JsARCLIGHT

It sounds to me more like a problem with your equipment. I have Heat on DVD and play it at low volume quite often (as my wife doesn't want the house shaken by that shootout scene) and I can hear everything said clear as a bell. As others have said, it all comes down to hardware. If you have the right hardware set properly then it decodes the sound very well and is clear as day, even at lower volumes. Right now I'm sitting on my couch posting from my laptop while watching 28 Weeks Later on Blu Ray. I have the volume set rather low and can still hear every line of dialog clear as a bell, even the very low "whispery" stuff, and when the loud bangs and crashes start they are not all that "intense".

Heh, that is actually the way you are supposed to watch Michael Mann's Heat. That movie was intentionally mixed so during the big downtown shootout you get the same hardcore "thwomp" sound dispersal that you would have in the theater. Heat is one movie that I'm waiting for on HD, mostly just to get a lossless sound track.

Have you tried changing audio options on the DVDs you watch? My mother has one of those DVD/TV built in double jobs and she complains of the same problems. She found that if she selected regular Dolby two channel (or the "lowest" quality audio option on the movies you watch) it "fixed" that sound discrepancy problem. As others have said it is a side effect of the DVDs defaulting to the 5.1 stereo separation they work into every new movie these days. It doesn't sound "off" in the theaters mostly because the volume in the theater is cranked. People really don't notice that, because movies are mostly "quiet". I also used to have this problem years and years ago running a cheap HTiB setup but ever since switching over to a dedicated receiver / speakers arrangement I've never had the problem again. Then again I watch my movies "cranked"... I like to feel those low base notes in the furniture.

My only experience so far with anime on HD media has been Tekkonkinkreet on Blu Ray that I rented a little while back. The picture quality was what I'd expect from HD media and playing back on my Plasma I noticed zero artifacting / jaggies / compression. The movie itself was meh however. Something to consider is that "old" DVD media is 720 x 480 interlaced, usually MPEG 2 encoded. Whereas the "new" HD media (Blu Ray and HD DVD) is 1920 x 1080 progressive and using more "friendly" codecs like VC-1, MPEG 4 and AVC. Right off the bat you have 2.6 times the resolution in the source which also uses more modern codecs. Just in "source" alone going from DVD to HD media you have a very marked and noticeable increase in picture quality. Even poorly mastered, downright "crap" movies on HD media still look better than their DVD counterparts. That improvement however ranges from slight to "night and day" and most of the time being guaranteed outstanding picture quality that you expect from HD media varies from movie to movie. For example, Royal Space Force on HD DVD/Blu Ray is a shoddy master and has faded colors, dust and scratches and all sorts of other poor picture issues... but Tekkonkinkreet, being a newer movie with a digital master is pristine with sharp contrasts, vivid colors and a crystal clear picture. Add to all that the make of player you own, how you have it hoooked up, what settings you are running, what make of TV you have, what your lighting conditions in the room are, etc. etc. etc. etc. The safest saying with HD media is "your viewing experience may vary" these days.

The problem may not be in your DVD player but rather in your television and how it plays the info from the player. Every issue you described sounds like the 3:2 pulldown problem. This article goes into some pretty good depth about it: 3:2 Pulldown is the Devil Edit: 3:2 pulldown no longer exists using a next gen player like Blu Ray or HD DVD and a nice 1080p/24 slash 1080p/60 television. Double Edit: I forgot to semi answer your question. Will playing that same SD anime DVD upconverted or not on a HDTV fix the problem? Usually no. The source material on the DVD is 480i interlaced video. As such you will always have some level of "jaggies" in the image when played back at normal resolution. When "upconverted" to a higher resolution you will normally exchange your "jaggies" for "fuzzies". Things that were jagged before will now appear to have a slight blurriness or furry quality to them when upconverted.

