I watched Land of the Dead in High Definition last night.

[Kaos]

Cinemax has been playing it this month. It looked fantastic. Every bit as clear as in the theater. Plenty of shadow detail. Too bad it wasn't the unrated version.

[Mike70]

i have never seen anything in HD. are the differences between it and mundane tv as striking, in your opinion, as i have heard?

[Kaos]

It certainly can be. They have some nice upconverting dvd players that render regular dvd's marvelously on a HDTV, but when you get a flick with an excellent transfer in true 1080i resolution the visuals/detail both pop out and draw you in.

[Exatreides]

The x-box 360 makes the wonderfull lookin on HD.

[Rhino]

I am totally jealous!

A buddy of mine had the PGA Championship on his HD Wide Screen. It was absolutely stunning! You could even see the way the green broke; I've never seen that before except in real life.

I actually sat down and watched Golf....GOLF!

[BTL_Juice]

Nothing against you golfers but that's just like watching zombies lol...

[DjfunkmasterG]

The only thing that bugs me about HBO and CINEMAX when they play HI-Def movies on thier respective HD channels is 9 times out of 10 they screw up the aspect ratio.

When they played Shaun the other night on Cinemax it was in 1.85:1. Shaun was filmed in 2.35:1 so there should still be a tiny black bar at the top and bottom of the screen.

[Dommm]

HD is awsome, bought a hdtv to go with my xbox 360 and my jaw dropped, 5 months later and im still rolling my tounge back in

[jscott]

The only thing that bugs me about HBO and CINEMAX when they play HI-Def movies on thier respective HD channels is 9 times out of 10 they screw up the aspect ratio.

When they played Shaun the other night on Cinemax it was in 1.85:1. Shaun was filmed in 2.35:1 so there should still be a tiny black bar at the top and bottom of the screen.

They did the same thing with Land, showed it in 1.85:1 I've also noticed Monsters HD has played The Monster Squad (which was originally 2.35:1) and done the same thing. Bastages.

[Mikey]

I think I need to upgrade my TV.

[darth los]

Cinemax has been playing it this month. It looked fantastic. Every bit as clear as in the theater. Plenty of shadow detail. Too bad it wasn't the unrated version.

Was it a plasma or lcd screen? I'm still on the fence about which one to buy. Which would you recomend?

[Kaos]

Was it a plasma or lcd screen? I'm still on the fence about which one to buy. Which would you recomend?
I have a CRT based rear projection tv. The newest LCD's look great. Avoid any tech that has burn-in potential. Avoid plasma.

I may get one of the new LED DLP sets from Samsung for xmas.

[darth los]

I have a CRT based rear projection tv. The newest LCD's look great. Avoid any tech that has burn-in potential. Avoid plasma.

I may get one of the new LED DLP sets from Samsung for xmas.


The only thing that makes me hesitant to buy an lcd tv is that the color on a plasma is just so much more vivd to me. However, i am also an avid gamer so i know that it would be better to do it on an lcd screen. You also said that you had an upconvert dvd player. I've seen several ranging in price from $100-$400. Any recomendations? Because i'm certainly not buying any high def copies of movies that i already own.

[Kaos]

The only thing that makes me hesitant to buy an lcd tv is that the color on a plasma is just so much more vivd to me. However, i am also an avid gamer so i know that it would be better to do it on an lcd screen. You also said that you had an upconvert dvd player. I've seen several ranging in price from $100-$400. Any recomendations? Because i'm certainly not buying any high def copies of movies that i already own.


http://www.oppodigital.com/dv981hd/dv981hd_index.html

Better than players that cost over 3 times as much.

[darth los]

That's the problem with upgrading to hd. It's not just the tv you have to get. All this other stuff has to be bought for a person to get the true hd experience, otherwise it makes no sense to buy the tv. I saw one at best buy for $100. I think it was samsung. I wish i could go all out but i am a student and you know how that is. :D

[DjfunkmasterG]

Just keep in mind if you get an UP-res DVD player it isn't true HD. in order to get true HD you have to buy either an HD-DVD player, which I own and love, or a Blu-Ray player, which I also own because of the amount of films released in blu-ray. The format war is still undecided, but in all honesty HD-DVD is the better format, not too mention Shaun of the Dead and the Dawn remake are only exclusive to HD-DVD when they get released as they are both Universal pictures.

