2 HD-DVDs <= £7.99, and most of them are £7.99.)

Although officially now the Betamax of Hi-Def video, there are still loads of great HD-DVD movies available*, and they're dirt cheap on the HMV web site as well as on DVD.co.uk -- £6.95 each or 2 for £10 -- plus Amazon, Ebay, etc. My brother's used all of these and built up quite a nice collection.

I finally bought a HD TV recently, and a Blu-Ray player is out of the question for now, so this will do nicely in the meantime.

[ * Some of which are reviewed here: http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/reviews_alpha.html ]

Just thought I'd mention for anyone in the same boat. I chose Blade Runner and The Bourne Supremacy but it wasn't until I started playing Bourne that I remembered that's the one I didn't really like much... doh!

I've thought about this, but can't be bothered to be honest, is hd-dvd really that much better than normal dvd?

The fact that the HD-DVD format is out the window too. Are microsoft/game devs still putting games on that format? (apparently the HD-DVD format was supposed to be superior to the Blu-Ray)

Could be a collectors item in the future though!

Yep, like betamax. ;)

The HD-DVD addon was strictly for HD-DVD films only Ross, so no, it's essentially useless unless there are enough titles available as-is that are of your interest.


At any rate, from what I've seen of HD-formats, the only films that really benefit from the higher resolution are animated films. Although I assume it won't be much longer before live-action picks up in quality as more studios get higher-definition equipment available to film for the format, rather than just upscaling the results and hope the better compression on the HD-DVD/BluRay formats will do the trick.
(which you won't notice anyways unless you got a large TV)

I wonder what happens when games get too big for a dvd then?

Disc-swap them like we did with CDs.
(Lost Odyssey on the 360 is 4 DVDs iirc)

blu-rays are probably going to replace HD-DVDs soon. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu_ray

they have

Not so. Traditional 3dmm film stock is already "high definition". Lesser/cheaper film stock (for example 16mm) and digital video (for example digibeta and betacam) are not. But of course, these aren't used by major film studios - they're pretty much restricted to cash strapped film students, impoverished startup studios, and cheap TV companies.

as long as the film is kept clean its amazing how crisp it can look in the cinema on a screen that big ... but sadly it sometimes takes a few screenings for the dust to get in due to slapdash workmanship (im not saying the projection booth should be turned into a dust free environment and the projectionist wear a full on body suit with air tank)

if a normal DVD was capable of storing HD movies how short would it become, 20 mins?

and some early independant dvd releases were just video transfers and not film transfers so they never bothered to get a higher res better quality cleaner scan

my sainsburys bought medion* pc still has thier website as my home page, they are selling via aldi a dual HD drive, which is sensible for those that chose HD-DVD over blu-ray and now have films theyve paid for and want to watch again without having to rebuy on blu-ray once they sidegrade to the other player

*id never heard of em either but it was better value than going to phisshy wurld and i got nectar points too

Microsoft has payed a lizens for BR ..any questions?

bye

yes where did you learn to spell ;)

i read that they were thinking of blu-ray but seeing as it was only for movies and possibly an external drive (unless they were making an elite super extreme model with one built in) why bother

ps3 uses the media for game discs too even if they dont fill a dvds worth
360 will due to the internal drive as is only ever use dvd for games

so perhaps you "could" buy a blu ray for your xbox would you want to?

me im still happy with dvd for videos ... they are way cheaper than either HD format (unless reduced to clear) and im not going to rebuy my extensive library again especially as not all movies are re encoded/scanned or whatever to be HD but are just normal DVD quality upscaled to fit ... which is a bit of a cheek really

One springs to mind. Where do you get your information from? This story from yesterday has them denying it again.

http://www.gameshout.com/microsoft/still_says_no_way_to_blu_ray/article2479.htm

I'm pretty certain that 360 will end up with bluray. Bluray is probably the PS3's one stand out feature that rates it higher than the 360. The 360 typicaly has the better games, especially third party.

So far I havent bought a console simply because the one I want doesn't play blu ray, and I can't justify spending money on a machine purely for playing games.

The 360 does have bluray planned, but this idea is a great one. My mate at work said the same thing, and it makes good sense, especially if you've got a good DVD collection and you're not going to be replacing the whole lot with HD - so you can get just a handful of your favourites dirt cheap. I'm just about to buy a nice HD telly and a 360, so this suggestion is exactly what I'm going to do.

A lot of the live action titles look poor because they have just upscaled their old beta masters, rather than striking a crisp new print and rescanning it in HD. 35mm is at maybe twice as sharp as HD so if it's done properly, a live action HD title would look fantastic.

Yay! Someone got my point!

tbh i dont think id bother with HD movies even if they were given away in boxes of cornflakes, unless they can prove they are not just upscaled dvd mpegs but clean crips remasters whats the point
ill only buy em when i migrate (by force) and then only buy new movies not ones i own (assuming they dont force non playback of dvds that is)

Is there an independent HD movie review site which has this kind of detail?

The review site in the first post goes into quite some detail regarding the picture quality of each movie:

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/reviews_alpha.html