I always see it this way: The electronics market is varied and diverse. It has to not only consider us, the crazy nuts Videophile junkie uber dork fanboys, but it also has to consider the teen who just wants to watch her Hanna Montanna DVDs and the mom or dad who doesn't want to spend two grand on a TV just to watch broadcast TV or analog cable. When you think about it, any off the shelf item has to meet a certain "minimum operational parameter" so that everyone, even some knob who doesn't know how to tie his shoes, can open the box and get it up and running. But the really high tilt "tuner" items have to possess the extra function to get us "enthusiasts" to tweak them out. When viewed as a whole, the market primarily caters to the masses... the apathetic, uneducated (in the ways of HD), "I just want to watch my NBC in color with my over the air antenna with no static" masses. A good 90% of the consumer electronics market is geared towards them. The remainder of the market is geared towards us, the nuts, who actually know what all the terminology means, know how to hook up their systems and love every minute of it. As such there are varying degrees of "perfection" for people. Some folks will stop at SD broadcast stuff on an SD TV and say "I can't see any difference". Then there are folks who will just run out and buy anything that says "HDTV" on it and they will probably enjoy their 720p low refresh rate LCD television. Then there are the crazies. The people like me who are over analyzing every piece of equipment making sure we get the optimal, best possible picture out of our rigs. I've almost gotten to the point that the high end consumer electronics store people here my town know me by name and probably say "oh crap here comes the professor". It's actually quite shocking when I (who still considers himself "learning" about HD) know more about the tech, the specs and the terms than the salesmen do. But in the end, it's "whatever works for you, your tastes and your budget". Most normal people will never notice the difference that a $4000 HDTV rig will net you above a $1500 HDTV rig. Once you pass a certain point you reach the zone of limited return on money invested and it becomes what I call "douche bag zone". I myself live in the "douche bag zone", that place inhabited by Ferrari owners and 40 foot schooner captains. People who buy "only the best" and feel slighted when something better comes out. The cutting edge, also known as the bleeding edge, is a rich man's sport... and the benefits of that bleeding edge are rarely worth their costs to most people. The leap from702p or 1080i to 1080p is not all that drastic and most people will not even notice. As such the gap between 1080p/24 and 1080p/60 is also nearly indistinguishable to the common man. So obsessing on the "perfect" specs is more or less "douche bag zone"... but if you are of that mindset as I am it's the cats pajamas. As they say, speed is simply a matter of money... how fast can you afford to go? But at the same time driving 150 and driving 180... once you pass 100 everything's a blur anyway.

I personally have never owned a Laser Disc player to be familiar with their traits. I have seen LDs at friends' houses many, many years ago but my memory of their picture quality is foggy at best. Personally for me the Blu Ray\HD DVD display parameter of 1080p/24 is optimal. That is supposed to be the closest (actually dead on) to actual film presentation one can get... provided you have a TV that can accept that 1080p/24 signal and display it property without 3:2 pulldowning it or doing some other conversion shenanigans to it.

Another "quirk" to point out is that my own HD media purchases mirror the "truth" of the industry as folks like to tout it. I own both format players and when I look at my movie shelf my Blu Ray to HD DVD ratio is something like 2 to 1. I own in the ballpark of 30 HD movies and the split is practically 20/10. When I look at my "future purchase" list the split remains, 2 to 1. Is that because Blu Ray is "better"? Absolutely not. It's because right now there just happen to be more "format exclusive" Blu Ray releases coming up that I want above HD DVD releases. I should also point out that out of every 10 movies on my "look into buying" list only about 3 actually "make the cut" and get purchased. That is almost entirely the fault of the crappy next gen media renditions we are seeing these days. Some notable "rejects" on my list lately have been: Robocop on Blu Ray, marginal picture, ZERO bonus features and a $30 price tag equals a pass. Red Dawn on Blu Ray, not actually out yet but will also have ZERO bonus features and a $30 price tag. Again... pass. Halloween on Blu Ray, they used an altered master of the movie that is not the "true" movie resulting in a "compromised" rendition. Pass. The Last Starfighter on HD DVD, once again marginal picture and a $30 price for such equals a pass. Streets of Fire on HD DVD, supposedly a decent video and audio transfer but ZERO special features and a $30 price tag. Pass. Royal Space Force on HD DVD, poor picture, paultry special features and an outrageous $80 MSRP equal one massive pass. On the flip side of the coin: Surfs Up on Blu Ray, outstanding picture and sound, all special features in 1080p meant automatic purchase. Dawn of the Dead on Blu Ray, noticeably improved picture and sound over the DVD, a good set of bonuses meant automatic purchase.

