ALL SCI-FI

[Randy]

Below is some of my collection of movies and series in HD-DVD format. I prefer the video quality of HD-DVD over Blu-ray. I am heart-broken that HD-DVD lost the war with Blu-ray. If you ever get the chance to see a movie such as Forbidden Planet or Dune in HD-DVD, you will see a more colorful, sharper and smoother picture.

By the way, you cannot play HD-DVD discs on a Blu-ray player.

[Pye-Rate]

I agree with you HD-DVD was better. The advantage to Blue Ray is that it is at the beginning of it's development cycle and has room to improve.

[Brent Gair]

I was an early supporter of HD DVD and I still have about 40 HD DVD discs. When the format was drawing to a close, I even bought an extra player (which I still have) for future use! Nobody could accuse me of bias against HD DVD.

One further advantage of HD DVD was the lack of region coding so HD DVDs from anywhere in the world would play on all HD DVD machines. Blu-ray has region coding although there are a good number of region free discs that will play anywhere.

That being said, HD DVD had some serious limitations which would have been almost impossible to overcome.

The biggest problem was disc capacity. This is not a problem that could have just been "developed away". The physical data paths were bigger. This was an actual physical limitation like having wide grooves on and LP. You could only fit so much on a layer of disc and once you get past two layers, problems go up exponentially. The paths had to be of a larger size because of the limitations of the red laser used to read them.

Like Blu-ray (and plain DVD for that matter), HD DVD came in single and dual-layer discs. The HD DVDs held 15GB (single layer) and 30GB (dual-layer) respectively. Blu-ray Discs hold 25GB (single layer) and 50GB (dual layer) respectivley.

That makes it difficult to fit a number of major movies on HD DVD without excessive compression.

For example, THE RIGHT STUFF runs for 3 hours and 12 minutes. The feature alone (excluding extras) takes up 44GB which significantly exceeds the capacity of HD-DVD. THE BLUE MAX takes up 43GB of disc space, WHITE CHRISTMAS takes 33GB for the feature but includes almost 12GB of extras and uses 45GB of disc space. Blu-ray makes quality double features possible with more than one movie on a disc...like THUNDERBIRS ARE GO and THUNDERBIRD 6 which are about 20GB each and both fit together on one, dual layer Blu-ray Disc.

Those movies now represent the norm, not the exception. Most HD movies come on dual layer BDs and, with extras, often use 40GB. Just 2 days ago I watched THE NIGHT PORTER...34GB feature with almost 10GB of extras...a 44GB disc.

Given the use of the red laser and large data paths, HD DVD was a format that just didn't have room to grow.

[Randy]

Not to disagree with your debate on disc capacity, HD-DVD licensed anti-aliasing technology used on the video which smooths the "jagged edges" which not only "smooths" the video image, but also decreases the file size without reducing the resolution. Therefore the video was cleaned of rough edges, unlike the Blu-ray video, and it's resultant file size compared very closely with a larger Blu-ray file size at the same resolution.

I have software which will directly convert an HD-DVD (.evo) video file to a .m2ts stream file (without re-rendering) which will then allow the .evo file to be played on a Blu-ray player. The differences between the HD-DVD video and the commercial Blu-ray version of the same video become apparent when both are played on the same Blu-ray player.

I have sent a copy of the HD-DVD version of "Aeon Flux" and others to Bud Brewster. The HD-DVD version with anti-aliasing is sharper and the colors are richer then the commercial Blu-ray. The same can be said for "Forbidden Planet".

I have to end this with one note:

These differences are only apparent to a video fanatic.
The ordinary viewer might not notice or even care as both formats are excellent.

(The difference is much more noticeable when up converted to 4K and viewed on my 60" 4K Television)

[Brent Gair]

[Randy]

Ahh ... beauty is always in the eye of the beholder ...

Everyone appreciates that which pleases their own eyes ...

No two eyes are alike ...


But one thing is for sure ... My dog is better than your dog cuz he eats Kennel-Ration!

[Brent Gair]