Okay, folks. I do not own an HDTV. I intend to own an HDTV next year. In fact, I am adding several thousand dollars to the cost of my condo/townhome for the HD widescreen home theater system that I intend to buy at the same time.
I’m going to purchase Heroes on DVD. If I get the HD version now, will it display normally on a normal TV, or will it look funny?
Looking funny might also be the fault of the nose/eyebrow glasses you taped to your screen. I recommend taking those off before watching works of high art, like The Third Man or Blazing Saddles. Just keep ’em sticky in case Jimmy Carter shows up on a talk show.
A HD-DVD will display on a normal TV, but the DVD player is the important element. Many HD-DVDs will not run on a player that is not HD. So check your player before you make your purchase.
chsw
I didn’t know that, chsw. I’m pretty sure my DVD player is too old for HD. Okay. I’ll buy the normal set, and figure out what to do next year, because I don’t want to buy a new DVD player when I don’t really have to.
OK, here’s the scoop:
There are two competing HD disc formats right now: HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Disc. The two will give you identical picture quality (they both use the same audio and video encodings), but they are not interchangeable. With the exception of one LG-brand player, a player that supports one will not support the other.
It is assumed that one of these formats is going to fall by the wayside in a few years (like Beta did for video tape), but there is much debate over which one will survive. Assuming that you’re not worried about this…
A HD disc player of either format should put out all of the usual legacy video signals – composite, S-video, and component, in addition to the HDMI used for HD video.
Of these, composite and component are standard-def technologies. Your HD movies will be downsampled to SD resolution, and should look very much like DVD.
Component video can theoretically support HD, but it’s my understanding that very few HD players actually put out an HD signal over the component video ports, because they can’t wrap reliable copy protection around the signals, so you should expect SD video from the component video outputs as well.
HDMI is the interface that will give you HD. It is all-digital, based on DVI (plus audio and copy protection.) Of course, your TV will need an HDMI input in order to use this interface. All HDTVs and most “HD ready” TVs have HDMI inputs.
Anyway, to make a long story short, if you want to buy Heroes in HD, and you are willing to take a chance that HD-DVD won’t be orphaned in a few years, go for it. Your TV will be able to show the video to the best of its ability. When you later get an HDTV, an HDMI cable should be all you need to see the full HD content.
Personally, I plan on waiting for the BD/HDDVD shakeout to happen before I buy any HD discs in either format, but you may more impatient than me in this regard.
Oh, and one minor correction to chsw: No HD-DVD disc will play on a plain DVD player.
HD-DVD, despite the name, is not the same as DVD. If your player isn’t designed for HD-DVD, it won’t play an HD-DVD disc.
Excellent summary, David.
Please note that some HD-DVD content has been released on combo HD/standard DVD disks. I just checked, and Heroes is NOT one of those. Sorry Meryl!
Related: Don’t forget you can get an inexpensive (sub $100 or more if you want) “Upconverting” DVD player that will take your current, normal DVDs and expand them to display nicely on your large screen HDTV (rather than choosing between watching movies in a little box or zooming the TV control to expand the picture to fill the screen…very fuzzy). I have a 42″ HDTV and waited far too long to get one of these.