Some HD Titles already available

[Geoffcin]

As copied from the DVD Town message boards;

http://www.dvdtown.com/messageboard/topic/10/17598/?PHPSESSID=2de7a3c2eacbd07edd4337bf55aa0b5a

It seems like not many people know that Terminator 2 (Extreem Edition) DVD already comes in HD format as part of the boxed set. The first DVD in the set is standard format, and the second DVD is in HD. Of course, you need to play it on your computer and hook it up to your TV with a DVI cable to view it, but the whole movie is on one puny girly little regular DVD. Why do we need a new format? It can already work on a regular DVD. It just needs an upgraded player.

Here is the link with the movie:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/T2DVD.aspx

By the way, "T2 Extreme" is not the only movie available in WM HD--other Artisan (now owned by Lions Gate) titles, including "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" and "Step Into Liquid", as well as several IMAX titles from Image offer both SD-DVD and WM HD versions of movies.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

It seems like not many people know that Terminator 2 (Extreem Edition) DVD already comes in HD format as part of the boxed set. The first DVD in the set is standard format, and the second DVD is in HD. Of course, you need to play it on your computer and hook it up to your TV with a DVI cable to view it, but the whole movie is on one puny girly little regular DVD.

The problem with using a computer to view the HD disc is that it has to be of VERY high quality, with tons of processing power, and the strong ability to ignore the fan and the noise of the hard drive spining. It has got to have the best video and audio card in the world, or its just not worth viewing with a computer.

[Geoffcin]

The problem with using a computer to view the HD disc is that it has to be of VERY high quality, with tons of processing power, and the strong ability to ignore the fan and the noise of the hard drive spining. It has got to have the best video and audio card in the world, or its just not worth viewing with a computer.

3ghz processor minimum, and a 128mb video card. In addition you've got to have a DVI output, and a TV that accepts DVI. Still, there's a lot of computers out there that can do just this.The entry into this kind of multimedia computer is less than a grand for the Gateway models.

[ericl]

My new Comcast cable box sports an HD-DVR. This box is essentially just a computer, and those recorded HD movies and football games are being stored into some file format. Can't this just be hacked somehow? What's preventing some industrious computer geeks from hacking that system and being able to burn those HD files on to a disc or copying them to another computer and playing them on any computer?

the computer would need to be beefy, but not much more so than the cable box.

[Woochifer]

I've read a lot of mixed feedback about how feasible these HD files are. Once you get the video feed up and running, I've read that the video quality can be pretty good, but getting to that point can be a challenge. Aside from T2: EE (which also includes a commentary track from James Cameron, but deletes the excellent DTS ES track from the out-of-print Ultimate Edition DVD), most of the other movies I've seen in this format is documentaries.

The need for a dedicated video card with at least 128 MB of video memory is probably the biggest barrier since the majority of PCs sold nowadays come with integrated graphics adaptors that share the system memory. The other barrier is the same thing that PC convergence advocates still have yet to fully appreciate -- most people do not keep their desktop computers near their entertainment systems, and won't tolerate long boot-up cycles and system crashes with their TV viewing.