Unimpressed by HD-DVD

I just purchased a large screen DLP HDTV. I have DirecTV, and the
HD shows look incredible. The impressive picture takes up the
entire screen. So far I've watched 3 movies played through my
XBox HD-DVD player, and the picture is NOT impressive. The
picture is shrunk to almost half the size of the TV, and the
resolution doesn't look as good. If I "zoom" the picture
so it's not so small, the picture quality gets even worse.
I have the HD-DVD player connected to my component video,
which I've read provides a picture almost indistinguishable
from the HDMI interface.

Does Blu-Ray shrink the picture to these small letterbox sizes?

"nospam" wrote in message
. ..
I just purchased a large screen DLP HDTV. I have DirecTV, and the
HD shows look incredible. The impressive picture takes up the
entire screen. So far I've watched 3 movies played through my
XBox HD-DVD player, and the picture is NOT impressive. The
picture is shrunk to almost half the size of the TV, and the
resolution doesn't look as good. If I "zoom" the picture
so it's not so small, the picture quality gets even worse.
I have the HD-DVD player connected to my component video,
which I've read provides a picture almost indistinguishable
from the HDMI interface.

No it doesn't. You MUST used the HDMI interface to get the full capability
of the HD-DVD player.


Does Blu-Ray shrink the picture to these small letterbox sizes?

Guy wrote:
"nospam" wrote in message
. ..
I just purchased a large screen DLP HDTV. I have DirecTV, and the
HD shows look incredible. The impressive picture takes up the
entire screen. So far I've watched 3 movies played through my
XBox HD-DVD player, and the picture is NOT impressive. The
picture is shrunk to almost half the size of the TV, and the
resolution doesn't look as good. If I "zoom" the picture
so it's not so small, the picture quality gets even worse.
I have the HD-DVD player connected to my component video,
which I've read provides a picture almost indistinguishable
from the HDMI interface.

No it doesn't. You MUST used the HDMI interface to get the full capability
of the HD-DVD player.

Does Blu-Ray shrink the picture to these small letterbox sizes?

I can't speak for the XBox player, but all the stand-alone players and
HD-DVD & Blu-Ray disks put full HD 1920x1080 resolution out the
component ports. No studio has activated the down-rezz flag for analog
output for any of their disks yet. If this is what you were posting about.

Does the XBox menu have an menu option for output to a 4:3 versus 16:9
TV? If the "picture is shrunk to almost half the size of the TV", that
sounds like a 2.35:1 cinemascope movie being shown on a 4:3 (1.33:1) TV
screen. This seems to happen WAAAYYY too often with people who get get a
widescreen TV, but never read the manual or check the setup on their DVD
player.

Alan F

nospam wrote in
:

I just purchased a large screen DLP HDTV. I have DirecTV, and the
HD shows look incredible. The impressive picture takes up the
entire screen. So far I've watched 3 movies played through my
XBox HD-DVD player, and the picture is NOT impressive. The
picture is shrunk to almost half the size of the TV, and the
resolution doesn't look as good. If I "zoom" the picture
so it's not so small, the picture quality gets even worse.
I have the HD-DVD player connected to my component video,
which I've read provides a picture almost indistinguishable
from the HDMI interface.

Does Blu-Ray shrink the picture to these small letterbox sizes?


hOMANY TIMES Can you troll this? I am sure people will answer this but here
we go again

I make a lot of HD-DVDs with still photographs as well as with prosumer HDV
camcorders, and I am here to tell you that HD DVD delivers stunning 1920 by
1080 full frame content in exactly the same format, resolution, and color
gamut as the MPEG2 encoded BluRay disks, and generally quite superior to
anything I can see on my satellite or HD cable box, both of which are
encoded at a much lower bit rate than the 25 Mbit/sec data coming from the
HD DVD.

You have either a bad connection, improper setup, a defective HD DVD player,
or bad examples of HDDVD disks.

Smarty


"nospam" wrote in message
. ..
I just purchased a large screen DLP HDTV. I have DirecTV, and the
HD shows look incredible. The impressive picture takes up the
entire screen. So far I've watched 3 movies played through my
XBox HD-DVD player, and the picture is NOT impressive. The
picture is shrunk to almost half the size of the TV, and the
resolution doesn't look as good. If I "zoom" the picture
so it's not so small, the picture quality gets even worse.
I have the HD-DVD player connected to my component video,
which I've read provides a picture almost indistinguishable
from the HDMI interface.

Does Blu-Ray shrink the picture to these small letterbox sizes?

How do you make HDV DVDs and what do you use to view them?

I have a Sony consumer HDV camcorder. All I have figured out so far is
to upload the tape to my PC, edit it, then download the finished product
to the camcorder and use it as the player.

Smarty wrote:
I make a lot of HD-DVDs with still photographs as well as with prosumer HDV
camcorders, and I am here to tell you that HD DVD delivers stunning 1920 by
1080 full frame content in exactly the same format, resolution, and color
gamut as the MPEG2 encoded BluRay disks, and generally quite superior to
anything I can see on my satellite or HD cable box, both of which are
encoded at a much lower bit rate than the 25 Mbit/sec data coming from the
HD DVD.

