HD-DVDs are stupid and so am I because I bought some

[@dmug]

Two corrections: I slightly misspoke and said USB A when I meant B for the cabling. I took the Xbox 360 drive and connected to a 360 so at least two more of the movies are playable. The extra features on Bourne Ultimatum glitched out though , will post a boring update on Patreon as extended content.

[@namewithheld367]

I worked at Circuit City during this format war. Consumers that were willing to outlay $500 for a player much preferred HD-DVD for one simple reason. The Blu-ray players of the timeframe were clunky and slow compared to the HD-DVD players when it came to menu navigation. We timed it one evening while closing on the store; it took over 6 minutes to get past the unskippable previews, FBI warnings, and Sony ads to get to the actual movie compared to roughly 15 seconds on the HD-DVD player that let you hit skip on literally everything. In addition, for some reason all the Blu-ray players had horrible button lag, roughly .5-.75 seconds from when you would hit a button until you saw your input cause a response on screen. We talked to the Sony rep and he said that it was because of all of the protections that were put on the format. We were actually shocked when Blu-ray won.

[@dmug]

This is interesting as I’d gone post optical besides CDs by this point so I’d tuned out of the format war beyond the basics. I eventually got a ps3 in 2008 but never bought a single blu ray movie disc.

[@joshallen128]

Funny you buy a Blu Ray to not see ads and yet you see ads and filler on something you bought one time. It's not ad supported when I bought the thing. Cable TV I paid for no ads but now I'm paying for ads. Flex seal is ad I won't skip​@@dmug

[@rocksntwigs]

I can confirm similar behavior on the ones my family bought. We had about 3-4 different players over the years before we got a console that played blurays, and the bluray players were absolute garbage. At one point we owned one of the only models of combo player from Samsung, and it would fail to load disks 75% of the time, and would freeze and lag during video playback. Add to this that the new disks didn't work properly, almost certainly down to some shitty DRM, and you would need to update the player every month or so. This is then assuming there was an update available, which there often wasnt. This would mean some disks weren't even possible to watch, and the player was effectively useless. They were also incredibly slow when clicking buttons, navigating menus, and loading the disks themselves, not even counting the un-skippable garbage, could take up to 10 minutes. It was a regular occurrence that we would put in some new release movie and the damn player would pop up some sort of on disk provided software menu that would load and load for 5-10 minutes before just failing outright. We would then need to check for a player software update and hope there was one. Then we would wait 20-30 minutes for that to complete and then would try again only for the disk to take another 5-10 minutes to attempt to load and still fail 50% of the time.

[@lachlanbrown8110]

Never had this issue using my PS3 to play blu rays. Which to this day is still the way I prefer to watch regular blu rays. Starts up fast, responsive to the remote and it’s free built into your game system.

[@PFIND_MEDIA]

Same deal. I worked at a music/movie store during the battle. Honestly preferred HD-DVD simply because of the word "DVD".

[@bearxor]

The USB ports on the back of the HD-DVD drive are because the original X360 only had one USB port on the back intended for the wireless adapter. Since you would be plugging the HD-DVD drive in to that port, Microsoft gave a hub for you to be able to connect the wireless adapter and mount it to the back of the HD-DVD drive, and one bonus extra USB port! The installation disc was necessary for original X360 units to install support for the HD-DVD player if you were on an outdated version of the X360. Remember that broadband wasn't even widely available at this time so plenty of X360's were out there that hadn't even connected to the internet.

[@tommyw.7850]

Came here to say this, the weird rectangle with the two holes actually is identical to the back of the original 360, allowing the USB wi-fi to click into the hd-dvd drive just like the console. I still have this setup in my bedroom back at my parents house hooked up to the tv, hd DVD and all!

[@Ish0tJR]

The only advantages HD DVD had over Blu Ray was that they were region free, and the interactive menu’s were better. The disc rot issue is almost exclusively on Warner Bros discs (3 out of the 4 bad discs you have are all WB), they’re lucky the format died when it did. If it had been successful they would probably be facing a massive lawsuit.

[@qasimmir7117]

That’s true. I wish Blu-rays were region free.

[@wright96d]

The issue also plagued their DVDs produced during that time. I'm surprised they haven't faced a lawsuit over it.

[@exturkconner]

@@wright96d And the early generation blu rays as well. Lots of older blu rays from this era are also rotted.

[@NetflixForeign]

Hmmm hasn't this issue happened with some older DVD's too that were recently foisted off at places like Big Lots and others? I don't think BR's were part of this but I am not sure. I hope my Harry Potter discs are fine.

[@raikiri23]

I loved HD DVD back around 2009 or 2010. After the format failed, these things were available for pennies and I was a broke teenager. I managed to get my hands on a boxed 360 HD DVD player for something like $55 (this came with the media remote which was just in general useful and a $20 value and King Kong). When I said they were pennies? That was an overstatement, because they were going for literally $0.01. So I could get a stack of movies at a penny a piece and then the couple of dollars to ship the lot. I didn't have any streaming services at the time and couldn't afford another console or blu-ray player, so this ended up being my primary way to view HD content back then. The disc rot problem was a big issue even back then though. I had to return more a few copies because they were DOA.

[@dmug]

Yeah, sounds like that perhaps it’s more of badly created discs from a particular factory than the entire format based on comments like this.

[@Shimeih]

Take a shot every time he says HD DVD. We almost died last night.

[@coinstudiosmoviescartoonsa1978]

Lmao

[@michaelmiller3012]

The format itself is not more prone to disc rot - WARNER BROTHERS is the big culprit here. Every WB HD-DVD I have ever owned has died of the rot. Universal and Paramount disks rarely had problems.

[@dmug]

Good to know.

[@joes9954]

Any disc made by Cinram of Pennsylvania will rot. Both HD-DVD as well as standard DVD’s of the same period. Damn Fool Idealistic Crusade has a pretty long list of failed DVD’s. WB might replace those of yours that failed if they are still in production. Check out his channel for more info. HD-DVD’s are not eligible as WB offered their Red2Blu campaign shortly after the end of the format. Also those Microsoft HD-DVD drives are prone to have their lone capacitor fail preventing the drive from working unless you replace it. An easy fix but many simply thought it was dead and tossed them. If you can’t see the drive but CAN see the HD-DVD memory units in device manager, that’s a sure sign the capacitor failed. It’s an odd value but available on Amazon.

