OK, second-first impressions. I've had the player for a couple of weeks now, and have had a chance for HD-DVD to settle in. This has given me a chance to view HD-DVD on my HT, and reflect on all of the other testimonials I've read here and on HTF. Here are my conclusions, based on the limited sampling I have had thus far:
PICTURE: Everyone else has said 'WOW', so I will refrain from repeating it, though I wholeheartedly agree with it. I have, to date, only viewed two HD titles, U-571 and Spy Game, but the picture on both is stunning. U-571 is so clear that I feel I should be getting wet during the second depth charge sequence. Spy Game (blind-buy) was just as impressive, even if I was somewhat underwhelmed with the movie itself (to be fair, I need to watch it again; I was exhausted the first time and couldn't keep my eyes open). Was it enough to make me buy all future purchases, when available, on HD-DVD? Absolutely. What about swearing off all SD-DVD watching? Nope. I have watched several SD-DVDs since I got the HD-DVD player, and ya know what? I enjoyed them just as much as before. Sure, the picture was a bit softer in focus, but it was in no way bequeathed "crap status". Keep in mind that I am watching on a 65" display at approx. 2 screen widths. And that I am not using upconversion (my set is analog only). So, while 1080i is incredible, 480p still does one heck of a job (IMHO).
SOUND: This is where I was the most impressed, actually, The first HD-DVD I spun was U-571 (50-50 chance, since my only other title to date is Spy Game). Using the SPDIF connection and the DTS option, the sound seemed warmer, and more detailed than the ˝ bit rate DTS on the DVD. The only problem was that the picture froze, and then stuttered for several seconds during the latter part of the film (bummer). While I have read that the original firmware was plagued with this problem, I was suprised (and a little worried) to find it in the 1.4 FW version. However, after changing to the 5.1 analog outputs and switching the SPDIF setting to 'PCM' instead of 'BITSTREAM', the problem went away completely (I am still on 1.4). The problem behaved exactly like a buffering bottleneck, which (to my pedestrian mind) makes sense. If the player is being asked to read in a high bitrate audio stream into a buffer, then downmix it to the bitstream, and all of this in real time, it seems reasonable that it might get behind. That's just my guess, though. The main thing is, no more stuttering… Now that I have the analog connections made, and the sound rebalanced, the Dolby Digital Plus quite literally blows me away (3 MB/sec….). I am waiting for the 2.0 upgrade disc to get full DolbyHD now, but am in no particular hurry since I don't have any tiles with DolbyHD yet ("yet" being the key word) - Is there a list of DolbyHD titles out there? ….. Bring on Batman Begins, Superman Returns, The Lord of the Rings, etc!!
In all, I am completely satisfied with my purchase, regardless of which way the format war goes. My original two conditions for upgrading now have been satisfied: No internet connection required for movie playback – check. HD video signal over component (at least until the ICT is flagged, but by then I will have upgraded both the player and display) – check.
One very happy early adopter, here, though....
09-13-06, 11:10 AM
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switching the SPDIF to PCM to avoid the extra real-time task of doing a dts re-encode was a theory put forth a while back by others and myself. Guessing that if the player was having to do re-reads of the disc data due to errors that it would be very busy and having an extra real-time task to do would hurt --- thereby increasing the chance of audio skipping. You are one of the few to provide evidence that it does help to turn off the dts re-encode. Glad it seems to help! 
). Now that there is no stuttering, all is right with the world (can you tell I am loving HD?).....
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