HD-DVD and Blu Ray Disc - All They're Cracked Up to Be? By Steve Faber

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Disc – Ready for Prime Time?

The promise is terrific; An image you could get up and walk right into, and audio so good you can’t tell it from the real thing. As with so many things, however, the reality is a bit different. Reports are rampant of Blu-Ray not living up to the hype in the picture quality department and HD-DVD experiencing a myriad of usability issues. Is it true? Are the new high definition disc formats and players not the greatest thing to hit the consumer electronics market since sliced bread? Most important, should you pick one up to slide under the tree this holiday season?

First of all, much of the above is true. HD-DVD does look fantastic. I’ve had the pleasure of spending plenty of time watching a variety of movies from a Toshiba HD-XA1 HD-DVD player. They do look fantastic, even on a screen as large as the 123” diagonal Stewart I get to view them on. Having a really nice, 3-chip DLP for a projector doesn’t hurt either. The sound is just as nice as the image. Superb.

I love high quality video, but as much as I’m head over heels in love with the superior picture and sound quality offered by the HD-DVD player, I don’t know if I’d be able to put up with the usability uh, issues, of the players. The Toshiba player is basically a Pentium 4 box running embedded Linux. The time required to boot up when you press the ‘on’ button can be maddeningly long. I’ve seen it take up to a minute just to get the thing turned on. After you get that far, just hope you don’t want to change chapters, because chapter skip functions can take another 20 – 30 seconds.

The worst part is the problems the player seems to have with HDMI / HDCP issues. Sometimes the player will lapse into a fond remembrance of days gone by and just seem to drift away into it’s own little world. You’ll eventually get an indication on the front panel display of one of several HDMI errors, whereupon you’ll have to reboot the player, your TV / projector, or both. Don’t worry though, it usually only happens when you switch inputs or inadvertently turn something off. Some of these issues have been improved by updating the player’s firmware, although be careful when doing so, as there have been reports of players being crippled during the process.

Blu-Ray players don’t seem to have quite so many usability issues, although the only player in wide release has been the Samsung unit, untill the release this week of the Sony PS3. They do, however have a software glitch that causes the image to appear noticeably soft. You don’t get the crisp, clear 1080p image you’d expect. Supposedly, a fix is in the works, however. In addition, there should be a wider variety of players appearing as well, although Pioneer just announced a slight delay in the shipment of their Blu-Ray disc player.

If you do take the plunge, however, you can, when everything’s finally sorted out, to be very impressed by the HD image you’ll now be watching.

Steve has 15 yrs in custom electronics. He is a CEDIA certified designer with ISF and THX certificates. His experience includes: installer and programmer; system designer; business unit director for an a/v importer; sales rep for a CE distributor; and principal of a $1.5M+ CEDIA firm. He's now senior sales engineer for Digital Cinema Design in Redmond, WA. Go to Home Theater Design for a complete guide with news, "how to" articles, CES and CEDIA reports, and a forum.

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