[@gregsmith9183]

I've seen the Warner HD DVD problem on many KZbin reviews. Could also happen with blu-ray though Its not that common. Out ogf the 800+ blu-ray in my collection I've only ever had 1 stop working. A Universal music blu-ray made in the EU that became unreadable.

[@bubba842]

​@@joes9954I have a couple of WB HD DVDs that still work. My success rate is about 50% with the WB titles.

[@foznoth]

I have a 5½" PC internal HD-DVD/Bluray reader & Bluray writer. My way of hedging my bet at the time. I still have a couple of HD-DVD movies around. The problem was that at the time broadband started to be rolled out, and high speed high seas travel became available.

[@Vekstar]

And now it's a collectors item. Heard the drives go bad much quicker than other models.

[@foznoth]

@@Vekstar I may have to dig it out at some point and see if it works. I rarely touch optical media these days. Except the odd music CD when I can't find a good online purchase option. Even then, they get ripped & stored away. It's a shame in some ways, there is something nice about having the tactile experience as well as the audio & video.

[@tw350z7]

@@foznoth I went hog wild around 2019 buying HD DVD movies and players off ebay sellers. I had never dealt with the format when it was fresh.

[@bubba842]

What software do you use. I know that Power DVD 7 had the codec built in to it, but trying to find a copy of that version is near on impossible.

[@chrisw443]

I did a high school presentation on this format war when it was happening I called it for blu ray because it was just far technologically better.

[@notmyrealaccount8564]

I had to do a similar thing except I chose HD-DVD for the winner because I figured it would be a cheaper conversion for existing companies to upgrade their DVD making facilities. I don’t think I factored in Sony adding a Blu-ray player to the latest PlayStation though. I even bought the HD-DVD player for the Xbox lol how wrong was I! 😅

[@dmug]

Best format doesn’t always equate to a win, see Betamax (although technology connections has a good video showing the short comings of it). Worth a watch.

[@CaryGordon3k]

I did the same, but while working on my Graduate Degree. With the same conclusion! Lol.

[@qasimmir7117]

@@dmug Blu-ray was overall the better format though. Not that it was what contributed to it winning.

[@kyliefan7]

Cool!! Coincidentally I did a speech in speech class in the 80’s about a “New” format called Compact Disc!! It was pretty entertaining and students and the teacher all had questions about it!! I bought the very first “portable” CD player by Sony that was pretty huge and heavy!

[@cromulence]

(Not very) fun fact - HD-DVD supported H.264, MPEG2 and VC-1 encoding - the same as Blu-Ray - when studios stopped propping up HD-DVD and started releasing Blu-Rays, they literally used the same video encodes they made for HD-DVD. MacOS did actually support HD-DVD at one point, but my understanding is that it never supported commercial discs, only burned ones. I definitely recall seeing 'HD-DVD' listed in the DVD player app on older versions of Mac OS X. The built in USB storage is accessible in Windows if you force a USB mass storage driver install for the device - Microsoft intentionally changed the USB device descriptor to stop the storage appearing as USB storage and stop people wiping the contents as the HD-DVD player software is on this partition and seemingly can't be re-installed - ask me how I know this... MakeMKV can also 'stream' discs without ripping them if you just want to play the content instead of ripping it. EDIT: Changed to reflect that HD-DVD did also support H.264 (I thought it didn't!) as per @ArguingMeadows comment.

[@ArguingMeadows]

HD-DVD also supported H.264, though not many titles used it (Weinstein Company titles were some of the major ones to use the codec, Feast, Clerks II). In fact, at the beginning of both formats, HD-DVD often had better looking encodes because most of the studios stuck to MPEG-2 on Blu-ray while HD-DVD had more advanced VC-1 encodes (see a lot of early Paramount titles, Aeon Flux, Flag Of Our Fathers)

[@cromulence]

@@ArguingMeadows Mandela effect! Haha. Seriously though, I’m sure HD-DVD didn’t support H.264… ah well, today I learned!

[@tommik1283]

I doubt they were the same encodes. Blu-ray movies even from around 2010 can easily go over 30 GBs in size...

[@cromulence]

@ HD-DVD was dead in 2010. But ‘06 and ‘07? The encodes were the same . Why re-encode video when you already have an encode you made for an HD-DVD? Remember that encoding was a time consuming process at this point too, especially from a 4K master.

[@tw3nz0r]

I was a huge HD-DVD fan when I had a 360. I recently sold all my Warner Bros. HD-DVDs as for covers and cases for a few bucks. The format is such a joke today. Great video.

[@bubba842]

Maybe a joke to you, buy some people actually enjoy collecting and watching these movies.

[@tw3nz0r]

@bubba842 It's a joke because every Warner Bros. HD-DVD is unwatchable today due to the manufacturing process.

[@JonathanMcCormack]

The memory storage was for downloading content from the web like the old BD-Live system in Blu-Ray which seems to have been abandoned as well. Shriek 3 HDDVD had some cool mini games for example.

[@NetflixForeign]

Yeah well BD-Live I didn't touch because they could look at the titles you had recently played in your player so I imagine that killed it.

[@QuinsTechCorner]

That IS an absolute unit. What a weird format…

[@DelayLamaKaraokeClub]

Disk rotted disks with less space then its competitor, that you put into a bulky optical drive needing it's own power supply, which only worked if you attached it to a console that was prone to failing with red lights within the first year of purchase.

[@dmug]

While I didn’t have hd dvd back in the day, I had an Xbox 360 that red ringed and so did everyone else basically. I just tossed it and gave my games to my brother.

[@bubba842]

There are stand alone players. The X Box 360 drive is actually probably one of the worst ways to watch HD DVDs because the X Box 360 only outputs Dolby Digital. A stand alone player will give you Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby True HD. Using an example of the worst way to watch the format is a pretty bad example. And if you stay away from the Warner Bros content you probably won't have any issues with the disc rot problem.

[@CaryGordon3k]

I actually bought 2 HD-DVDs from a Goodwill near my work late last year. I know one of the titles was "Darkman", but I can't remember the second one. It just amused me to have them. I do kind of wish I had bought a player when they were on clearance, just to have one for what I understand was excellent upconversion of standard DVDs. Plus it could live in the basement with my 2 LD/DVD players I keep, "just in case". Like, just in case I want to watch my few remaining laserdiscs. Edit- Pitch Black was the second title. Don't know how I forgot that.