Another thing to take with a grain of salt in all the "HD Media Versus" arguments that pop up is that both Blu Ray and HD DVD only account for something like 0.5% of all the movies sold. For instance, if 1,000 movies are sold at retail there are only 5 BD and HD DVDs sold... TOTAL. Everyone gets so wrapped up in saying their side is "winning" or their hardware is "outselling" the other when in reality the actual sales numbers of both formats are abysmal. These things are still super niche indie formats, no matter how much ballyhoo they tout. At this point it's still like Ferrari and Lamborghini arguing over who sold more supercars while the whole time millions of Toyota Camrys roll off assembly lines. People also seem to not be switching over to the new formats in enough numbers to really declare one side or the other a "winner"... and judging by recent reports that the mass consumer base, and even retailers, do not properly understand what "HD" actually IS only point towards a longer, protracted format war as really only tiny handfuls of people are adopting HD media and buying HD media. From articles I've read and just my own gut feeling I see this format war lasting the lifespan of this media teir. I fully expect the "next generation" (movie downloads) to emerge sometime soon which will spell the death of thes confused and (for most people) very expensive formats.

Is that that fried video one that you still have? This is devious but have you thought about just wrapping the thing in wool blanket and turning it on with a very seek intensive game and just waiting for it to burn out and then just call them and say [Christopher Walken] "Guess what?... RROD, bitches. Replace it."? [/Christopher Walken] From what I understand that whole system is one long, drawn out constant cycle. The old ones break because they are badly designed, so they get sent in and fixed with the same old parts that are badly designed, meaning they break again and have to be sent back in again and on and on and on and on. You'd think after a certain amount of time it would just be cheaper for MS to just gut the systems and replace all their hardware with the newest stuff just to break the chain. Why did Fleetwood Mac suddenly enter my mind?

My Xbox is a first gen model and has never had the RROD (knock on wood). I've owned it for going on a year plus now. Mine is kept on my wooden living room floor, in the corner away from sunlight and it sits right next to my floor AC vent. The AC blows right onto it. It sits upright on one of those pelican fan stands that plugs into the wall. When winter rolls around it will be moved back on top of my entertainment center away from the duct (which would then be blowing heat). I give it a blast with some CO2 every once in a while to make sure the vent holes are clear (I have a cat and no matter how big my house is or how clean I keep it her hair finds its way into nearly everything). I only play for about an hour or so every time I use it and I routinely monitor it's case temp with my hand. I'm paranoid about it failing so to a good degree I've done everything I can (short of warranty voiding actions) to keep it running... And as such my system has never had a single problem to date. No RROD, no red rings of any sort.

What would be even better is if you could enter a code and unlock Bonk, then have Mario and Sonic team up and beat the living crap out of him... like real life!

I'd be interested to know what movies the two of you chose as yours seemed to take quite a while to ship. I picked Corpse Bride, Chicken Little, Babel, Transporter 2 and Resident Evil and received mine in just over 4 weeks.

By my (and many other people smarter than me) understanding, the RROD plague is a design flaw. Every single Xbox of a certain mint can and will suffer that problem given the right circumstances. What those circumstances are varies between the people you talk to but the important thing is that unless you have a brand spanking new falcon chipped, new heatsinked hdmi deck (which still are not proven to be reliable yet) then you are open to the RROD failure.

