The companies continue to promote Blue-Ray and HD-DVD disc. The problem is in, that this good news actually are the next headache for us – the end users. Let’s return few years ago. At that time we saw similar comedy war with the same weapons different standards for DVD format. At the end, now we have several DVD formats – DVD RAM, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD+R, etc.
Because now only can guess, what will happen with Blue-Ray and HD-DVD disc and devices I will shortly introduce you their main parameters and advantages.
At this moment with absolutely certainty we can say that the physical dimensions of new discs will be the same as the current known CD and DVD disc. The main difference is in the smaller wavelength of the laser which is used to read and write data on the disc. Read more...
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I bought this product a couple weeks ago. This player is nearly a year old now, but the HD-DVD playback was an important feature to me. When HD-DVD officially called it quits, I picked up an Xbox 360 HD-DVD add on for and lots of HD-DVDs on clearance. I decided it was time to jump over to Blu-Ray, and for simplicity I wanted one player. I compared this against the LG BD200, and this one turned out to be an excellent choice. It has analog audio out, which I wanted so I would not need to update my receiver to take advantage of HD audio, this is something the LG player did not offer. HD-DVD playback has been flawless so far, and SD-DVD upscaling is great. Blu Ray movies look excellent as well, the only problem is firmware updating. This is the only reason I gave the player 4 stars and not 5. Samsung tends to take a couple of months to release firmware after problems, luckily they released an update for this player on Nov. 7 which fixed playback issues. From what I can tell, Sony players do better with the updates, but the PS3 is the only player that seems to have no problems with compatibility. I’m not a huge fan of Sony and definitely did not want a PS3, and I managed to pick this player up on clearance for 0, which I found to be an EXCELLENT deal. If you have an HD-DVD collection and want to switch to Blu without having multiple players in your house, this Samsung is the way to go. If you are just wanting to jump in to HD for the first time, I would suggest some of the great deals with newer Blu Ray players, which will be upgradeable to Profile 2.0 Read more...
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