HD For Indies

I had a friend asking me about what to do to feed his new Sony HDTV he bought (conveniently off my online store).

His question:

So I'm curious to know: if I ripped a DVD at whatever maximum settings an appleTV could handle and played it on my 1080p HDTV, would it look better or worse than the results from a relatively high-end upconverting dedicated DVD player?

-c

"Still looking for an excuse to buy an appleTV, thinking maybe v2.0 will be better."


UPDATE - BTW, that friend is Charlie Wood, creator of Spanning Sync, a nifty utility that synchronizes your Apple iCal and Google Calendar - try it! 15 day free trial

My answer:

So I pondered on that one a few seconds, hmm....

AppleTV

The uprezzing is really nice on the AppleTV. I've written previously here on how to get anamorphic DVD rips going to AppleTV at higher pixel resolution than Apple posts their movies.

BUT...you're transcoding and recompressing, so you're inherently reducing the quality that you started with on the DVD. How much? Depends on the bitrate and how much motion is in frame.

Also, keep in mind, you have to RIP and transcode and that is sloooooooowwwwww. And not all discs will rip properly (Casino Royale, anyone?) So the quality is acceptable, but the time factor is substantial - hours, far beyond realtime.

Uprezzing DVD Player

When I was researching what to get for my own set, my research led me to the Oppo DV-981HD Universal DVD Player with HDMI, 1080p Up-Converting, DivX & SACD. It slices, it dices, it does in fact julienne, and it is $229.99 on Amazon via my online store.

The good - it is lauded as the best uprezzing DVD player out there from the research I did, especially for the price. It also plays DivX & SACD discs as well - a damn nice little box. You can get cheaper uprezzing DVD players, certainly, but this is the one everybody pointed to when I did my research a few months ago. But even better than when I researched it a few months ago, I found that for an extra $65...

Toshiba HD-A2 & HD-A20 HD DVD players

The Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD Player ($296.99 at the moment) also has excellent uprezzing capabilities, and also plays HD DVDs. Why go halfway when you can get the full deal? For me, the incremental cost (now down to only $65 more than the Oppo), you get good uprezzing but can also play HD DVDs. For me, that was a killer deal - while who is going to win the HD DVD vs Blu-ray war is still up in the air (it looks like Blu-ray is pulling ahead in movie sales at the moment, but it has been a back-and-forth deal so far), for $65 more to play a bunch of high def discs too? Too easy a choice - I got this.

Since that time, Toshiba has released the HD-A20 HD DVD Player, which outputs a true 1080p (the A2 only does 1080i). If you have a 1080p set, worth doing, and it is only $359.88 at the moment on the online store - for a $65 bump from DVD to HD DVD, and another $65 bump to get full 1080p output (only worth having if your HDTV supports it!).

And what of Blu-ray, as long as we're thinking about it? The Sony Playstation 3 is still $599 on Amazon (via my store, same price either way), and the least expensive standalone Blu-ray player is the Samsung BD-P1000 at $470 (today's price).

Aside - What's Wrong With AppleTV

The AppleTV is basically a nice interface for iTunes content - I bought one, I like it, I even have another blog all about it - AppleTVhacker.com. But it isn't truly a replacement for a DVD player at any resolution. I see the ability to play downloaded TV shows as a bonus feature, the downloaded movies don't look as good as DVDs (but WILL play back on iPods & computers, so that is bonus), and the ability to see my pictures in high def on the screen is also a bonus. But in the end, I see it as a supplement to, not a replacement for, a high def DVD player (or even a regular DVD player). If version 2 had an optical media slot and played 1080i footage at full res, we'd be talkin'.

I think Apple has lost a significant market advantage, however, in that they STILL don't have downloadable high def movies - check out this article on the 10 minute 720p Ratatoille - download and watch it, and imagine that quality on your HDTV. That plays, right now, on my AppleTV. But I can't buy movies that resolution and quality. Get with it Apple! At $300 to play downloadable 720p movies, that'd be a viable contender against $500+ HD DVD & Blu-ray players.

But now that there are options that look better and cost LESS than AppleTV, with a MUCH wider range of movies...AppleTV's window narrows quickly unless they can get LOTS more content available for sale, and also at higher resolution to make a compelling case. I've bought 3 or 4 movies online, mostly to doodle with or so my neice/nephew can watch, but that's about it - I don't plan on buying any more. I DO buy TV shows (season pass to Lost, episodes I missed of Battlestar Galactica). YES, I could download high def freebies via BitTorrent, but that's more time and hassle than I want to deal with - and then they wouldn't play back on my HDTV via AppleTV anyway, which was the point. Feh.

Bottom Line:

I recommend either:

-a cheap uprezzing player that does a good job (I don't have a specific recommendation for that)
-or spend under $300 on a 1080i HD DVD player - HD For Indies Amazon Store - Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD Player
-or a $360 1080p HD DVD player - HD For Indies Amazon Store - Toshiba HD-A20 HD DVD Player
-or a $420 Blu-ray player - HD For Indies Amazon Store - Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-Ray Disc Player - NOTE - today it is $470 - yesterday was $420 - they like to fiddle with these things, clearly!
-or a $600 Blu-ray playing PS3 if you're into games - HD For Indies Amazon Store - Sony PlayStation 3 (60GB) (and don't forget the remote)
-or the $480 Xbox 360 Elite (because it has HDMI outputs & 120GB drive) and the $200 HD DVD module for another game/high def movie player combo - which can also download and play back excellent quality HD content as well. - HD For Indies Amazon Store - Xbox 360 Elite System Console Includes 120GB Hard Drive, and the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player

To get a $230 uprezzing DVD player without spending the extra $65 to play back HD DVDs strikes me as penny wise and pound foolish, unless for some special reason that makes sense to you. - HD For Indies Amazon Store - Oppo DV-981HD Universal DVD Player with HDMI, 1080p Up-Converting, DivX & SACD

Summing up - to my mind, at this point in time, the Toshiba HD-A2 hits the sweet spot of bang/buck.

Note: All prices based on Tuesday, 1pm CST published prices from Amazon, they change their minds and run'em up and down as they see fit, I don't control it - so if they change and I don't update this article, please let me know. I posted the prices I saw.

Labels: AppleTV, Blu-ray, HD DVD, home theater