HD Ready Tv arrives........now what?

Maxwell

So you listen to all the advice and future proof yourself so you have the HD Ready Plasma TV for when SKY comes up with the content next year.

But my question is - what do you do in the meantime?

I have a HD Ready 42" plasma and a HD Ready LCD Projector - but what do I hook up to them to get HD quality pictures (i.e. TV or DVD)

Is there HD content out there - and if it is, how do you hook it up?

Anyone got any links/advice on this as I would really appreciate it.

Thanks

gs39t

for starters : http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/contentshowcase.aspx

I think there are some HD DVD players out now, with DVD movies being released in HD soon, i seen a list of a hundered or so existing titles that are going to be release in HD in Home Cinema Choice magazine.

Apparently some games consoles do HD for some games but dont quote me on that

Maxwell

Cheers, thanks for that gs39t

I am trying to scrawel through www.avsforums.com as this is a US site that has a HD section, so I'll see what comes up!

I sometimes buy home cinema choice, but I musn't have picked up the latest one, will have to check it out.

If anyone has any other further links, please let me know - thanks!

Ciaran500

Preorder a Xbox360

Maxwell

Games don't completely appeal to me - was looking for av content/movies instead.

Ice_Box

As far as I know...
There are currently no hi definition players on the market. I think the first High Definition DVD player will be the Playstation 3. It will play Blue-Ray discs and has an ETA of March 06. The first HD-DVD player will be a Toshiba and should be available slightly after that. The xbox360 will only have a regular DVD player but will be able to output game images at hi def.

sprinkles

Ice_Box wrote:

As far as I know...
There are currently no hi definition players on the market. I think the first High Definition DVD player will be the Playstation 3. It will play Blue-Ray discs and has an ETA of March 06. The first HD-DVD player will be a Toshiba and should be available slightly after that. The xbox360 will only have a regular DVD player but will be able to output game images at hi def.

xbox 360 will be out before the PS3 and will play HD disks, movies included. There are movies out on HD disks already. Try the interweb for them. If your looking for HD rte, try 2080, they might have caught up by then.

gs39t

Ice_Box wrote:

As far as I know...
There are currently no hi definition players on the market.

http://www.pixmania.com/ie/uk/113069/art/yamaha/dvd-s2500b-high-definitio.html

Just one i found, there are more available now

Khannie

Just found some hidef content here.

(The link logs you in as user mpeg with password mpeg).

CiaranC

xbox 360 will be out before the PS3 and will play HD disks, movies included.

Xbox360 is launching without HD-DVD. It may be provided as an optional add-on later.

Maxwell

Thanks KHannie,

But I can't view the link, Its timing out on me. Can you post an alternative link instead?thanks

full forward

gs39t wrote:

http://www.pixmania.com/ie/uk/113069/art/yamaha/dvd-s2500b-high-definitio.html

Just one i found, there are more available now

Thats not a HD-DVD player. Its got a high def connection but only plays regular DVD's. There are no HD-DVD players on the market yet. The xbox 360 at launch will NOT play HD-DVD's. A new xbox360 will be available later with a HD-DVD player. Toshiba will release the first HD-DVD player next year costing about €1000. The playstation 3 will be the first true hi definition player but it will play Blue-Ray media and not HD-DVD media. THere is a possibility that you will be able to buy a HD-DVD/Blue Ray player for the PC before christmas. Confused? You should be!

rabbitinlights

whats the spec on the TV? is it full 1080p HiDef? Does it use HDMI or DVI? if its DVI connect it to your PC (if that has DVI) and watch the content provided above. Otherwise if you have money to burn you could always get a HD Satellite receiver and watch the european test channels from Astra and Canal+....

Can anyone confirm that standard DVD's can support HD content, So if you could buy a DVD player with either a HDMI or DVI connection you could watch HD content.

s.

full forward

You'll be able to store Divx HD (720p) on regular DVD's and play them back using a Divx HD compatible DVD player when they become available. They are available now in Japan.

http://www.divx.com/hd/

Khannie

Maxwell wrote:

But I can't view the link, Its timing out on me. Can you post an alternative link instead?thanks

It says:

There are too many anonymous FTP users using the system at this time. Try again in a few minutes.

I'd say you'll need to try it before the US wakes up (roughly midday).

JimmyL

Maxwell wrote:

So you listen to all the advice and future proof yourself so you have the HD Ready Plasma TV for when SKY comes up with the content next year.

But my question is - what do you do in the meantime?

