HD-DVD Continues to Cause Frustration in the Dunn Household

[Jason Dunn]

As any geek knows, the "Wife Test" is a critical test that every technology has to pass in order for technological harmony to exist in the home. The deeper I get into HD-DVD waters, the murkier the waters become. This time, it's the Transformers HD-DVD.

First up, there's the frustration of not being able to get the "best" boxed set in the "best" format. What I mean by that is when Transformers first came out a little over a week ago, there was a special edition boxed set that came with a collectible figurine (I think - I can't find an online reference to it now). But that boxed set wasn't available in HD-DVD format, only regular DVD. So I had to choose between getting the box with the extra goodies, or the box with the best video and audio quality. The same thing happened with Heroes Season 1, and with 300. Why do these movie companies force their customers to decide between high-resolution quality or getting the extras? They should offer both. I ended up getting the HD-DVD version.

Next we had yet another glitch with starting up the HD-DVD: I put the disc in my Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive, and waited. And waited. There's a "Web interactivity download" that occurs when you first put in the disc, and it took just under 5 minutes to complete. I learnt my lesson from the Heroes Season 1 HD-DVD (http://www.jasondunn.com/xbox-360-hd-dvd-lock-up-playing-heroes-disc-508), so I didn't select cancel and just waited. My wife and I are both slightly impatient people, so it was frustrating to sit there waiting for the disc to complete its process. Keep in mind here I have a 10mbps cable modem connection and my Xbox 360 is connected via Ethernet, so it doesn't get much faster in the average home.

I remember how badly early reviewers lambasted the first-generation HD-DVD and Blu-ray players for having extremely slow boot times. I don't see how it's any different if you have the player booting up in a few seconds but the DVD taking five minutes before it starts playing the 60 seconds or so of legal warnings.

Unless things start to change, I think I may have purchased my last HD-DVD for quite some time - the studios are ruining the experience. Why doesn't that surprise me?

[Chris Gohlke]

I had a similar experience with the Knocked Up HD-DVD. I was stuck at the loading screen and figured it was just hung up, so shut it off and back on and kept getting the same problem. After reading your post, I understand it was downloading interactive content, but that is not what a loading message indicates. All I wanted to do was watch the movie. First the message should be more specific and tell you that it is downloading content, which I guess means you can't watch a movie if your internet is down. Second, you should get the opportunity to bypass the download if that is not the content you want to watch anyway. In the end, we were not patient enough to wait and since it was a dual disk, I flipped it over and just watched the DVD side.

[Jason Dunn]

My profound apologies to all of you who had to suffer the fate of reading the original title of the post, which was "HD-DVD Continues to Cause Frustrating in the Dunn Household". It seems I need some remedial English classes. ;-)

[Jason Dunn]

I was stuck at the loading screen and figured it was just hung up, so shut it off and back on and kept getting the same problem.

Yes, exactly. I can't imagine how many people might return the disc to the store saying it doesn't work because of this issue. It's completely and utterly idiotic that the movie companies would master the disc in such a way that the first thing it does is NOT PLAY. :roll:

First the message should be more specific and tell you that it is downloading content, which I guess means you can't watch a movie if your internet is down.

Indeed. Why should the video content on the disc not be playable if you don't happen to have Internet access? The Transformers HD-DVD had a cancel button, but it sounds like yours didn't.

It seems like the HD-DVD movies companies don't really TEST their products before releasing them... :evil:

[Damion Chaplin]

Just rent it. That way when it doesn't work, you're only out $3.50.

It's not a movie worth owning anyway...

Unless you already have an extensive Transformers collection... :roll:

[Chris Gohlke]

I've had it in my Blockbuster queue for a while now (well before it came out), but it still shows long wait. Damn them for not having HD in their stores. I've rented plenty, but have not actually purchased an HD movie yet.

[Tim Williamson]

There are two things in the technology world that I won't touch with a 10-foot pole -- DRM and HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.

