Demise Of HD DVD
As a consumer who purchased a Toshiba HD-A3 HD DVD Player for Christmas for myself, I have mixed feelings about Toshiba’s announcement that it will no longer manufacture stand-alone HD DVD players. On the one hand, I am glad to see an end to the high-definition optical disc format war. But, on the other hand, HD DVD players are and were considerably cheaper than Blu-ray Disc players. I purchased my HD-A3 player for $270 Canadian on December 19. Fortunately, the price at the national Canadian electronics and computer chain, FutureShop, dropped within 30 days of my purchase to only $170. They honoured their policy of refunding me the difference of $100 in the price, so that I ended up paying only $170 for the HD DVD Player. Blu-ray Disc players were on sale at the lowest price of $400, along with the Sony PlayStation®3, at Christmas at the same time. But, that was just simply too much for my limited budget. Now with the format war being officially over, I am afraid that the prices of Blu-ray Disc players are going to go up somewhat (maybe only about $200 or so) before they come down to about $300 or less, which would bring them within my price range. I do not see myself likely being able to afford to get a Blu-ray Disc player before Christmas and only if the prices come down to below $400. I am not alone in this. Consumers will not widely adopt high-definition optical discs on mass until the prices come down to at least about $300 or even $200. If that takes another year or two, that will slow the sale of the players and the discs. I do hope to make enough money to be able to purchase a Blu-ray Disc player before Christmas. But, for many consumers, they may still wait until 2009 when the prices will, hopefully, come down to the $300 range. From what I have seen of Blu-ray Discs played on 1080p LCD televisions of 37 inches or larger, the picture does seem to be clearer than HD DVD, but it is not clear if the difference is due to seeing better LCD TVs in stores than my Sharp “basic” 720p 32-inch LCD TV than to the superiority of Blu-ray Disc format over HD DVDs. The quality of the picture of the fifth season of Smallville on HD DVD is stunning and amazing. Today, I watched American Gangster on HD DVD, and the picture quality was noticeably better than Elizabeth: The Golden Age on HD DVD. I was disappointed that the latter picture quality on HD DVD was not much better than the standard DVD version.
My Toshiba HD-A3 HD DVD player does such a good job of upconverting standard DVDs that HD DVDs are not as much better in picture quality that I would have thought that they should be. Most standard DVDs look almost as good as HD DVDs. Elizabeth: The Golden Age looked almost as good on standard DVD as on HD DVD. But, the superior quality of HD DVD over standard DVD was really evident in the HD DVD version of American Gangster. So, I do not feel that my purchase of my HD DVD player was a waste of money. I can use it to play the few HD DVDs that are available for rent or of movies only available on HD DVD and standard DVD because of its excellent upconverting performance of standard DVDs. But, I look forward to getting a Blu-ray Disc player when I can afford to.
Tyler Barnes, Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada
Editor-In-Chief and Publisher Gary Reber Comments:
There are numerous factors that contribute to the picture quality seen on both DVD and HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases, such as the quality of the source elements, the codec used after the film-to-video transfer on the high-definition disc, and the overall mastering quality. These are the factors that we review in every issue of Widescreen Review.
Bottom line is both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc have the means to deliver exceptional picture and sound quality, but it is the preparation ahead of the replication of the discs that really determines final quality.
I hope that prices on Blu-ray Disc players and discs do continue to spiral down to become affordable to the masses, while at the same time raising the performance expectation of the format.
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