[@SgtPogieBait]

A respectful debate: Because you had a Xbox HD DVD player that made noises, should only mean that THAT player had issues, and one shouldn't be critical of all players. Quality of the player and how the owner takes care of it is important. I've had a LG BH200 for 15 years now and it keeps playing with no issues. PROs: it plays DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray regions A/B/C, and my eyeballs are convinced it renders all formats more sharp/better colors; CONs: LG stopped supporting firmware updates in 2014 and only recently it is unable to play some BDs released since 2020. Being region free is a BIG deal just as it is for the same reason that 4K discs are also (except for the very few that were locked). Disc Rot: mostly involves the HD DVD discs by WB which were released 2006-2008. Anyone owning a WB DVD released 2006-2009 (supposedly from a factory in PA) are having the same issue. So, it may not be a problem with the format, but the quality control of WB products. I currently have 48 HD DVD discs and a WB one recently crashed & burned (not the first). As they fail (if) I replace them with a Blu Ray copy. Personally, I like the HD DVD format (just as I liked my Betamax and Commodore Amiga 500 😢).

[@tw350z7]

I always wanted an Amiga,but never got one.

[@wadmodderschalton5763]

Perhaps 2014 was the year that HD DVD players stopped receiving firmware updates across all players and computer drives, both by Toshiba and others.

[@brafya]

i rarely see anyone with a dedicated hddvd player, it's almost always the xbox 360 add-on.

[@dmug]

I saw a few for sale online, but I think the HD-DVD drive waaaaay outsold the others.

[@tezcanaslan2877]

I think the HD-DVD addon was used to crack the 360 as well hence its popularity?

[@ccevideo]

I loved the HD-DVD format and I bought a standalone player - but then I was one of those who bought a laser disc player and a bunch of laser disc movies. I still have my HD-DVD player and movies along with my blu-ray collection.

[@tw350z7]

I own the LG BH200 but the remote died. I recently ordered a replacement from China on ebay. I have an HDEX1 sitting in the closet ,Gotta pull it out one day and see if it still works🤣.

[@NetflixForeign]

Near the end there were some great deals on the standalone. The Onkyo was very cheap and quite nice. I think it was like $50 or maybe $100 more than when the A35 was put on closeout with all its bells and whistles.

[@Robdeltonie]

I remember consumer video software for Windows in the mid-2000s advertised burning HD DVDs on regular DVD media. I never used it though because I never had an HD DVD player. Also, triple-layer HD DVDs had 1 GB more than a dual-layer Blu-ray disc. What were they going to do with that extra gigabyte? HD video is large enough that you could probably fit in only a few minutes extra compared to 50 GB Blu-ray!

[@bubba842]

Triple layer HD DVDs were never released. Toshiba did say that they plans to release them in early 2008, but obviously that never happened.

[@joshj88]

I think blu-ray still is a major distribution format. I keep a blu ray burner of course too but all my major Hollywood movies are blu rays or DVDs. Physical media rules when you can get them at the library or shipped to you.

[@FunkyStudios]

I love failed formats so much

[@tw350z7]

Tell me about it. I have been contemplating getting a Betamax VCR and movies. Most of the ones listed on ebay say for parts only 🤣. I have enough laserdiscs and HD DVD movies and players.

[@FunkyStudios]

@@tw350z7 Go for it!

[@willman85]

There are a handful of movies which you can ONLY get a physical hi-def version copy of on HD-DVD.

[@dmug]

Yeah, so it looks it might be make mkv not arching it

[@bubba842]

I think the only ones of Dukes of Hazard and Time Cop.

[@NetflixForeign]

@@bubba842 Also there are a number on the foreign side. Shame we didn't have a little longer on the format war as it looked like there were going to be a number of Russian movies in HD that actually looked cool. Because of the cheaper price a number of movies got HD DVD's that may not have gotten an HD version otherwise.

[@theshadowman1398]

The problem with HD-DVD is that there were manufacturing defects that are responsible for disc rot

[@dmug]

Yeah a lot of people have mentioned that, wish I knew that going in

[@novalover5033]

It’s WB discs. And it’s well documented. It was NOT just hd dvd it was also a huge lot of DVDs printed by WB from roughly 2002-2009 arguably the most collectible time periods.

[@LinkRichS]

So much ignorance. HD-DVD was NOT technologically inferior to Blu-Ray. This is wrong on so many levels. You shouldn’t do a comparison about something you already have a bias against. The only thing Blu-Ray had over HD-DVD was potential storage per layer. I said potential as most of the original BluRay releases were using MPEG2 compression, same as DVDs, and had inferior video quality compared to HD-DVD, which used AV-1 out of the gate. In fact Sony had a mail in program where you could send in your MPEG2 discs in exchange for an AV-1 version a year later. Did you know that baked into the HD-DVD specifications was a feature called Managed Copy? When Sony tried to copy this, they stated including a separate disc or a download code for digital copy, which still happens to this day. It is also true that the first release of HD-DVD players did not support 1080p, but actually 1080i. This was not due to the disc, but due to the broadcast HD standard being 720p/1080i. Later HD-DVD players supported 1080p, all discs will output 1080p when supported by the player and TV. All HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are is a storage format. The difference in implementation is down to software, and the extra layer of copy protection. Warner Bros and Universal were the last 2 hold outs, and only caved to Blu-Ray when the rest of the studios gave up. People not buying due to the format war is one of the things this video got correct. Man, learn to research better. This is the kind of stuff that ruins history.

