Is Warner’s Hybrid “Total HD” Disc Dead?

[JazzGuyy]

Warner is merely trying to save some money. Why set up (probably expensive) production facilities when the war looks like it's nearing some sort of deciding point. Waiting around an extra few months, especially after the holiday sales period, will give Warner an opportunity to see if it makes economic sense to produce the discs.

[TheMoose]

To me this was good news, I thought the Total HD disc wouldn't do anything but prolong the format war & confuse Joe Six Pack even more.
The quicker one format admits it's lost & leaves the battlefield the better it will be for the consumer.

[LindaE]

This is an interesting development......

Maybe the dual sided DVDs were to expensive to produce right now because of the low number of disc sales they are projecting. With the format war undecided and until the players come down in price people in no hurry to purchase either one of them, so the number of discs they can expect to sell is relatively small right now.

I agree that in either format the picture is superior to the DVD players we have today at any price. My guess is that I will pick up a Samsung BD-P1200 before to long.


LindaE
Tablet PC 2 - The Latest Comparisons, Reviews, Software, Accessories

[westcott]

Originally Posted by HiDefBob

I would never purchase a cheapo ($199) HD player! The PQ would almost assuredly will be inferior to my high end ($X000) regular DVD player which gives a picture far superior to 90% of the DVD players on the market today! Friends are always remarking on the PQ on my system. You get what you pay for. An "El Crapo" HD player is going to produce crappy PQ! But it seems most people don't really care!

Sorry to tell you this Bob but the new players strutting the latest Teranex video chips using Silicon Optix Reon HQV processors are at the top of the heap right now. The BDP1200 and the HDXA2 outperform just about every other DVD player made displaying SD programming and HD material.

DVD Benchmark

[HiDefBob]

I also think alot depends on how good the mastering is on either HD DVD or Blu-ray. Same with regular DVD. There are many excellent examples and many poor ones.

I have seen a demo Blu-ray disc playing on Pioneer's Blu-ray player viewed on a 50" Pioneer Elite Pro FHD1 plasma ... the picture detail was absolutely breathtaking. But I don't expect to find that quality on many movie discs. There has already been one Blu-ray movie remastered and re-issued due to complaints from buyers.

[HiDefBob]

The Home Theater Dealer where I buy most of my equipment claim they have compared a $2000 Blu-ray player against the Classé CDT-300 - UNIVERSAL DISC TRANSPORT and the Classé DVD player won hands down. They are all very knowledgeable sales people who have been in the business for years. They sell some of the best and most expensive equipment on the market. So I am not about to quickly dismiss their claims (I have not bothered to make the comparison myself because the CDT-300 is a little out of my price range).

Maybe the movies they compared were among those that were poorly mastered. I cannot say. However, it is not all about resolution. I own a professional Digital Camera ... it does not have the highest resolution of those on the market, but in other areas it out performs the higher resolution cameras. You have to look at color accuracy, shadow detail, etc, etc.