Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Is HD-DVD dead? Read the link!!!

posted at engadget

So by now you've heard that Paramount has dropped support for Blu-ray right? Good, so has a notable Hollywood director. Michael Bay -- the man behind "Transformers," "Bad Boys," "Pear Harbor," etc. -- just threw down with Paramount in his personal blog. In a forum post titled "Paramount pisses me off!", he states, "I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For them to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks! They were progressive by having two formats. No Transformers 2 for me!" That's right Mike, aim your PS3 right at their coffers!

There's a limit to how much content there is. I mean, how many of you really watched all of the content on X2? I got really bored about halfway through the 15th iteration of the cast talking about stuff which they knew nothing--"I think the special effects in this part are really cool..."

replying to no one in particular...

To say that unconverted SD dvd is almost as good as HD is nothing more than wishful thinking. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I’m getting real tired of hearing that nonsense spoken just to validate someone’s stubbornness or whatever other reason they might have for “waiting for the war to be over”. As Michael said, “life’s too short”. Just get over it people, eat your pride and buy the dam machines. - Or don’t…. Just stop trying to convince the world that the differences are subtle……because they are not. The differences are SIGNIFICANT to point that a child can tell.

It’s not easy for me to look at my collection of 800+ dvds and know that they all SUCK in comparison to their HD/BR siblings. I have spent some serious money trying to get everything out of them that I can. I’m using a $3000 video processor with an optional $500 SDI module in it, and I’ve got $800 into an SDI modified Oppo 981. As much as I’d love to believe that my SD/DVD’s running through all that expensive hardware is “almost as good” as HD or BR, it doesn’t come close. Even the reference level DVD’s don’t hold a candle to a poorly transferred HD or BR dvd. Sorry, it ain’t happening.

To make the SD dvd’s even worse, when I watch one in a 2.35 ratio and expand that image to fill my scope screen, UGGG>>>> Not with BR or HD. Expending their image to fill the screen has NO effect on image quality.

Whatever reason a person may have for not investing in the new formats is theirs and I respect their decision. Just be honest about it and stop trying to convince the others who are sitting on the fence that the difference is anything other than what it truly is – SIGNIFICANT.

Thanks for understanding, mdrew. I've seen the HD formats and can see the difference, but I have decided that it's not worth the price I'd have to pay to get it into my home. New receiver, new player, new TV -- practically everything but the Axioms needs replacing.

That's my issue, aside from the fair use and DRM issues, which I find to be significant.

mdrew and HomeDad speak the truth. I said it before and I'll say it again (even though I got accused of blasphemy the first time): for me, the upgrade to HD content from SD (even upconverted) was many times more impressive than the upgrade from BOSE to Axiom.

Let that sink in. Remember when you all said you were hearing music for the first time with Axioms? I agree, there's notes I never heard on the old system that I now hear in my Epic 80 HT setup. It rocks.

However, if you blow up SD, or DVD, to 88" and sit 12 feet away, as I do, it leaves a lot to be desired. SD is barely watchable, to the degree that I now only do SD upstairs on a 42" set, 14 feet away. Now, on the big screen, if you pop up some HD DirecTV or HD-DVD, then you can call all the neighbors over to count the stitches on the baseball. It is revolutionary. Talk about your WOW! factor - that is it.

Netflix offers plenty of HD-DVDs and Blu Ray discs for rental purposes. Just don't everybody up and join today or my wait times will go up.

well, for my part, I have not yet plunged into the HD era, I own a 720 HD Sanyo Z5, and watch SD DVDs only. For me it looks pretty good on some DVDs...that is because I have not seen any HD content on my projector yet tho. I am looking to get an HD DVD player this Christmas probably.