I have a HD Ready 42" plasma and a HD Ready LCD Projector - but what do I hook up to them to get HD quality pictures (i.e. TV or DVD)

Is there HD content out there - and if it is, how do you hook it up?

Anyone got any links/advice on this as I would really appreciate it.

Thanks

Can you connect them to a PC? You can always try WMVHD - some DVDs come in that format but might need a PC to play.

P.S. The downloadable samples look great on the monitor at 1280x1024.

P.P.S. You can also try Superbit DVDs. Resolution is the same but less compression.

Khannie

JimmyL wrote:

P.S. The downloadable samples look great on the monitor at 1280x1024.

Yeah, very impressed. Particularly impressed with the one I got from that navy site earlier showing the shuttle liftoff. The detail level was very nice indeed.

JacoStanley

For €200 you could try this. It upgrades regular dvds to a higher resolution without being truely HD. http://www.powercity.ie/test.asp?par=10-19-HD850. I've found the best picture I get on my HD is when it's connected to the computer and I have Far Cry or something like that playing. It's extremely beautiful.

Tony

Khannie wrote:

Yeah, very impressed. Particularly impressed with the one I got from that navy site earlier showing the shuttle liftoff. The detail level was very nice indeed.

For some reason that clip just locks up my windows media player, does it need an add on ?

big_moe

pioneer have a good few hd-dvd players....

pioneer DV-668AV-S, DV-868AVi-S (wont do 1080i only 575p), DV-989AVi-S, DVR-930H-S ( dvd/HDD recorder aswell, wont record hi-def tho).

disk wise, we have a hawaiin demo disk, not somewthing you would watch for the craic, looks great but its only a documentary..

hd disk

as for tv signal get the euro 1080 channel, we use that for demo in work. get a hi def decoder and there is about 4 channels available. euro1080 channel "HD1" needs a smart card, its 200 quid but its "on" til 2010.. the decoder have a dvi output so a dvi-hdmi convertor is needed. we have have it on the new pioneer 43" hi-def and it looks brilliant.

moe

Mthor5

I think the closest you can get to high def on standard dvd is through the dvd players like the pioneers which upscales 480/576p to 720p which isnt tru high-def.
I've ordered Terminator2 and Underworld wmv-hd dvd's from http://www.high-def.de/ although you need a fairly beefy pc(3ghz?) to play them.Also, lost tv show series is great in 720p.
I see you've found the avs forums,have you looked through the http://www.avforums.com/forums/index.php,its a UK forum which is very good for info.
Also couple of high def clips here http://www.divx.com/movies/browse.php?categoryID=3&src=subnav_hd_from__movies_index_

Maxwell

Thanks for all the feedback and links.

Hopefully I can get myself set up properly with some content as the money spent on the HD Ready Plasma and HD ready projector needs to be seen!

Khannie

Tony wrote:

For some reason that clip just locks up my windows media player, does it need an add on ?

Sorry, just saw this now....It shouldn't need an addon. I'm playing it on linux and using fairly bog standard windows codecs for it. It needs a fair chunk of processing power though.

Tony

Khannie wrote:

Sorry, just saw this now....It shouldn't need an addon. I'm playing it on linux and using fairly bog standard windows codecs for it. It needs a fair chunk of processing power though.

Thanks, maybe the processor is not up to it. no big deal

Khannie

Just found this on the highdefinitionforums.com site....

http://www.archive.org/download/Ocean_720p-1/Ocean_720p-1.wmv

Nice showcase piece.

Maxwell

Excellent link there Khannie!!!

Will spend ages going through that forum.

For others interested, this seems like a good site for content:
http://www.wmvhd.com/

Zaphod

As others have mentioned, if you have money to burn then you could buy a MPEG2 HDTV satellite receiver (e.g. QualiTV 1080), but apart from being expensive, it will be incompatible with Sky HDTV and most other HDTV future transmissions (in MPEG4).

A cheaper route would be a DVB-S PCI card (e.g. Skystar 2 for about €60 from Germany) with a decent PC and graphics card with DVI could receive both MPEG2 and MPEG4 HDTV transmissions. A few pics of what's available are here:
http://216.239.39.104/translate_c?&u=http://board.satbook.de/wbb/thread.php%3Fthreadid%3D2149%26sid%3D6d413008a7e42d6dfadd7905a9a9935d


A list of current HDTV transmissions are here:
http://216.239.39.104/translate_c?&u=http://board.satbook.de/wbb/thread.php%3Fthreadid%3D1717%26page%3D4%26sid%3D6d413008a7e42d6dfadd7905a9a9935d