HD DVD Players Showing Improvement
The two movie disc formats that are competing to replace the DVD have had a rocky start, with clunky first-generation players and an audience that’s been reluctant to buy them for fear of betting on the losing side.
But there’s now a second generation of players out, and in our test of three of them, it’s clear that they left the problems of their predecessors behind. Sorry, consumers, but it’s time to choose sides: Blu-ray or HD DVD.
From the HD DVD camp I tried Toshiba Corp.’s $499 HD-A2 player. In the other corner of the ring swaggered Sony Corp.’s BDP-S1 Blu-ray disc player, which lists for $999 but is available for less. As a cheaper alternative, I also looked at the Blu-ray function of a $599 PlayStation 3 from Sony.
Our review of the first Toshiba HD DVD player, the HD-A1, in September noted that it was a massive affair that took a minute to start up and another to load the movie disc. The first Blu-ray player, from Samsung, was met by similar complaints, and appeared to degrade image quality slightly.
The HD-A2, by contrast, is a svelte device that looks very much like a regular DVD player. It takes 30 seconds to load a disc, a little slow but not enough to bore you. The fan is louder than you’d expect from a DVD player, but not bothersome in most entertainment centers.
HD DVDs looked, for the most part, fantastic on my 46-inch Sony LCD set, which is big enough to reveal the flaws in DVDs — they all look like they’re shot through a thin layer of jelly. “Deer Hunter” in HD DVD looked jaw-droppingly sharp and beautiful. An older movie like “Casablanca,” which has many medium shots, gained a dimension when I could clearly see the glints in the characters’…