[@dmug]

Not sure where this came from, as I’m hardly a Blu-ray fan boy, and didn’t assert that Blu-Ray was massively superior beyond storing more data, and not having the issues with bad discs. I think there might be a wire crossed about the intent of this video. My experience trying use HD DVD in 2024 was not good. There’s no other way to say it. Blu ray worked without hitches and you could easily find multiple ways to play the discs in macOS and Windows and Linux. HD DVD was completely different. This might seem like a “well no shit” as it’s a dead format but it doesn’t make it any less true. I’m sure it was a down right pleasant format to use in 2006 but that isn’t what my angle is about. I also didn’t get into the 1080i vs p thing as the Xbox 360 originally was 1080i only but later shipped a firmware update that enabled 1080p over component not long after the drive was released (and then later added hdmi support to newer consoles). It wasn’t really relevant to the narrative as I didn’t ever plug the drive into an Xbox 360. I also didn’t get into how HD DVD drives capped out at 4x and most were 2x vs blu ray capping at out at 16x or that hd dvd’s licensing fees were lower. Some details just aren’t really important to the story, which is the experience of trying to plug an HD DVD drive into a computer and play a movie. I didn’t ever hear or read anything about the mpeg 2 compression, but would certainly be interested in reading more about that if you know any sources.

[@Saturn2888]

You mean VC-1, not AV-1, 😅.

[@LinkRichS]

@@Saturn2888 Yes, thank you. 🙂

[@bubba842]

​@@dmugmost early Blu Rays are MPEG 2. There were 3 codecs for HD video back then. MPEG 2, VC1 and AVC. Most HDDVDs of the time were actually VC1 with a few AVCs. AVC is by far the better compression codec. But VC1 is much better than MPEG 2. Now all Blu Rays are AVC. At the time HD DVDs did look better due to the better compression codec. MPEG 2 is a very inefficient codec. The bigger storage at the time didn't really mean anything because the storage was being wasted by a crappy codec on early Blu Rays. Most early Blu Rays were only single layer 25GB. Most of my collection of HD DVDs, nearly 100 discs, are mainly dual layer 30GB. This meant that usually the HDDVD version had much better quality and features at the time. Modern day Blu Ray is much better. The use of the AVC codec, which had seen multiple revisions, has meant that Blu Ray has reached its potential. But at the time, without the PS3, I seriously doubt that Blu Ray would have won.

[@ScreenSage_YT]

Warner and Paramount were the last hold outs, not Universal.

[@TofuInc]

"Posix error" is a communication error between the drive and the computer. Extremely common issue with Macs for whatever reason. When you do encounter it on a PC it's usually due to a lack of power for the external drive. I have a Toshiba HD-A3 player, they were one of the players sold here in the US. I bought it second hand for $30 and it still works. There is basically no difference in picture quality or sound between HD-DVD and Blu Ray as far as I can tell. I also think the disc rot issue is exaggerated. I have very few discs that will not play in the player.

[@PascalGienger]

When I bought my first Blu-ray player all my friends told me it will be dead because Microsoft and Intel promoted HD DVD... Sadly movie studios were exclusive on one or the other format. That was the most annoying. Also the first Blu-ray players were slow as all code was in Java. Sure it's compiled but the JREs back in time for that kind of CPUs weren't performant...

[@PhirePhlame]

I got one several years ago, for my own 360. It actually had to download the HD-DVD player software, which it did automatically when I connected the thing, and after that it would autolaunch the player upon inserting a videodisc, just as if it was a part of the console. The install disc probably took care of systems not connected to the internet. It was only the mid-2000s, after all, so broadband wasn't universal enough to be the default expectation. The 360 can also play standard DVDs through that drive. Picture quality's very clean, and I'm overall very happy with it and the discs I got for it!

[@Waifu4Life]

To be fair, I ripped my entire Bliu-Ray and DVD collection with MakeMKV, so I doubt it's a software issue.

[@dmug]

Another viewer mentioned MakeMKV has been known to have issues with certain HD-DVDs. I'm sure it's basically an issue that's a non-issue as no one cares at this point if true.

[@jamesburke2759]

The toshiba P200 had a HD-DVD drive built into some models. there was playback software included on those machines. im sure there would be a way to use that software.

[@ericbauer4559]

I bought an Xbox hd dvd from fry’s for $30 back in 2008/2009 along with a handful of movies for $5 each. Even though it had already lost the format war, it was a win for me. I’ve to this day have never owned a Blu-ray player. Also, still have those movies, player and my 360. I wonder if it all still works.

[@tw350z7]

I miss Fry's 😢

[@Wierie_]

Beautiful scenery and an interesting topic!

[@dmug]

Thanks! I enjoy hiking so I try and mix hobbies.

[@sdjslkdjlsskldjslkdjsl8262]

Total failure of a format, but basically all physical media should be preserved to the best of the ability of anyone who wants to see media stick around. As soon as it's 100% streaming and 0% physical, Sony/Disney/whoever can permanently remove an episode or a movie or a series from existence at whim.

[@musicman8270]

HD DVD was obsolete out of the gate. Bluray had more storage and capacity to grow and was being adopted for business use.. But don't feel bad about buying into an obsolete format. Do feel bad about buying "Battlefield Earth" in any format.😅

[@tw350z7]

Battlefield Earth 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@qasimmir7117]

You’ll just have to get a Toshiba HD-DVD player and connect it to your TV if you want to run the format. Computer playback isn’t much of an option. I’d recommend HD-DVD since you can watch high-definition films for dirt cheap if you haven’t got them Blu-ray or available elsewhere that is, but watch out for Warner Brothers disc rot. But beware, it is a completely dead format so no support, parts, software, help of any kind is available. If anything on it dies, it’s dead. Interesting little bit of history though.

[@bubba842]

They are not dirt cheap anymore. An HDDVD off e bay will likely cost you the same as a Blu Ray disc. $10 is usually the going rate.

[@patchbyte6856]

I love your "documentary" style, I love the scenary

[@dmug]

Thanks for the past year or so I really wanted to mix up my film locations as I like getting out in the world. Not sure if you saw the blu ray or super drive videos but they are very much the same.

[@bernRA]

its really unique, right? def KZbin tourism+ some real good breakdowns.

[@konstantine_c]

I came across a fancy Windows 7 Media Center Toshiba laptop from around that time that has an HD-DVD drive in it. Bought it because of that, to own a piece of physical media history. Also bought one of these X360 attachments cheap. I think they're kind of nice to have in the collection. Not all inferior tech is uninteresting.

[@turkish2515]

I still have my hd-dvd player that connected to the 360 and still have the movies. Mainly because no one we take them.

[@johnpajestka5022]

If anyone gets an itch to collect HD DVDs just be aware of the disc rot issue. I have round 50 discs. More than half don't play anymore. All WB discs.

