Geh. Didn't come here often enough. Any chance I can piggyback on the 300 pre-order? Totally want to check out the movie on HD.

Yesterday I was at PC Fair browsing for a new printer, blank discs, and potentially cool stuff (booth babe LOL). Anyway, at the Toshiba booth, I was intrigued by the higher end Toshiba Qosmio laptops, which include a built-in HD DVD drive! They come in 2 variants; the HD DVD-ROM/DVD-RW drive or the HD DVD-R drive. Both models have an HDMI output so you can watch it on a big screen TV. Too bad I don't have an AV receiver that can do Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD

So yesterday I picked up the HD DVD movie I have already pre-ordered. I already know that it will look and sound incredible, based on reviews already out. I prepare myself. The aural and visual impact of the movie is incredible. I tell myself "This movie....it's incredible! No, this is blasphemy! This is madness!" Madness? No, no, no. THIS...IS...SPARTA!!

I haven't really played all that much with the other stuff. Just checked out my favourite scenes, compared it with the standard def side. I'll be on leave for a couple of days, so I won't get to check it out until then. And I still have the Matrix trilogy to check out as well...

To any interested parties, I believe Toshiba will be bringing in their entry level HD DVD players. Over the past two weekends, there was an AV Fair held at the JW Marriott hotel in KL. At the Toshiba booth, I saw a Toshiba HD DVD player and asked the sales rep. He said that Toshiba will be bringing in the product (plus support) for RM2500. Heck, it was even for purchase at the event itself. The model in particular is this:

http://www.toshibahddvd-asia.com/products/hd-e1.html

silencer, one of my first ever HD DVD titles was in fact King Kong. It truly was a landmark title for HD DVD, a visual spectacle for high definition formats. Too bad Universal skimped out on the special features...

Unfortunately that's how it works here when products are officially brought over. Back then the PlayStation was announced at a price of USD199. When it came here, it's not exactly near RM800 or something. It was more like RM1200 or something similar. PS2 was USD299, when it came here it became RM1599. The Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray player retails for USD799. So why is the local version priced at RM4,999 instead?

Sigh. I need to ask the opinion of anyone who already has a copy of the 300 HD DVD (and using the 360 as a player). It was only a couple of days ago that I bought and tested the 300 disc. I only tested scene 1 and scene 14-15 in fact. Then I went on my short leave, came back, and wanted to show 300 to a friend. While at scene 14, everything was fine at first. While transitioning to scene 15, the movie started jerking very badly. Then it hanged on me. There was nothing I could do but shut down my 360. When I restarted my 360 and skipped straight to scene 15, it hanged immediately. I also passed the disc to another friend for testing. The scene I mentioned played fine, but in his case, the 360 hanged at scene 17. Now, I have close to a dozen HD DVD movies at this point, and none of them acted like this before. Is my disc faulty, or is there a known problem running 300 on the 360 HD DVD player? Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks.

Ok guys, update: I had tried to call the shop I bought it from (CWF in Cineleisure) to explain the problem. The shopkeeper mentioned that he has not heard of any problems with HD DVD or Blu-ray discs up until that point. He also queried whether I was running it on a player or the 360. I described the full problem to him, and asked whether the store has any return / exchange policies. Understandably, he told me that because such an issue never surfaced before, he'll need to check with his supplier whether anything can be done. I told him that I would lend the disc to a friend for further testing (this was before I posted my problem).

The test results were no better on my friend's 360, so I called the shop again on Saturday morning (after making my first post). The other shopkeeper picked up; I explained my problem to him once again. He suggested that I bring over the disc to the store for checking. I also left him my name, which he recognized. He also made sure to relay my message to his colleague. Fast forward to the evening, I walk in the store; the shopkeeper sees me; immediately brings me to the back and hands me a new copy of 300. For some reason, this surprised me very much, since I have relatively low expectations on how they can help me. Maybe I'm too used to being screwed over product returns?

On to the new disc: I found no such problems as my first disc. I jumped between scenes like monkey on crack, sometimes skipping tracks, sometimes fast forwarding, and sometimes by using the scene selection menu. I'm happy to report that no halting or jerking occurred Though their prices are not the best, I'll definitely get more titles from the store in the future since they've earned my trust and respect.

Yeah, amazon is cool. My friend and I amazon'ed over some HD DVDs over before too. The cheap part I like. The kastam part I don't like.

I don't know about the majority of the people here, but the main reason I wanted to jump into HD movies is because I dig the high definition video. Back when I started watching DVDs, I was content just using my TV speakers. No 5.1 glory for me. As long as I can enjoy the DVD format on its highest video output (component) I am more than happy.

As for the 360 HD DVD player, the optical output is already a limitation by itself. It can only carry up to 5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS. Not that I'm complaining or anything. 300 and Superman Returns are excellent reference discs even though you're only running the audio through digital optical. Besides, even if the 360 outputs up to 7.1, you'll still need an AV receiver that can decode Dolby TruHD or DTS HD.

Yup. Those are the only titles you'll be seeing for a while. Ezy Video also brought in those exact same titles, including Serenity, Doom and Children of Men. In case anyone didn't notice, all of those titles are from Universal. Also, they're the European release. Luckily HD DVD has no region coding. Bought a couple of them. I'd like to see titles from Warner and Paramount, though.

Taken for what it is, rather than what it isn't, the HD DVD drive for Xbox 360 offers the most affordable way of jumping into HD movies. You can still get up to 1080i via component, or 1080p over VGA (and HDMI as well, with the newer Xbox 360). It also loads movies considerably faster than certain standalone models. On the audio side, sadly, you do not get the luxury of the high resolution audio formats such as Dolby True HD or DTS HD. The optical output can't carry the necessary bandwidth to support those formats. Instead, they will be downsampled to Dolby Digital or DTS. Which still sounds better than standard DVDs anyhow. It's still worth the admission price of jumping into HD movies IMO.