technology Second-hand HD DVD player and discs in 2022!

[Katie Cadet 90]

Hello fellow bronies!

I've recently acquired a Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player from a local thrift store and got two movies on HD DVD Combo Format: The Break-up (2006) and Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007).

While Blu-ray is so popular that everyone loved that format, HD DVD never got the same treatment. It was short lived for two years.

I wrote a blog post discussing about why I'm not getting an Xbox 360 external drive for HD DVD's here:

https://katiecadettech.wordpress.com/2022/09/04/why-i-am-not-getting-an-xbox-360-hd-dvd-external-drive/

I've also programmed a universal remote control for my HD DVD player and put it into my 4k Home theatre for future enjoyment. (I still have that PlayStation 3 lying around for my Blu-ray's.)

Anyways, does anyone else remember HD DVD back in the late 2000s? If you do, feel free to talk about it!

[Brony Number 42 9,933]

A couple years ago I got a HD DVD player from Japan (I can't check what model right now). I have a few movies. I do have the Xbox 360 player but I never used it. I also have some HD DVD RW discs, but no drive to burn them. You never know when you might need to make a HD DVD.

[zerox 1,050]

I remember the HD DVD and the format war with Sony's Blu-ray. I own an external Blu-ray drive and have some discs because I live in country where the selection of digital movies / TV shows etc is quite slim. I want to buy movies and stuff on Amazon video or Google Play and when I want to buy something I get greeted by a message saying: sorry this title isn't available in your region. I can buy physical copies of movies on Amazon but I can't buy digital stuff because I'm in the wrong region. God I hate geoblocking.

Edited September 6, 2022 by zerox

[Brony Number 42 9,933]

@zerox DVD and Bluray are digital.  You can get a VPN and set it to different countries.

[Props Valroa 26,050]

When I was younger, we would use DVD and VHS tapes all the time. I am old enough to remember when VHS tapes were the norm, at least in my household. 

[zerox 1,050]

Moments ago, Patriotic Brony 42 said:

@zerox DVD and Bluray are digital.  You can get a VPN and set it to different countries.

I know and know about VPN but I'm not prepared to waste my time just because I can't officially buy stuff. If they won't sell me stuff the easy way will I'm just going to stick with buying physical stuff.

[Pentium100 2,057]

I never had a HD-DVD player and I only a few years ago got a Bluray drive for my HTPC, though I don't have many discs (I prefer buying movies on laserdisc or downloading them).

[Katie Cadet 90]

4 hours ago, zerox said:

I remember the HD DVD and the format war with Sony's Blu-ray.

 

[Splashee 28,537]

7 hours ago, Katie Cadet said:

Anyways, does anyone else remember HD DVD back in the late 2000s? If you do, feel free to talk about it!

I remember "borrowing" Terminator 2 Judgment Day Director's Cut that originated from a HD DVD........

What I care most about is quality, like audio being non-lossless. CDs were perfect since they kept things simple (even if they were only 44.1 kHZ). DVDs and the later stuff always went for the MPEG compression, and that isn't preserving quality in my opinion.

[Katie Cadet 90]

8 hours ago, zerox said:

I own an external Blu-ray drive and have some discs because I live in country where the selection of digital movies / TV shows etc is quite slim.

I too own a couple of LG Blu-ray drives with OWC Mercury Pro enclosures for my 2017 iMac 4K and my Custom Built Ryzen 5 Windows 10 PC.

 

7 hours ago, Pentium100 said:

(I prefer buying movies on laserdisc or downloading them)

Yeah, Laserdiscs! The best analog way of watching movies! I actually own a Sony MDP-333 and a Pioneer CLD-990 along with a bundle of North American movies and Hong Kong Karaoke music titles.

4 hours ago, Splashee said:

What I care most about is quality, like audio being non-lossless. CDs were perfect since they kept things simple (even if they were only 44.1 kHZ). DVDs and the later stuff always went for the MPEG compression, and that isn't preserving quality in my opinion.