This topic is like a bad penny. The previous thread: HERE As I said last time: I really should lock this thread as it's a retread, but I figure it will die out soon enough. Edit: And does anyone remember that Mike guy's RT based CG project? His stuff was boffo. Awesome models and awesome animation clips... then again he was a professional from the CG industry. That is the most "telling" thing about this project. It's "fan fic" and has that same "drawn on looseleaf paper in my basement" kind of feel to it. There is nothing wrong about that as everyone has to start somewhere, but I still personally feel the rough "not quite there" design and execution hurt this project more than it's name association does. As I said a year ago, it's decent... not great by any means, but decent. I wouldn't hire these guys to work for me but they at least show some level of skill. Now that Mike guy I'd hire on the spot, but he probably has a better job than I could give him.

Aren't the UPC codes on the new boxes supposed to say "FALCON" or "ZEPHYR" on them as well? Or was that an internet photoshop that I saw a little while back?

Well, that ends that. It makes me wonder what kind of rights retention Speilburg has over his movies (that little to none of his own money was used to make) if he can tell a studio, who by all accounts "holds the keys" to that movie, that they can't release it on a certain format.

Rumor mill had it that it was going to be a "Stewie Griffin Story" treatment... DVDs for direct sale that would be broken into episodes and aired at a later date once they made their money. Either way who cares? NEW FUTURAMA.

I still fail to believe the Japanese arm of Universal would mock up something like that and display it at a trade show if something was not in the works for their market.

Oh SNAP! Universal Japan just let a rather large cat out of some sort of bag. I wonder what this little "oops" will do to the format war? Link to Story

While I'm not buying this movie, what really gets me is all these special gift sets and special offers are only for the regular DVD. The HD DVD is pretty much sold bare bones. One movie I AM buying tomorrow is Surfs Up on blu ray and Best Buy is going to have this neat gift set for it with four mini figures... but it's only for the regular DVD and not the Blu Ray. Kind of sucks... if I want the bonus items I have to either buy the crappy regular DVD or buy both it and the Blu Ray. I bet Transformers is the same way... if you want those neat promo goods AND the HD DVD you'll have to double dip right out of the gate. That's balls.

From what I've read the new 65nm chips are only in the processor... the VPU is still running 90nm chips and it still is sammiched in under that DVD drive. Plus the internal ergonomics of the system are still pure balls. I was kind of assuming like everyone else that the new heatsink design would function better but apparently the same danger remains...

I bought my PS3 just for reason #1 really. BUT I have always assumed that at some point some game was going to be made that I'd want to buy for this thing... I just think I was expecting "that game" to show up a lot sooner than now. It's kind of sad really... to own a "game console" that has no games. I'm a game player deep down and I just find it a tiny bit disappointing that every month I'll be walking the games section in Best Buy looking at games and when I leave I'll always seem to have one or two Xbox games on my future shopping list but zero PS3 games. It makes me wonder what other people with my game tastes feel like owning a PS3 who don't like watching movies.

It's just upsetting to me that "every other" "platform" gets this game "now" while the PS3 has to wait two more months. "Why?" I say to myself. What makes the PS3 version of this game "different"? You'd think with the crap selection of games that the PS3 has that Sony themselves would be trying their darnedest to get this thing released at the same time as their "competition". I really wanted this game on the PC but I'd probably have to upgrade my desktop even more to play it... I figured I had two very expensive consoles sitting there that were getting "equal releases" and that I'd give them a shot, only to discover the PS3 release for some reason is delayed. I'm not a "brand loyalist" by any means I just have had this hankering lately to do something other than watch movies on my PS3... and it just seems like Sony and their PS3 gaggle are going out of their way to put me off buying their games. So now it looks like the only game this PS3 will be getting in the next 12 months that I won't be buying for the Xbox instead is Gran Turismo.

You know, I finally find a game I want to buy for the PS3 only to discover that the PS3 version of the game has received "the shaft". I wanted to get the HL2 "Orange Box" for my 360 but thought to myself "hey... they are releasing it on the PS3 as well... maybe I'll give the Playstation a chance to play something other than Blu Ray's" Nope. Orange Box comes out next week for PC and the 360... but the PS3 version does not hit shelves until mid December. Whisky Tango Foxtrot, Over?