Is it worth it?

I am setting up my first home theater system and since I don't want to buy Blu Ray right now, would it be worth the money to get a HD dvd player? I already have the Xbox 360, so buying the HD DVD player will only cost me about $50. Will there be a very noticeable difference between standard and HD DVDs? Should I just stick with the standard definition until blu ray drops in price some more?

Well considering that you can get the HD DVD player for that cheap and most HD DVD movie titles only cost about $5.00 each it is a good start for the titles released already, but sooner or later you will want to add BD for the newer releases and future releases. Also consider you will likely want to buy a back up HD DVD player IF you buy a lot of titles on HD DVD so they can still be played down the road also as part of the cost of getting into HD DVD.

You can get a BD player for about $250.00 right now I think and just rent BD movies from Netflix at under $2.00 per rental if you watch them fast enough and return them, so in the long run you might be better to into BD and just rent until BD movies get cheap enough to own them at YOUR price point.

The final decision would have to be yours, but I think you NEED to allow for HD DVD player redundancy as part of the cost of getting into HD DVD at this point. Of course, the stand alone HD DVD players are also excellent upscalers also and at $50.00 they are a good deal just for that use if you think about it.

I own 2 HD DVD players that work and 2 that do not work, and I am thinking about buying a 3rd HD DVD player as a backup myself while they are still available.

Keep in mind this is coming from a staunch HD DVD supporter back when it was a viable format, so I am not just pushing BD and want you to understand the full cost of getting into HD DVD right now. ;)

Hope this helps!

If you are going to have one or the other, Blu-ray or HD DVD, by all means you want that one player to be Blu-ray. You can rent new movies at local stores and online and there are plenty of budget priced Blu-ray releases. Yes, you can get HD DVD players and software at great prices and I have a lot of HD DVD's but having HD DVD is a good supplement to owning Blu-ray but would be a terrible substitute in my opinion. The movies you want to see, new blockbusters and the best classic films won't ever be available on HD DVD.

Chris

maybe!@

I am setting up my first home theater system and since I don't want to buy Blu Ray right now, would it be worth the money to get a HD dvd player? I already have the Xbox 360, so buying the HD DVD player will only cost me about $50. Will there be a very noticeable difference between standard and HD DVDs? Should I just stick with the standard definition until blu ray drops in price some more?

I take it, that Blu-ray prices are an issue in your case. Is in the price for the hardware and/or the software? As Chris said, you might consider the option to get a player and simply rent the movies.

What kind of display do have/plan on getting?

How far away from it will you sit?

Besides from that: Since you have the XBOX 360, i think HD DVD is always worth $50 to be able to play the format. You get access to a pretty large selection of films in HD, most of them can be bought for cheap. You can and should add Blu-ray later on, since this is the format where moving forward new films are being released on.

I am setting up my first home theater system and since I don't want to buy Blu Ray right now, would it be worth the money to get a HD dvd player? I already have the Xbox 360, so buying the HD DVD player will only cost me about $50. Will there be a very noticeable difference between standard and HD DVDs? Should I just stick with the standard definition until blu ray drops in price some more?

yup sure ..

I think it is worth it, only $50, to make your life much better, and you should think that using money inorder to make life better, so, you should buy one anyway.

It's always worth it man.. :thumbsup:

I think, it is worth it

No complaints or regrets so far!

i think it would be worthy .....u know ..u dun need to spend a lot ...but u can get so much fun from it ....

i think it would be worthy .....u know ..u dun need to spend a lot ...but u can get so much fun from it ....

Ok let's keep the Ebonics to a minimum.

It is DEFINITELY worth it. Even if new HD-DVD titles won't happen, you can still find hundreds of older titles online at Amazon.com or Frys.com.

Best of all, HD-DVD players are GREAT upscalers of standard dvd's.

So if you can get a good deal on the HD-DVD player, buy it!

If you're just looking for a paperweight, ask Sony if they have any SACD players left.

It is DEFINITELY worth it. Even if new HD-DVD titles won't happen, you can still find hundreds of older titles online at Amazon.com or Frys.com.

Best of all, HD-DVD players are GREAT upscalers of standard dvd's.

So if you can get a good deal on the HD-DVD player, buy it!

If you're just looking for a paperweight, ask Sony if they have any SACD players left.

I totally agree with you there. As far as SACD goes the only player worth buying is the new Oppo Blu-ray player that supports that and DVD-A.

should I get upscale dvd player or hd dvd player if they were about same price?

For the same price, I would get an HD DVD player myself, and then you could always choose to buy new HD DVD movies that are true HD for less than the SD DVD version would cost new.

its better to have you decision..so that at the end,..you won't regret it!!!

It is DEFINITELY worth it. Even if new HD-DVD titles won't happen, you can still find hundreds of older titles online at Amazon.com or Frys.com.

Best of all, HD-DVD players are GREAT upscalers of standard dvd's.

So if you can get a good deal on the HD-DVD player, buy it!

If you're just looking for a paperweight, ask Sony if they have any SACD players left.

There have been about 6,000 SACD releases compared to under 1,000 HD DVD releases and more SACD titles have been released every month during 2009. There has been well over 25,000,000 SACD players sold worldwide from many different manufacturers and more are being manufactured every month compared to about 1,500,000 HD DVD players from very few manufacturers, none make players now.

If somebody wants high resolution surround and stereo audio playback, there is good reason to purchase SACD. I still hope that Blu-ray which is already huge compared to SACD in terms of total market, market awareness and market potential, replaces SACD and SACD joins HD DVD as a historical footnote. I think this hobby will be well served if all companies still releasing SACD software cease and release Blu-ray instead. If you want to make comparative statements between SACD and HD DVD, you may as well understand the facts. Neither amounted to much, but SACD was gigantic compared to HD DVD. SACD disc prices never plummetted like HD DVD prices have but I wish that would happen. I don't think it can because for the most part SACD wasn't manufactured in crazy quantities compared to demand.

Just like I refused to purchase new release HD DVD's during the format war, the only way I knew to cast my vote in favor of Blu-ray, I now do the same and refuse to purchase any 2009 SACD releases. That isn't a difficult thing since so few titles of interest to me have been released on SACD in 2009. I won't purchase new release DVD-A titles either now for the same reason. If whatever small market exists for better than CD quality can all be moved to Blu-ray, there might be a market big enough to matter and interest all music companies. If we see a dribble of titles on three different formats, there will never be a market of significance for high resolution lossless audio.

Chris

I am setting up my first home theater system and since I don't want to buy Blu Ray right now, would it be worth the money to get a HD dvd player? I already have the Xbox 360, so buying the HD DVD player will only cost me about $50. Will there be a very noticeable difference between standard and HD DVDs? Should I just stick with the standard definition until blu ray drops in price some more?

Yes . I agree with you.

Sure, worty.

I think its worth buying one especialy as the discs are so cheap.

I have a XBox 360 with 2 hd dvd drives (one as a spare), a Toshiba A30 player plus over 70 HD DVD's and still buying discs. One big advantage of HD DVD is that they are not region encoded (as far as I know) so you can buy them from anywhere with out worring if they will play.

I also have a PS3 for Blu Ray with about 25 discs for movies I can't get on HD DVD.