[@giorno5119]

i remember my buying an HD DVD Player back in the day it was like a multidisc player too like 3 or something like that. it eventually stopped reading discs or so we thought turns out that were able watch not so legal DVDs. so bootleg would work but not actual DVDs from the store still baffles me

[@dmug]

I don't think this is the issue but HD-DVD had this wonderful headache where many players required firmware updates for newer HD-DVDs as they updated the copy protection.

[@mindbenderx1174]

I also picked up an Hd dvd drive about 2 years ago. Its fun to go to pawn shops and find the hidden gem HD DVDs for a 1 cause no one wants them. Also a watch the xbox on my 34 inch sony wega widescreen!

[@aaaaplay]

Did you try Toast Titanium? A copy a version 9 lists HD DVD support via plug in.

[@dmug]

Pretty sure you can burn hd dvd data disks did it support video? If so id assume its not for playback, just burning a video disk

[@realDesertLad]

I still own a 360 and want to get a HD DVD drive for my collection, but I haven't yet because... It's a dead media format compared to my 200+ Blu-ray collection

[@dmug]

Upside is they are cheap and it seems like a few of the movies are watchable that make mkv and anydvd couldn’t rip.

[@NetflixForeign]

If you want the best sound for certain movies unless they have a 4K version you might want to look for the HD DVD. Granted now some of the latest apparently got fixed with 4K releases like Training Day and Face Off. Dreamgirls FINALLY got fixed with a Lossless audio track with a director's cut last year. Just checked and it took long enough.

[@MyNews-b9s]

One of the drives usb outputs was used to run and power the WiFi accessory antenna. Also not built in to the 360 console

[@paulc.4980]

I totally missed out on this format war, I was still on DVD at that point. Didn't upgrade to BluRay until around 2011, when I finally got a widescreen TV. I still have more DVDs than BluRay. Still not tempted to get 4k discs yet, since I still use the same TV.

[@dmug]

I'd still be using my 1080p Plasma screen if I hadn't moved in with my significant other into her place. If you have a TV you love, then keep using it.

[@ShaneSimmons]

I used to have an HD-A3 that I bought mainly because it was an outstanding upscaler. I tried out the player and the few HD-DVDs I bought a couple of years ago. I'd bought the one that shipped with a copy of 300, and that one didn't work. King Kong? Didn't work. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix? The DVD side still worked. The only one that still worked was 2001, and even then it was a bit bloopy. Blu-Ray otoh has that awesome coating that makes it more robust. Ultimately neither format really won imho, which makes me sad, because for some movies I like having a box I can pull off the shelf and put it in the player instead of relying on a streamer retaining the rights to a movie.

[@bubba842]

It has nothing to do with the coating. You tried mostly Warner Bros discs. That's the problem. Many Warner Bros titles don't work due to disc rot that was traced back to the manufacturer of Warner HD DVDs. I have nearly 100 discs and only a few of them don't work. Mainly Warner Bros discs. You will be very lucky to.fomd a version of 300 that plays. This movie is by far the worst example of disc rot. Usually Universal and Paramount discs don't have this problem. As I said,most of my collection works fine. I tend to stay away from Warner releases and only have a few of them.

[@elephystry]

Wow, that was an Xbox 360 accessory to compete with the PS3! So cool! Media Player Classic - Home Cinema is THE video player in Windows nowadays, I’d be surprised if it didn’t play HD-DVDs. Fun fact for you: this unit probably doesn’t support full USB-A in because USB-A was designed specifically for host-to-client connections, USB-A being the host and USB-B being the client. They could have used the full square USB-B used most often for printers, though. The mini and micro USB we know them as are actually USB-B as well, and yes, USB-A has its own small counterparts. USB-A to USB-A cables are not made and should never be made. USB-C has no such limitation by the way.

[@stuCameraman1]

Please note! HdDVD movies also have Less video NOISE REDUCTION added... Compared to bluray titles having lots of noise reduction added like my UK Terminator 2 blue ray! The first thing you will notice is how rich in colors hdDVD is... You should also notice more film scratches /noise/grain on hdDVD, I recently bought more hdDVD yesterday 5th August 2024: the bourne identity, Ultimatum, backdraft, spartucus 1960, appollo 13 & swordfish. I'm still expanding the collection in 2024😂

[@wright96d]

7:42 It's no longer needed. I bought one of those drives many many years ago and it didn't even come with that disc. I mostly used it to rip hd dvds to my pc, but I did try with an honest to goodness xbox 360 once. It worked just fine. This was in either 2018 or 2019.

[@enemycoke]

My Dad and me bought in hard like half way through the format war. We got like 5 free HD-DVDs with our standalone player, Xbox 360 Drive, and as an in store promo with an internal combo HD-DVD/Blu-ray drive at Fry’s Electronics, where we also bought a bunch post war, so I’m out here with like 45 HD-DVDs. My favorite HD-DVD fun fact: the HD rerelease of Star Trek TOS in the big dumb plastic case came as HD-DVD combo for season 1 then the format died and they released seasons 2 & 3 in matching cases just on DVD.

[@dmug]

Any issues with bad discs? Sounds like from comments it was either one foundry or just one studio’s discs (Warner bros).

[@Mclaren1976]

I bought about 30 movies and player when it was on its way out for about $200. Than sold it after only a month for $100 or so because I came to my sense and realize I only need 1 format.

[@Bee-n8e]

You might have any a copy of anyDvd HD v7/ or maybe v 8 might work too unfortunately no longer able to buy v 8 so v 7 if had before should work for HD-DVD iso files / & then play on VLC

[@retrooutput]

I'm sure that some HD-DVD's looked better than Blu-Ray... Perhaps it was just the TV I had but the HD-DVD movies used to really 'pop' with colour and depth, maybe I'm remembering it wrong.

[@bubba842]

The codec, VC1 and AVC, that the HD DVDS used were much better than the MPEG 2 codec used by early Blu Rays. That's probably why the HD DVDs looked better.

[@retrooutput]

@@bubba842 That would make sense, I remember watching 40 Year Old Virgin and being really impressed by the quality of the colours and sharpness.

[@PhirePhlame]

I actually got one such drive (making sure it came with cables) for my own 360 several years ago. It automatically downloaded the HD-DVD player app, which was not preloaded, and after that it can autolaunch whenever a videodisc is inserted (yes, even standard DVDs). That install disc may have been for systems that couldn't download it online.