[Jason Dunn]

Just rent it. That way when it doesn't work, you're only out $3.50.

There's no place around here that rents HD-DVD movies. At least, not that I'm aware of. I've come to a strange place with DVD rentals: because I'm paying $25 a month for my Zip.ca account, I feel like that's my monthly movie rental budget and spending more is out of the question. But Zip.ca has a screwed up system that rarely gets me the movies I really want to see - I'm actually in month three of a process where I'm tracking every movie they send me and its position on my list, so soon I'll be able to publish a report of exactly how well their queueing system works. The answer so far is not very well.

It's not a movie worth owning anyway...

Nah, I disagree. There were lots of problems with the movie, but from a pure entertainment standpoint, it does what it was meant to do: be a fun movie with great special effects. The acting was weak in some places, the story had lots of holes, and from a purists standpoint I wish the Transformers would have been done a bit differently...but the movie was still very entertaining so I think it's worth owning. :D

I think you're just bitter because Soundwave didn't make it into the movie. ;-)

[Damion Chaplin]

Nah, I disagree. There were lots of problems with the movie, but from a pure entertainment standpoint, it does what it was meant to do: be a fun movie with great special effects. The acting was weak in some places, the story had lots of holes, and from a purists standpoint I wish the Transformers would have been done a bit differently...but the movie was still very entertaining so I think it's worth owning. :D

I think you're just bitter because Soundwave didn't make it into the movie. ;-)

FWIW, Netflix's service is fantastic, especially here in the Bay Area. Canadia's out of luck though.

As for the movie... Don't get me started... Oh screw it.
Transformers saying "My Bad" while accidently tromping all over mom's flower's? Gagh!
Bumblebee peeing on a Section 6 member? Oof!
All the Decepticons speaking in Cyber-speak 'cause they spent all their voice actor budget on Hugo Weaving (who wasn't even a very good Megatron)? Blech.
And that's just the movie. I'll spare you the TF purist nitpicking.

I thought The Island (and even Armegeddon) was quite entertaining, but I found The Transformers to be more painful than anything else.

And, no, I'm not bent Soundwave didn't make it in. You know he was going to be the helicopter before test screenings made them rename him Blackout? Then they were going to make the chicken-bot named Soundwave, which also met major disapproval, so they renamed him Frenzy. Bay et al have stated that they'll save Soundwave for when they "can do him right." At least they did one thing right...

Just wait for that GI Joe movie, where they won't let COBRA be a terrorist organization... :roll:

Oh, and Toby McGuire playing Rick Hunter in Robotech..? :?

See what you started? :wink:

[pradike]

No problems here with the HD DVD at all. None.

Part of the Dunn Household problem is that the XBox HD DVD player doesn't pack the same horsepower as the real Toshiba players have in them, so the processing time takes longer. Its the same story with the Playstations playing Blu Ray...they work OK, but less memory and processor speed slows things down in those units as well (as compared to real/full-time players).

On my Toshiba player, not only does the update process go in seconds in the beginning, but cancelling it also resumes the HD DVD in a very breif timeframe.

In addition, the Transformers HD DVD is by far one of the top 2 so far, with the video and audio being top notch. The 9 people who have now seen it on my 116" screen have literally oooooed and ahhhhhed and said its the most amazing HD movie they've seen period.

I guess its all about setting expectations....mine for the XBOX would be that they would be slower than the Toshiba units, and so I would not be in the least surprised at the bootup experience.

[Gator5000e]

I can't speak for the XBox 360 players, but my Transformer discs played flawlessly the first time. I have the first gen Toshiba player and had read that firmware 2.4 had been released so updated to that version prior to playing the disc. I had absolutely no issues with the disc. And as others have said, it was a "fun" movie, Michael Bay's Hi-Def format ignorance notwithstanding. Well what ever happens with the formats, I am very happy I took the early plunge into HD DVD.