HD Dvd in Sage TV

[rethdog]

Just looking for a little advise on this one, As well as using Sage for television, It makes a great "juke box" for movies, and on my 50" Plasma DVD's look good - but after seeing a demo of King Kong in 720p, and the fact that the HD media extender is around the corner, what's your input on doing the following.

Newegg have a xbox HD DVD drive for $169 with 5 free movies, anyway is it feasible to rip to hard drive, the just chop the movie out (I don't want all that extra’s cr*p) and re-encode down to 720p from what I presume is 1080p.

I say 720p, as realistically I won't have a big enough screen nor get close enough to it to see a 1080p benefit, my server isn't powerful enough to push 1080p, and hard disc space isn't free (but getting cheaper!)

Any input? Although I'm not interested in anybody telling me about,

(1) DRM, I own the movies, and I want to watch it when, and how I want.
(2) Blu-Ray & HD Dvd fan boys, in the end they'll both co-exist with hybrid players.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by rethdog

Just looking for a little advise on this one, As well as using Sage for television, It makes a great "juke box" for movies, and on my 50" Plasma DVD's look good - but after seeing a demo of King Kong in 720p, and the fact that the HD media extender is around the corner, what's your input on doing the following.

Newegg have a xbox HD DVD drive for $169 with 5 free movies, anyway is it feasible to rip to hard drive, the just chop the movie out (I don't want all that extra’s cr*p) and re-encode down to 720p from what I presume is 1080p.

Yes it's feasable, definitely not easy yet. The issue is that there's just not a lot in the way of tools to deal with the new audio formats on HD DVD (DD+ and DTHD). There are tools to do it, but it's not the 1-step process many are used to with DVD.

As far as re-encoding, I'd advise against it, there's really no good reason to, what happens if you upgrade your display down the road, re-rip?

I say 720p, as realistically I won't have a big enough screen nor get close enough to it to see a 1080p benefit, my server isn't powerful enough to push 1080p, and hard disc space isn't free (but getting cheaper!)

Theoretically with the HD extender, it won't matter what your server can do as the extender does all the heavy lifting.

[rethdog]

thanks for input , the HD media extenders will give me a few more years with my server (when they finally land!)

when 1080p 60" plasma's / lcd's become affordable may be I'll upgrade, and send the 50" 720p to the bedroom - my wife will just love that plan (not!)

I think I'll get that HD drive and start messing around with the movies.