[@timothyjohnson5699]

I was at Value Village some weeks ago, saw Transformers for HD-DVD, thought "Oh, sweet. That means it looks a smidge better," tried to watch it today on my Blu-Ray player (on an Xbox One), and learned that I wasted my money, especially considering that there are other HD DVDs in my collection.

[@bubba842]

Why would you think an HD DVD would work on a Blu Ray player??

[@Bee-n8e]

I think there might be some players for Windows 7 and other ripping software besides makeMKV / which Mac can use makeMKV into mkv files

[@Ninjastar202]

Kodi 16 on win 10/11 will play hddvds, no menus though. I'm using the LG combo drive.

[@SetTopGames]

Were the non-working discs Warners? Because yeah, most of their discs are unusable these days. And... there ARE a couple of on-disc games. 300 has one. Oh yeah, I bought a hybrid HD DVD and Bluray player last month! Cost me ten bucks. It hates Blurays but it played back my HD discs just fine. And yes I have a bunch. And the Xbox 360 drive. And the laptop drive. I'm weird. XD

[@dmug]

I’ll have to check but that time warner tid bit is interesting. I can’t say anything, about useless tech considering I’ve bought a super drive, blu ray drive (although I returned it) and hd dvd drive in the past few months out of curiosity.

[@tw350z7]

You not the only one. I have a HD DVD drive in a laptop. Got the drive off ebay seller and it came with that copy of Cyberlink That has the software for HD DVD. I treat that like gold🤣. Have a PC with Bluray/HD DVD combo player. ANd of course the Xbox 360/HD DVD player.

[@bubba842]

Those combo drives stopped being updated around 2014. Blu Ray, unfortunately, is terrible for not allowing playback of certain Blu Rays if the player is not kept up to date with OTA updates. This is probably because the newest revisions of the AVC codec demand an OTA update to play on an older player. It will literally mean your Blu Ray disc will not play because it cannot read the revised AVC codec. If you could find a patch somewhere online then it would probably work. But good luck with finding a patch for a 16 year old piece of hardware that stopped being updated 10 years ago.

[@wadmodderschalton5763]

Perhaps 2014 was the year that HD DVD players stopped receiving firmware updates across all players and computer drives.

[@bernRA]

so the drive has some sort of ? bios that controls the internal memory? is there anyway to access that?

[@dmug]

According to the other comments, the internal memory could be used to download very simple games with a few movies. I'm guessing Linux probably could get at it but I wasn't determined enough to see what I could do with it in Mint Linux.

[@PoundNetTexas]

I agree with your assessment of HD-DVDs I have a Toshiba player and around 20 movies. I had a LG drive that could read both blu-ray and HD-DVD. Recently I tried to convert the HD-DVD to MKV but I found many failed to convert. I can't even sell them on ebay.

[@qasimmir7117]

It’s a good way to get dirt cheap HD films but yeah, it’s completely dead as a format and wouldn’t expect to recuperate whatever cost was spent. You’re lumped with it forever.

[@GenX_in_the_wild]

The PS3 slim together with a much reduced price was the real game changer.. A gaming console plus blu-ray player..

[@Setery10]

I had those same grinding sounds on some blu-rays if I didn't have my preferences at removing any video file that was below a certain threshold. It's recommended to put that at around 120 seconds.

[@Setery10]

On MakeMKV

[@zaxchannel2834]

At the time I assumed HD DVD would win out because of the name alone. I mean, what the heck is a 'blu ray'?

[@Bee-n8e]

If backup to Mac I would go a Mac Pro or open Xbox enclosure for hopefully rom drive that can he-dvd rom films turn them into mkv files and play on Vic / convert to Apple format if love Apple TV / iTunes .m4v adding chapters options via handlebrake; and connect rom drive via Sata to Sata or Sata to usb 3.0 should give faster data transfer rates

[@andreakitty8483]

really good quality, you don't include a lot of the annoying stuff I see in other videos.

[@dmug]

Thanks, I try to cut out the parts of youtube I don't like, "Like", "Subscribe", "I see most of you aren't subscribers", introducing myself, asking my audience to comment unless it's about missing info, logo and such.

[@GrimReaper4383]

I still have about 4 sealed copies of hd-dvd's. I got mine from gamestop when it was discontinued for $50. And, it came with 6 free movies as well.

[@Steger13]

Keep it safe because at some point they will be very expensive just like some sealed vhs.

[@NetflixForeign]

To be fair at the beginning HD DVD brought it and Sony's original offering of Blu-ray's were largely crap, both in video and audio. The Fifth Element and Underworld: Evolution were exceptions which I believe both used MPEG2 which WAS to be the encoding standard but was later dropped. Also they came late to the party offering Dolby TrueHD support whereas it was baked into HD DVD at the beginning. This is why the releases of "Training Day" and "Phantom Of the Opera" had TrueHD respectively. Oh and "Phantom Of the Opera" NEVER got fixed with the Lossless audio track on BR as far as I know and that was a Musical for crying out loud. "Dreamgirls" is another case of the audio being superior on HD DVD, with a 1.5 Mbps audio whereas BR had a Dolby Digital 640 Mbps one. Sadly no Lossless on either despite being a Musical. If I remember "Face Off" also had superior audio and I am not sure if that got fixed. If it did then great. Given the lower costs some foreign movies that were more low budget though nonetheless good actually got HD versions which I doubt they would have otherwise. Some of these movies may not have been gone back to for a BR version. A few examples are "Volcano High"(imagine a Martial Arts film mixed with Harry Potter, very cool), "The Uninvited"(Korean movie, not the American one) and "Ghost Of Mae Nak" to name a few. In the end because of the format war Sony had to FIX Blu-ray and make it much better than it was originally going to be. The video picture in picture commentary was standard for HD DVD and Sony had to implement it with later machines. Early models of Blu-ray machines don't support this. There was also a later version which implemented BD-Live, a competitor to HD DVD's version though in this case BD-Live was worthless trash. Sure maybe a few did something cool with it but the problem when you used it is Sony or whatever manufacturer of said BR player(or maybe it was just Sony), could look at your player and see what was the list of movies you had played. Compare that to HD DVD's implementation of online which didn't have that problem. Comparing HDi to Blu-ray Java....apparently HDi was much easier to worth with on that Javascript code with it said someone working on the movie could figure it out within' a weekend. Oh and lastly speaking of exclusives, the Kinowelt version of T2: Judgement Day director's cut on HD DVD....the company flat out said some of the cool little quirks of the menu they couldn't implement on the Blu-ray version, they were just gone. One of the Harry Potter movies, "Goblet Of Fire" I believe it was has exclusive content just plain lacking on the BR version. Robin Hood the TV series if I remember either plain has better audio on HD DVD as in Lossless or just a higher Dolby bitrate track vs. BR and I am NOT sure it got patched. Speaking of rot I guess I should check my copy of "Renaissance" and back it up as I am not sure if there isn't a crappy BR version of it. One of the BR copies is on a combo disc made by Echo Bridge so....yeah. The pathetic thing is "Renaissance" is on a single layer HD DVD with Lossless so you can imagine the video doesn't take up much space and it still looks bad on the 25 single layer Blu. So yeah not all was bad. Anyway because of this later Blu-ray's got MPEG4 compression as the standard as well as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-MA for Lossless codecs instead of the enormous space hog that PCM was. Sadly not as many Blu-ray's got fixed down the road with better versions. Honestly I am shocked "Dream Girls" never got given a proper Lossless audio track on any disc version.