Just like vinyl records and 15 IPS reel-to-reel tapes accurately reproduce the highest resolution of sound in an analog sense, Blu-ray's and HD DVD's offer 192 kHz 24-bit audio on Uncompressed LPCM, DTS-HD Master Audio, and Dolby TrueHD surround sound formats in a lossless manner. To accurately reproduce 35mm, 70mm, or IMAX film transfers on a digital high-definition video disc, 1080p or 4K would suffice depending on the variation of the Blu-ray format (HD DVD is stuck on 1080p). If that's true, then we were on the same boat in the videophile and audiophile market the way we listen to music and watch movies back in the day, e.g. the 1970's, or when we watched movies in a theatre, and the quality was better than a home video release of the time. I also have a FiiO M3K portable music player which handles anything from low-quality MP3 to high-resolution FLAC or DSD for my music library.

Of course for Laserdiscs, it is analog video at 480i. (VHS is even lower at 240p)

Some DVD's offer DTS 5.1 Surround Sound, but earlier releases have a full bitrate compared to the ones released after 1999. DTS Laserdiscs are full bitrate, but mastered for Audio CD's.

[Pentium100 2,057]

16 hours ago, Katie Cadet said:

Of course for Laserdiscs, it is analog video at 480i. (VHS is even lower at 240p)

VHS and Laserdisc are both 480i (or 576i for PAL), the difference is the horizontal resolution.

[Katie Cadet 90]

I also got Superman Returns on HD DVD recently, which is a Warner Bros title.

The two copies of The Bourne Identity on HD DVD would definitely make a good comparison to my Standard Blu-ray and 4k Ultra-HD Blu-ray copies that I have in my movie collection of different formats! (Also for the Bourne Ultimatum, except I don't have the Standard Blu-ray to go along with it.)

Just to note on the Bourne films, the English audio track on the HD DVDs has a lower quality Dolby Digital Plus codec, whereas the 4k Ultra-HD Blu-rays has a lossless DTS:X codec with a DTS-HD Master Audio core (and a standard DTS core for older AVR's), which goes to show that the audio quality is significantly better on the UHD than the HD DVD. (I have the Bourne Identity on both 2002 and 2004 Extended DVDs, and the earlier release has a 768kb/s DTS 5.1 track on there as well! Often times, DTS on DVD's sound more open on the rears, but sounds a little more compressed than Dolby Digital, and some people prefer the former.)

When you jump from HD DVD to 4k Ultra-HD Blu-ray, the picture quality would show more detail even on the latest 4k TV's than the HD DVD. (1080p vs 2160p)

I played the HD DVD on the Toshiba HD-A2 and the 4k disc on the Sony UBP-X800M2 of the same Bourne Identity film, and I can really tell what's going on with the quality differences between the two.

[Katie Cadet 90]

Well, it's been a while! 2023 brought some new titles that I haven't heard of before courtesy of thrift stores.

Brokeback Mountain is one of the first acquisitions of HD DVD movies from a local thrift store of this year during the month of June. A month later, David Chapelle's comedy about weed, Half Baked, is another acquisition that I got from another local thrift store. August was a biggie, as it contained Happy Feet, Batman Begins, and King Kong, the latter two were bundled with the Xbox 360 HD DVD player in the Americas.

I actually have Happy Feet and the Bourne Identity on both HD DVD and Blu-ray sourced from various local thrift stores so that I can compare the differences in sound and picture quality on my Sony PlayStation 4 Pro, Sony PlayStation 3 Super Slim and Sony UBP-X800M2 for the Blu-ray, and the Toshiba HD-A2 for the HD DVD. Early Warner Brothers titles have the HD DVD's audio in lossless Dolby TrueHD, whereas sometimes on their Blu-ray releases, they use a lossy Dolby Digital track at 640 kbps. Universal Blu-ray titles far surpass the audio quality of HD DVD with lossless DTS-HD Master Audio compared to the HD DVD's lossy Dolby Digital Plus.

As of September 2023, the two new titles of this month are Breach, and the family film of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

We will see if the month of October brings HD DVD's, since the thrift stores in my area do have some donations from time to time, but they are mostly Blu-ray focused these days...

[ZiggWheelsManning 7,371]

@Katie Cadet  What's the picture quality for King Kong?  Is it the Jim Carey Grinch movie?  Wow, Happy Feet!  

[Katie Cadet 90]

Moments ago, ZiggWheelsManning said:

@Katie Cadet  What's the picture quality for King Kong?  Is it the Jim Carey Grinch movie?  Wow, Happy Feet!  

Good for the King Kong HD DVD.

The Grinch Christmas film on HD DVD is the 2000 Jim Carrey version.

[ZiggWheelsManning 7,371]

@Katie Cadet  Wanting to know more of Breach