[darth los]

Just keep in mind if you get an UP-res DVD player it isn't true HD. in order to get true HD you have to buy either an HD-DVD player, which I own and love, or a Blu-Ray player, which I also own because of the amount of films released in blu-ray. The format war is still undecided, but in all honesty HD-DVD is the better format, not too mention Shaun of the Dead and the Dawn remake are only exclusive to HD-DVD when they get released as they are both Universal pictures.


I've read that in the advertisments. That it upconverts to "near" hd quality. What does that mean anyway? That whole thing is confusing. A few years ago they had 720 and that was considered to be hd. Now they have 1080p and they're saying that it's hd. Well which one is it? did 720 cease to qualify as hd when 1080p came out? And what does that mean for the upconversion players? If not hd then what exactly is their resolution?

[acealive1]

i refuse to "upgrade" and buy all my movies over again........i said AGAIN.

[DjfunkmasterG]

Don't have to rebuy everything. Only rebuy what is really worth seeing in HD, or just buy HD movies from this point out.

There is no friggin way I would rebuy my collection. I only bought the HD Experience essentials:

Batman Begins
The Matrix Ultimate Set
King Kong
Superman Lives
Dawn remake
Shaun
The Departed
Goodfellas
Casino
300
Transformers

Right now I have close to 100 HD titles that is like 1% of my entire DVD collection. Circuit City had $2.99 DVD's this past week so I scooped up about 10 titles alone.

[Griff]

Yep, just HD for the essentials (though I said the same thing about DVD ten years ago). HD-DVD looks spectacular on my 1080p projector, shooting out an image that's about 14 feet from corner to corner.

A good quality DVD can still look great upscaled however. I was absolutely flawed by how well the new R2 of CREEPSHOW holds up at near that size. They did a truly remarkable job on that one.

[Mike70]

since my former post i now have seen plenty of tv (supernatural, reaper, and a few others) in HD and all i can say is - wow. the difference is like night and day.

[SymphonicX]

work in HD television production, in editing....I just bought this weekend, two LCD Tvs, one 42" and one 19"...the 42" is a TRUE 1080p Tv....I dunno what you're getting in america but over here they would sell TVs as "HD READY" which basically means its an inferior 1366x768 line panel that down converts a 1080i image and fits it on the screen - comparing that inferior stuff with SD material isn't too impressive to be honest, it only really shines in terms of playing an xbox 360 or something...

However with the True 1080p TV, HD stuff looks 3D!!! Seriously yesterday I was watching a nature programme and it looked like I was looking through a window!!

Now too **** hot on consumer products though, all I know is that LCD has less chance of burn in with games so that's why I chose it....but the true 1080p panels we have here in the industry will blow you away and are 10000 times better than domestic sets on the market today - but that's what you get when you can afford 10k for a set!

Unfortunately however, the xbox 360 that I had was the original one, which runs on component connections, which looked AWFUL on my new TV compared to my old one - ironic! however I exchanged it for an xbox 360 elite with the HDMI connection and its improved vastly and looks amazing....

previous comments about the expense of going HD are correct, but if you're lucky enough to come down with a nasty Kidney defect and thusly get money from your insurance to splash out (like I did!) then you won't regret going HD I reckon.

Now in terms of HD stuff over satellite TV or cable, this stuff is heavily compressed - bare in mind that true HD media runs at approx 1gb a second which is compressed down to 15 megs a second through most broadcasters....so for true brilliant HD experience you'd do worse than buying a HD DVD player or Blu ray and watching stuff through that.

As for upscaling DVD players, I've never seen on domestically but my initial impression of seeing upscaling at work was that it highlights the impurities more than anything else....