Blast from the past -- an HD-DVD question

[Paul MacLean]

I know HD-DVD is a long-dead format, but my old player was still sitting on the basement floor with about 15 discs, so I was thinking of giving it to a friend of mine (she doesn't have Blu-ray, only DVD and of course DVDs will play on the HD-DVD player).

Since it hadn't been used in years I decided to test it. I popped in Excalibur, which played fine for a few minutes, then the screen went black and an error message appeared which said "Cannot Play Disc".

I then tried Superman, and the player just sat there and did nothing.

Should I just throw it out? Or is there a quick fix for this?

And Eric W. -- I forbid you to gloat!

[AndyDursin]

Unless there's dust in the player, it must be DOA. Time for the trash!

[Paul MacLean]

Andy, you sold me a lemmon!!!

Just kidding

Do you think it is the player, or the discs? I never really used to the player a whole lot, and it was replaced with a Blu-ray deck a couple of years later, and I've heard that HD-DVD disc deteriorate.

[AndyDursin]

I dunno, those Toshiba HD-DVD players were well made and had quality upscaling in them, though my first guess is it's the player. If the disc actually starts then stops, it's unlikely it's the disc. Especially if it's happening on more than one disc. If the player was sitting unused for years it's possibly dirty, the lens specifically.

"Disc rot" would also be visible on the disc itself and would likely render the whole disc unreadable, though I can't tell you the last time I had an rotted disc. Its only happened on one Blu-Ray I've had, the Criterion WALKABOUT, which the label was aware of and actually still replaces for free if you email them. Not an occurrence that happens with any regularity at all in the BD format.

The Wikipedia page says a lot of HD-DVD Warner titles rotted -- who knows. Do DVDs play?

[AndyDursin]

Actually if those are both Warner discs, maybe it IS the discs.

Do the other studio HD DVDs play?

[Edmund Kattak]

Andy, you sold me a lemmon!!!

Just kidding

Do you think it is the player, or the discs? I never really used to the player a whole lot, and it was replaced with a Blu-ray deck a couple of years later, and I've heard that HD-DVD disc deteriorate.

You could be right about the deterioration of the discs. I had several that didn't play when I last used the player a couple of years ago. Anyway, I think I have the player and a bunch of discs still in storage.

You are welcome to any or all of it - FoC. If any of it still works, of course. I bought the player the day that Toshiba discontinued it - President's Day 2008.

[AndyDursin]

The Toshiba players were good players. Ed is right, it may well be the discs.

The higher end Toshiba HD DVD players had upscaling chips that were only found in high end format players at the time too. I think the XA2 was one of the ones I had and it worked really well.

The format itself is worth nothing now, you could trade the discs in for comparable Blu Ray discs at the time shortly after Toshiba pulled the plug on it so they are all frisbees. Not sure any of them are worth anything.

It is worth noting in the beginning HD DVD was much more polished of a format than Blu-Ray was in it's infancy. Many BD discs had bad transfers from DVD era masters and the Java encoded material on them was clunky and lead to a lot of problematic discs in the early years. They got it ironed out over time and figured out how to maximize the 50gb potential of the format, but they did not take full advantage of it early on. That's why many of us thought HD DVD had inherent advantages in the early years. Blu Ray took a long time to live up to it's potential (I mean how many of those BD releases from the first few years does anyone still own? Many of them were re released in better remasters -- even general, perennially popular titles like Superman, Goodfellas, even Excalibur and Caddyshack were re encoded). Plus there were a few HD DVD Paramount titles that had better encoding also!

[Monterey Jack]

[Eric W.]

And Eric W. -- I forbid you to gloat!