They will be capable of 1080p in the future. The HD-DVD discs all contain 1080p movies. The Toshiba/RCA player only outputs 1080i although some have speculated that 1080p output capability could be enabled via a future firmware upgrade.
If HD-DVD only supports 1080i, then why do my versions of Constantine, The Chronicles of Riddick, and Unforgiven all say that they support 1080p on the back?
I'm not trying to stir up trouble or anything, but it just seems impossible that the discs would be supporting the format if it wasn't possible with the format.
Quote:At this point we should address what can only be characterized as a hoax?the notion that Blu-ray must be technically superior to HD-DVD because the Samsung player outputs 1080p, whereas the Toshiba player is "only 1080i." One high-end home theater retailer told me last weekend that the reason you pay $1000 for the Blu-ray player is for the "higher resolution 1080p output." This is absolute baloney. If you encounter any retail sales rep feeding you this line, keep your wallet in your pocket and leave the store.
The truth is this: The Toshiba HD-DVD player outputs 1080i, and the Samsung Blu-ray player outputs both 1080i and 1080p. What they fail to mention is that it makes absolutely no difference which transmission format you use?feeding 1080i or 1080p into your projector or HDTV will give you the exact same picture. Why? Both disc formats encode film material in Progressive scan 1080p at 24 frames per second. It does not matter whether you output this data in 1080i or 1080p since all 1080 lines of information on the disc are fed into your video display either way. The only difference is the order in which they are transmitted. If they are fed in Progressive order (1080p), the video display will process them in that order. If they are fed in interlaced format (1080i), the video display simply reassembles them into their original Progressive scan order. Either way all 1080 lines per frame that are on the disc make it into the projector or TV. The fact is, if you happen to have the Samsung Blu-ray player and a video display that takes both 1080i and 1080p, you can switch the player back and forth between 1080i and 1080p output and see absolutely no difference in the picture. So this notion that the Blu-ray player is worth more money due to 1080p output is nonsense.
Quote: If HD-DVD only supports 1080i, then why do my versions of Constantine, The Chronicles of Riddick, and Unforgiven all say that they support 1080p on the back?
You kinda answered your own question there. Key word "Supports." What the player supports and what the format is capable of are two different things.
For example, the DVD format in capable of Progressive scan although all the movie content is encoded in 480i. Also, some DVD players support Progressive scan playback and even upconversion. But I'm sure you already new that.
---LATER---
At the projector pro artical...
They fail to relize that the Samsung's 1080p output is just a gimmick. It doesn't have 1080p@24fps pass through. Both the Toshiba and Samsung players convert the disc matirial to 1080i before feeding it to the Video processing chips. The chips only work with 1080i signals! Then the Toshiba player outputs the signal from the video processing chips while the Smasung player give you the option to either send the video out from the video processing chips to the TV or send it to the De-interlacer and then to TV. Either way the same picture is attained because the all 1080p sets are capable of de-interlacing interlaced content (for that matter, all Fixed Pixel Displays must deinterlace all interlaced video content).
The new RD-A1 HD-DVD Recorder from Toshiba has just shipped in Japan and is capable of 1080p output thru HDMI. It records HD using H.264 and VC-1 codecs and has a 1 terabyte hard drive. No word yet on US availability.