[@Alfactors]

My hddvd 720p not 1080i blue was 1080p

[@KabukeeJo]

HD-DVD failed because Disney chose to only support BluRay. And BluRays still suck due to even the tiniest scratch messing up the video or causing players to freeze.

[@frommatorav1]

Blurays are the most resistant to getting scratches, though. Standard DVDs and 4k UHD get damaged far easier than bluray. From what I've heard the HD-DVD format is the least reliable of all these formats, though.

[@KabukeeJo]

@@frommatorav1 As an owner of a lot of BluRays, I can say that I have DVDs that have visible scratches that will play and rip just fine while BluRays with microscopic ones you can barely see that will freeze or refuse to rip. And I have 2 BluRays that died to disk rot due to poor manufacturing. I do not have HD-DVD so I cant speak as to how bad those are.

[@EM-ve9bh]

Sony had Columbia and they supported blu ray exclusively out the gate

[@qasimmir7117]

Blu-ray is the most durable of the optical video disc formats. It’s not infallible but they do have a hard outer coating and better sealed data layers to protect from the air’s oxidation. But do keep them stored properly in a cool dry environment no matter what.

[@Steger13]

Yep you're right.

[@Saturn2888]

I'm glad you did this video. I knew a lot of what you said, but I didn't know about playback issues. I also didn't know they were experiencing bit-rot! Are they delaminating or something? Glad Blu-ray took off based on this knowledge.

[@dmug]

A lot of viewers have said that it's actually poorly manufactured discs by one plant specifically that Warner Bros used, so it's not true disc rot. Wish I'd known that before the video but everyone on Reddit called it bit rot and so did a random blog post on the topic.

[@Saturn2888]

@@dmug Yeah, that sucks! I've been in the same boat before when the information is somewhat accurate, but not actually descriptive of the actual issue. It's like how everyone thinks OLEDs burn-in (like CRTs and Plasmas), but they actually burn-out. Once you understand that, it changes how you use them because the TV or monitor is going to eventually normalize voltages across the whole panel so you never notice any "burn-out". If it burned-in, like a CRT, then it's permanent, and there's nothing the panel can do to fix it. But burn-in is fixable by never showing the same thing for too long. Burn-out is actually accelerated by having stuff on the screen.

[@sehnzeleid]

Early Blu-ray releases from Lionsgate, with "silver swirl" cover art, suffer from disc rot. Or at least enough copies to be notable.

[@johnwiiu7005]

Honestly HD-DVD wasn't bad.

[@dmug]

I'd 100% agree if all the movies I had worked.

[@novalover5033]

Well for a guy researching formats you certainly missed the most important part. It’s not an HDDVD problem. It’s a WB disc problem. See their pressings for their DVDs and HDDVDs were trash. It was the same cheap team printing them. There are full on KZbin documentaries on this. You should have known this before you started. In fact WB still prints half hearted DVDs to this day. I got a courage the cowardly dog box set and it’s already rotting. Not even 2 years old. So I think you owe it to the platform to be more respectful and make a follow up vid cuz it has nothing to do with HDDVD. And if you have some that aren’t WB then you seriously had bad luck. It’s not common. I follow all sorts of media collector markets. And everyone knows about how worthless WB discs are. Yet plenty of people still collect for HD DVD. I see no problems in their efforts.

[@dmug]

@@novalover5033 There isn't exactly a big source of truth on this, other than few forums posts that mention various disc rot. There were conflicting reports between manufacturing vs others claiming any disc was at risk. Also said documentary, the RetroBlasting one, was only release a week or so before my video at which point I'd done plenty of reading about HD-DVD and was well into the editing phase. I didn't know about it and in fact only heard about it about it a month ago. Thanks to it, the WB manufacturing issues are suddenly more widely known now. This just how KZbin videos work, I can't edit it after the fact but quite frankly, I was far more interested in trying to play HD-DVDs in macOS than I was researching disc rot. It's a footnote, and my statements in the video are remain accurate. It could have been more accurate had I attributed it to WB manufactured discs.

[@bubba842]

​@@dmugIt's a definitely a WB issue. People who say it's all HD DVDs are just parroting nonsense that they have heard from other Ill informed KZbinrs. I have nearly 100 HD DVDs and only a handful of them don't work. Most of that handful are WB releases. It's very rare I find a non WB disc that does not work.

[@watttv1388]

I own an HD DVD player and the movies I bought on the format work great so far.

[@stephanemignot100]

I connected an old Toshiba DVD player to my monitor, the 1080i upscaler is not that bad, I buy 1€ DVDs at my local thrift store

[@kirishima638]

‘HD DVD’ is so awful to say. Blu-ray is much nicer, phonetically.

[@dmug]

My dumb self early in recording I kept wanting to say HDVD.

[@kirishima638]

@@dmug They should have called it DVD+ or somesuch

[@tezcanaslan2877]

@@kirishima638 DVD+R is a thing

[@kirishima638]

@@tezcanaslan2877 it is? Ok

[@GenX_in_the_wild]

In the long run HD DVD probably would have been cheaper and region free would have been very nice..