Sam,

The HDV from your Sony makes beautiful HD DVDs which play on the Toshiba
set-top players. You can use Ulead MovieFactory 6 Plus (about $60), or
Apple's DVD Studio Pro to create them, and I do it both ways. Also Ulead's
Video Studio 10+ does a very nice job.

Download the free trial of Ulead Movie Factory 6+ and capture directly from
your Sony. I use both the HDR-HC3 and FX-1 camcorders, and they both work
superbly well. Also, you can import still camera pictures from any digital
camera with more than 2 megapixel images and you will see the images on your
1920 by 1080 HDTV at full rez (roughly 2 Mpixels). The still picture
slideshows and camcorder videos can be mixed for a really nice wedding,
party, travel or other HD DVD.

Smarty

"Sam Spade" wrote in message
...
How do you make HDV DVDs and what do you use to view them?

I have a Sony consumer HDV camcorder. All I have figured out so far is to
upload the tape to my PC, edit it, then download the finished product to
the camcorder and use it as the player.

Smarty wrote:
I make a lot of HD-DVDs with still photographs as well as with prosumer
HDV camcorders, and I am here to tell you that HD DVD delivers stunning
1920 by 1080 full frame content in exactly the same format, resolution,
and color gamut as the MPEG2 encoded BluRay disks, and generally quite
superior to anything I can see on my satellite or HD cable box, both of
which are encoded at a much lower bit rate than the 25 Mbit/sec data
coming from the HD DVD.

"Guy" wrote in message
...

"nospam" wrote in message
. ..
I just purchased a large screen DLP HDTV. I have DirecTV, and the
HD shows look incredible. The impressive picture takes up the
entire screen. So far I've watched 3 movies played through my
XBox HD-DVD player, and the picture is NOT impressive. The
picture is shrunk to almost half the size of the TV, and the
resolution doesn't look as good. If I "zoom" the picture
so it's not so small, the picture quality gets even worse.
I have the HD-DVD player connected to my component video,
which I've read provides a picture almost indistinguishable
from the HDMI interface.

No it doesn't. You MUST used the HDMI interface to get the full capability
of the HD-DVD player.


Does Blu-Ray shrink the picture to these small letterbox sizes?

Your XBOX 360 is set up incorrectly. HD-DVD on the XBOX component is every
bit as beautiful as HDMI (which the 360 doesn't have).

Tell it you have a 1920x1080i widescreen in the display setup and it will be
beautiful, far better than the stuff you see on satellite.

I have the latest version of Sony's Vega, so capturing and editing is
not my problem. (I also have the HDR-HC3). But, I still don't
understand how you burn an HD DVD.

I don't have an HD DVD player either. But, if I knew I could burn HD
DVDs for such a set-top player that would give me the incentive to buy one.

Smarty wrote:
Sam,

The HDV from your Sony makes beautiful HD DVDs which play on the Toshiba
set-top players. You can use Ulead MovieFactory 6 Plus (about $60), or
Apple's DVD Studio Pro to create them, and I do it both ways. Also Ulead's


Video Studio 10+ does a very nice job.

Download the free trial of Ulead Movie Factory 6+ and capture directly from
your Sony. I use both the HDR-HC3 and FX-1 camcorders, and they both work
superbly well. Also, you can import still camera pictures from any digital
camera with more than 2 megapixel images and you will see the images on your
1920 by 1080 HDTV at full rez (roughly 2 Mpixels). The still picture
slideshows and camcorder videos can be mixed for a really nice wedding,
party, travel or other HD DVD.

Smarty

"Sam Spade" wrote in message
...

How do you make HDV DVDs and what do you use to view them?

I have a Sony consumer HDV camcorder. All I have figured out so far is to
upload the tape to my PC, edit it, then download the finished product to
the camcorder and use it as the player.

Smarty wrote:

I make a lot of HD-DVDs with still photographs as well as with prosumer
HDV camcorders, and I am here to tell you that HD DVD delivers stunning
1920 by 1080 full frame content in exactly the same format, resolution,
and color gamut as the MPEG2 encoded BluRay disks, and generally quite
superior to anything I can see on my satellite or HD cable box, both of
which are encoded at a much lower bit rate than the 25 Mbit/sec data
coming from the HD DVD.

On Apr 4, 3:25 pm, Sam Spade wrote:
I have the latest version of Sony's Vega, so capturing and editing
is
not my problem. (I also have the HDR-HC3). But, I still don't
understand how you burn an HD DVD.

I don't have an HD DVD player either. But, if I knew I could burn
HD
DVDs for such a set-top player that would give me the incentive to
buy one.

snip

What you _can_ do is burn a standard DVD with a hidef .MPG file. I
know this works as I have a pile DVDs of last years '24' episodes.
These discs play properly with ATIs MMC and also work correctly with
Windows Media Player on computers other than the one used to originate
the disc. The data rate is slow enough to play directly from the disc
in real time.

GG