Anyone Else Finding SD-DVD lacking after life with HD DVD/Blu-ray? (1 Viewer)

[Jason Harbaugh]

It is getting harder and harder. I think I only bought 3 or 4 DVD's in the last 2 years compared to a couple hundred each year prior. Now that I've had Blu-ray for a couple months I'm glad I made that choice. DVD's just aren't what they used to be and I find it hard to watch movies on DVD. Heck I used to think VHS looked pretty darn good.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I'm with you.

after watching Happy Feet on BD, I find it even hard to watch "reference" animated DVDs like Nemo and Toy Story... because I *know* how much smoother, detailed, and silky they could be.

I still enjoy DVD because with most titles I have no choice. But I'm not bying ANY new DVDs except in rare cases where the disc is not likely to emerge in HD for years to come... and I'm slowly revolving my SD content in favor of HD-resolution.

dave

 

[DaViD Boulet]

BTW, If anyone wants to sell their old SD DVDs to make some $$ to help offset new BD/HD DVD purchasing, I use Amazon.com. It's painless... no need to deal with paypal or anything at all... customers buy your disc, you ship, and amazon puts the money right into your bank account or credit-card account. Easy.

 

[Paul Arnette]

^Amazon's fee are a little too hefty for my tastes. I use either Half.com secondspin.com or trade them into DVD Planet. Needless to say, there are many ways to skin that cat.

 

[Shane Martin]

Ron,
I plan to sell them if the existing HD release has the same special features. For releases like Master and Commander where Fox is going to release a bare bones BR disc, I'll keep the multi disc SE around for the extras.

For the discs that I don't deem necessary to upgrade to HD this quickly, I'll wait until prices come down more on HD material to swap those out.

 

[Chris Gerhard]

I have no problem at all watching DVD and I have both Blu-ray and HD DVD. DVD is really a great value with a terrific selection and I don't think either next generation format, or both combined for that matter, will ever be used as much as I use DVD.

Chris

 

[Jack Gilvey]

Of course...not finding it lacking means there's no improvement from HD. I haven't watched/bought an SD title since I got my A2. No real reason to, there hasn't been anything that's come out since that I've wanted to see that hasn't been on HD DVD. I tend not to watch movies over and over, and the releases on HD DVD have kept us more than busy.

 

[Ryan-G]

I completely stopped buying and watching SD-DVD's. The difference is too much for me.

Now I just add new titles I want to see to my little DVD.doc file so I don't have to try to remember everything, and wait to buy BR later this year. Then I'll get to see all those movies

(So no one takes the post the wrong way, already have the HD-DVD add-on, not being Format-warish here.)

 

[Yumbo]

Somebody try watching You Got Served lately? That's some cold water right there.

 

[Ron-P]

Yep, me too. I've got a stack of SD's ready to sell, just haven't done so yet.

 

[Andrew Bunk]

Between newly purchased and rented Blu-Ray's and HD-DVD's, and significant HD content from my cable provider (including all 6 SW films saved on my DVR in 1080!), I find I haven't watched much non-TV DVD in a while. Not say I never will again, but I'm still trying to get through all the HD content I haven't seen yet.

Just added to the pile this week with Eternal Sunshine, Deja Vu, Night at the Museum, Secret Window and Planet Earth.

May is going to be worse!

 

[Dan M]

i have a box full of old dvd's ready for sale also. I was planning to just haul them to the local record store and sell them for cash.... need a bigger box though

 

[Chris S]

I'm still finding it hard to part with my older SD titles even though I've upgraded them. There is just something about having all those extras that didn't make it over to the HD release that keeps me hanging onto them.

 

[BrettGallman]

I've given most of my SD releases to my brother. Because of this, he looks forward to me upgrading to HD on many releases almost as much as I do.

 

[King Jeff]

A lot of times watching non-HD content on an HDTV is painful. No one else seems to notice it though. When my Children of Men HD-DVD combo kept freezing as my friends were watching it with me, I didn't reveal to them that there was a normal DVD on the other side because I just didn't want to watch the SD version. I only watch my favorite movies on SD that aren't out yet such as Heat (coming in 2008), Scarface (when is this coming out?), and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (only on HD-DVD in Spain).

 

[Rhoq]

No. To be honest I was very skeptical of he impact that upscaling would have on SD DVD when played on my HD-A2. After watching a few DVDs on this player, I am now a believer.

I am more than impressed with how good upscaling makes SD DVD look.

 

[Paul_Scott]

It depends. I recently bought Casino Royale on sd, after contemplating and then discarding the notion of buying a bd player (just yet). Earlier in the day I had seen the Bd version playing in-store on a smaller display, but I could easily see all the hallmarks of the higher resolution as far as fine detail and just the general precision in the image. When I spun the sd later that night I was VERY disappointed in the quality of the image. But I feel what I was seeing was NOT a limitation of SD...It was specifically how Sony chose to present this film on SD. Detail was obviously filtered from the image, and replaced with ringing.
In contrast, I remember renting out things like Underworld: Evolution and POTC: DMC (both on sd) and being very impressed in their presentations.
Just compare DMC to TCOTBP and you can see that SD resolution is not neccessarily the culprit in making for a watchable image.

But in general I understand when you say its like taking a bottle of windex and wiping off the screen. I've felt the same way, many times...
But on the other hand, I would much rather watch a favorite movie in sd (given an acceptable transfer) than a 3D poppy HD transfer of a movie I don't like (such as King Kong, a movie I still purchased but have only managed to fast forward thru once).
Given the nature of everything going down right now with the format war and the sales data that shows abysmal numbers for some real classics- SD is just going to be a fact of life for the foreseeable future for a lot of my favorite titles.

 

[Scott Jentsch]

Even though DVD's look pretty good upsampled on my setup, it doesn't compare to HD DVD. It's not difficult to notice the differences once you have become accustomed to the extra clarity of HD DVD.

When I first got my projector, I was expecting to dislike SD TV, but I was surprisingly satisfied with the result. That was, until I started watching OTA HDTV. After that, the deficiencies of SD became very clear.

After I bought my HD-A1 in October, the same transition happened. SD DVD's still look OK, but no one should kid themselves into thinking that they are up to the quality of HD DVD (and presumably, Blu-ray). SD DVD's have a softness to them that appears like a haze, and watching the same movie on HD DVD really is like taking Windex to a dirty window. I'm to the point now where I can pick out the artifacts caused by the compression and resolution reduction that DirecTV puts on their HD channels.

Not that that convinces friends and family that don't see the difference. My best friend doesn't understand why I've bought into HD like I have (OTA, DirecTV, and HD DVD). Funny thing is, this is the guy that got me interested in S-VHS back in the day, and was willing to pay $40-$50 for a letterboxed version of Raiders of the Lost Ark on S-VHS.

I tell people that I used to be satisfied with taping shows on VHS in 6-hour mode, until I recorded a few shows in 2-hour mode. Same goes for DVD vs. HD DVD.

 

[Jordan_E]

HD DVD and Blu Rays discs are great, but I still watch regular DVDs. I find if I watch too many high def discs they tend to lost a little of their "Whoa!" effect. So I pop in the occasional old DVD I have, something I know won't make it any time soon to HD, and thus when I get something new on HD DVD or Blu I'll appreciate the image and AQ just that much more.

 

[StevenW]

Depends on the movie to be honest. There are faily alot of movies I just don't really care if they look amazing. Like alot of the 80's comedies. Which means I will probably not be repurchasing the bulk of my dvd collection.