[@yakupsahin4710]

it also failed due to a lot of people easily being able to make fake copies of them for the aftermarket

[@JunkerDC]

I remenber this like it was 3 years ago. I use to rent them and they would always skip thats what i didnt care about it plus the sound was always converted to pcm sound from dolby true hd and dolby digital plus.

[@jerryn.1823]

HD DVD does sound better than Blu-Ray. They might as well re-name the Blu-Ray format HD DVD

[@robertfontenotmorris733]

Just be careful not to scratch the disc because they are not as sturdy as the Blu-ray disc. As, for the scratch removal devices, too.😢 Yes, I used and also ripped the HD DVD and play them also. I have the Xbox 360 drive and a player and a PC dual Blu-ray and HD DVD.

[@exturkconner]

I really liked hd-dvd as a format. I still have a stand alone player as well as the 360 player. And a decent collection. The load times were better than early blu-ray. Sony basically rigged the format war. The sales of PS3's made the sales of "blu ray" players look much more dramatically in the lead than it was. It was wild that blu ray won if for no other reason than it was known existing dvd pressing machinery could be converted to produce hd-dvds at very low cost where as blu ray was an entirely different tech. The biggest issue with the format now is that it's super prone to delamination / rot on a pretty big slew of titles from one of it's major study supporters. A huge percentage of those discs suffer from this to some extent.

[@gratefulblac]

I bought in 2007 a Yamaha 9000 - a combined blu ray/ hd dvd player. Not bad as a player but hd-dvd is a dead format although at the time I remember enjoying The Big Lebowski and 12 Monkeys on HD DVD.

[@masterjim69]

On the contrary. I have both, HD-DVD player (Toshiba) and Blu-ray player (Sony). The colors and tints are brighter and more vivid on HD-DVD, and audio is clearly better, more Home Theater-like on HD-DVD. And that's without an AV receiver. HD-DVD is more prone to scratching though. Warner Bros does have poor quality control, some movies skip or freeze up. Paramount movies are excellent. Played "Top Gun" on HD-DVD countless times, to this day. No problems, and I bought that movie used.

[@OldTechMemories.mp3]

Does this work with Linux

[@Bee-n8e]

HVD technology would be or small quartz disc can store 360TB of data forever; HVD might be for data centers or government backup media / quartz technology looks to the future for both markets data centers and consumers

[@MrTokyoJunkie]

Only cool people go mountain hiking to review dead media formats in an irreverent and nonchalant manner while talking about how irresponsible they are with money.

[@dmug]

There’s dozens of us… dozens!

[@ClockUnClock]

If BluRay is Coca-Cola, HD-DVD was Pepsi, and poor VMD was RC cola

[@NetflixForeign]

There was also CHD based off HD DVD but it never really took off. That was China's format largely based off HD DVD.

[@ClockUnClock]

@@NetflixForeign Ahhh yes the China Blue format, which largely was just an HD-DVD with without being properly licsenced from what I understand.

[@sirducksworthythe3rd842]

Fun fact, what iv3 seen hd dvd wise, they look better then the blu ray of the same movie, it actually was the better format over all

[@jdryyz]

I owned some examples of this but it had nothing to do with the format. It was the result of the companies mucking up the Blu-Ray version with more edge enhancement and DNR. "The Last Starfighter" comes to mind.

[@dmug]

Yeah, I’d expect it comes down to mastering as both formats are incredibly similar as they both had the same codec support. My guess is you’d be hard pressed to notice much of a difference in movies that used the same mastering just different bit rates. Maybe a few less minor artifacts in high motion and better representation of film grain.

[@michwashington]

😂 you make me want to go to Amoeba music store to get this failed format and start my unnecessary collection 😂❤

[@vdochev]

Some TOSHIBA laptops of the time came with an HDDVD drive built in. So, I guess that's your "slim drive", although it is not an external one.

[@dmug]

Yea, I saw that. I should have clarified external slim.

[@vdochev]

@@dmug No, I get what you mean. It's a different device.

[@kleoserebus99]

Using a Microsoft product on an Apple MacBook. what????????

[@demong0ld322]

Nice Video. You deserve wayy more subscribers.

[@Finn_2187_Binks]

A Rolls Royce phantom is a "better" format, which is why they outsold Toyota :) haha

[@nickydee569]

It should've been obvious to everyone the format with double the storage space was gonna win

[@dmug]

One commenter mentioned he was working at circuit city and was convinced hd dvd players would win since early blu ray players were slow and especially pokey when interacting with menus. He said the user experience was much better on hd dvd. I think looking backwards it seems foregone but I found that interesting.

[@qasimmir7117]

It seems obvious now but it didn’t really matter at the time. Both formats could hold a full-length feature film in high-definition.

[@Controllerhead]

I like how this is "almost" an April Fools video 😂

[@dmug]

I almost posted on the 1st but I didn't want people to think it was going to be an "April 1st" video months later.

[@GenX_in_the_wild]

I got a PS3 after the format war.. So it was very smooth for me.. 🙂

[@andrewattenboroughtwothumb4697]

I remember my friend had one with his Xbox 360 we watched Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone and others it was interesting how many releases it had but loved blu ray better because of the ps3 in 2007 I got

[@matthewzepess5721]

It’s kind of funny how the only thing that didn’t make this war a draw is Microsoft not wanting to spend a couple more bucks to just have it built in. Can’t really say the cost would’ve been much more to have a hd dvd laser maybe the msrp would’ve went up by $5 at the most. That would be an interesting difference in events and would make for a much different video.

[@JamesSmith-ix5jd]

13:26 ... is to throw it into a trashbin.

[@aidanhelfrich4887]

All in all as bad as HD DVD seems it actually did better than most other failed media types did digital VHS released shortly after DVD did and had a similar resolution but far fewer films and very few players since at that point in the late 90s and early 00s vhs tapes were seen as too big and clunky so D-VHS as it was known went up in smoke even worse than HD DVD and even now HD DVD players are far easier and cheaper to find making it an ideal format to collect so long as you do the necessary research first

[@darioprime]

hd dvd wasn't dumb, sony had to pay off several studios to make blu-ray work.

[@tomlee80]

I quite liked the red boxes.