Warner announces extended HD DVD Support

[allargon]

What I am amazed at is that anyone with a lick of sense could possibly believe that a upconverted 480p picture could ever match or come close to a 1080p picture. These folks must need glasses and don't use them when they watch true HD on a calibrated HDTV! You can not improve what is not there - never could -- never will!

Nope, but I bet you couldn't tell a well upconverted SD DVD (like from a XA2 or Oppo) from a Blu-Ray or HD DVD on a 32" 768p LCD from 10 (or even 8) feet away. I can tell on my 57" 1080P from 6 feet away no problem. However, I watched The Last King of Scotland upconverted by my A20 this past summer/fall (I can't remember.) and didn't want to scour my eyes. I still have two CRT's that I watch occassionally.

Sorry, but upconverted SD DVD doesn't look that bad (especially with animated titles) on anything under 65". The sound downgrade is more disappointing than the picture.

I will say this. I wasn't impressed by HDTV until I saw my first Blu-Ray's and HD DVD's on display at Fry's. When they showed upconverted DVD's over a year ago, I just shrugged. When I saw HD movies I said, "Aaah... That's what all this HD stuff is about." I am perfectly capable of waiting for Blu-Ray 2.0 standalone prices to drop. I waited 35+ years before taking the plunge into HD. I can wait 6-12 months for Blu-Ray to act right.

 

[waltinvt]

Be careful what you wish for. The final chapters are yet to be written and it may be like sometimes happens - the ending ruins the whole story.

Where will the billions spent "buying" (as opposed to attracting) support from production companies be recouped from? With the competing format gone, what incentive will there be to not pass it on to consumers.

Of course there's always that potential new revenue when people that aren't allowed to archive PPV and premium channels anymore opt to buy the disk rather that wait until it shows up on TNT. Hell that may even offset the losses from any WGA concessions too.