Well, today I finally joined the HD-DVD club. Picked up a player along with 97 titles. Was about an hour drive one way, but really rare something like this turn up locally. Was less than $2 per movie, so not a bad deal. The player is a Toshiba HD-EP10.

Have wanted to get my hands on this format for a while. Fun to have something contemporary that is dead. Next (and last) on my list is a betamax player, then I'm covered with the video formats I want to own.

Any specific titles that are only available on HD-DVD, or certain versions only on this format?

Couple of pictures of the haul. Still going through the movies. Condition vary, most of them are spotless. Have found a couple with nasty scratches and a bunch of fingerprints.

I think smut is most of the exclusive HD-DVD content these days, the lone exclusive Hollywood film I can think of is For Love of the Game.

There is still many titles worthwhile owning. There a couple dozen early release titles which HD-DVD versions got Dolby Digital Plus at 1.5mbps whereas the Bluray equivalent got Dolby Digital at 640kbps. Some of them got re-releases on BD later with HD audio but not all. Most of the Universal titles had excessive DNR on BD versions. There is also a handful HD-DVD exclusives. Of the top of my head, below is some of the titles worth owning on HD-DVD

The Thing - DNR free video, better extras
Phantom of the Opera - Dolby TrueHD audio, BD is DD only.
Mission Impossible I,II,III - Dolby Digital Plus at 1.5mbps, BD is DD only.
Troy Theatrical cut is exclusive to HD-DVD.
Aeon FLux - Dolby Digital Plus, BD is DD only.
Smallville Season 5 is HD-DVD exlusive.
ST:TOS, S1 has different extras, 78mins exclusive
Terminator 2, German and French HD-DVDs has the best picture, BD is DNR'ed.

Thanks for the list. Guess I'll track down those. HD-DVD doesn't seem to be too expensive either. Luckily I didn't have most of the movies I picked up on BD or DVD. Didn't get any of those you listed, substance.

I assume this format is region free? Noticed a lot of the movies I got are US releases.

There could be a big expensive market for some of the titles but most hd dvds started to rot, no one invest big money anymore. Most diehard collectors abandoned it because of rot.

2001 on HD-DVD has Dolby TrueHD, the BD has LPCM.

Good luck with the collection. I used to own a fairly large collection. There we're some nice titles to own but since some discs refused to start even loading I got rid of them all. Ep-10 is going to be trouble for Warner discs eventually! most of WB discs freeze near the end...
no bitstream HD audio!
I remember opening up a brand new copy of The Pianist! No luck on any type of player! Lethal weapon 1-2 didn't even make it trough the first 5 minutes...
more then one brand new title went to the garbage bin
failure rate was/is high.
I'd be carefull spending (much) money on HDDVD!
Some titles we're great to own. PQ was superb but I hated the fact not knowing they would remain playable for years to come.

Rot, really? Sounds like at least 50% of the titles are defective... Or is it just those from Warner Bros. that have issues?

I hate to say this...

Warner discs

Some other discs refuse to load, freeze up towards the end...
You get error messages when loading a disc. not even able to read it's content. I was a big hddvd fan until until I needed several model players just to be able to watch a movie. That player didn't work with a certain disc... other discs lacked audio.. froze up. I'm happy it is all gone!
Only player that was "reliable" HD-XA1 or HD-A1
First gen machines updated to 4.0FW but no rescue for discs that wouldn't load or rotters. Rotted discs... GARBAGE
The movies that did freeze up near the end played on the US machines. (most of the time)
There is no way of knowing you'll be seeing the whole movie ... there isn't any logic involved with hd-dvd machines.

Did you get any of the Kubrick films?
Try playing Full metal jacket... Freezes up halfway... 2001 is another tragedy if it makes it trough the first minutes anyway.
I wouldn't invest any more money on hddvd if you want to watch the discs.... believe me, I found out the hard way! really put some effort in the format for many years. It is
The BR version of any HDDVD movie is dead cheap to get and plays all the time!

Got The Shining and Full Metal Jacket. I'll throw in FMJ and give it a test.

The format sounded fun and promising enough. Probably should've done a little bit more research before I bought this lot. HD-DVD is quite rare, so probably won't get more discs soon anyway. Most people here exchanged in their players and movies for blu-ray right after the format lost and declared discontinued, or simply drove it to the landfill.

Do hope it works out for you but believe me...

You'll see this problem sooner or later and then it hits you.. do I really want a format that is not going to last for at least some years?
I've been very patient with hd-dvd trough the years myself. trial and error made me dump the format in the end.
Attempted to get it all right and investigated what caused this failure with discs and players. I did so much connecting players, comparing diff. setups etc... without any decent result.
Some titles claim to have DD+ or dts HD... . using the bitstream hd-dep35 did work with some titles.
The ep-10 has the pcm hdmi out function yet some discs refuse to play the correct audiosetting. I believe Basic instinct claimed to be in dts... never heard it no matter what player I used.
If you use the optical output on the ep-10 it converts DD+ to dts...? total chaos soundwise. DD converted to dts??? no thanks...

Discs that we're fabulous:
T2 german steelcase import! dts high res audio! took really long to load !!
Mr. and Mrs. smith uncut!
Blade runner! Warner Bros but never had any glitch!
The Prestige
Training day! spectacular picture!
I am legend! Warner.. played flawlessly the last time I watched it anayway!
Pan's labyrinth French import box! artwork and THX!!

there we're some more great releases but those we're my favourite discs.

I've tested these players:
HD-E1 (rubbisch)
HD-EP10 did fairly good once in a while
HD-EP30 mixed feelings about this one. bought 3 of these ... all froze eventually.
HD-EP35 only "real" full spec player! HDMI 1.3 bitstream direct option! this makes you're receiver do the decoding! hence the DD+ light up! had some kind of strange behavior once in a while with even "playable discs"
HD-A1 US solid player that did a great job with unplayable discs for the mentioned above! FW4.0 PCM 5.1HD audio
HD-XA1 US solid player. A real beauty! No bitstream audio but 5.1HD PCM audio when updated to 4.0 FW . Did not play the Queen Greatest hits 2nd cd for some reason!!


I do hope you can enjoy the stuff you bought but it wasn't a wise decision if you ask me.
Good luck to you

The HD-DVD vs BD war never really happened in Australia, HD-DVD was something I heard about but never saw much of here. I think just a few discs here and there and only a Toshiba player maybe, almost like a token effort. Reading the comments above makes me happy about that (especially as an early BD adopter here at the time) and gives the impression they introduced a not sufficiently tested/proven product onto the market.

So the Toshiba HD-EP10 is a very early player? And it does the audio decoding it self instead of the receiver? Odd stuff, but it does work.

Testing out some WB discs now, those I've put in does at least load and start the movie. The first one I tried, Caddyshack, actually had really bad picture quality. A lot of jagged edges, digital compression. Reminded me a bit of those DVD9s that is compressed to fit a regulat 4.7GB DVD... Definitely not HD.

There were really 3 generations of players. The quality reached the pinnacle on the flagship model HD-XA2, a second generation player. Up to XA2, all HD-DVD players were limited to 1080i video output and only lossy audio.

By the time the last/third generation players were coming out, HD-DVD was losing the battle bad. Toshiba chose to make cheaper players and win the market with more affordable players. XA2 remained the flagship model but the price was reduced to $500 from $800. A2 and A3 were very basic, only had 1080i output and lossy audio. A30 and A35 were 1080p capable and could bitstream Dolby TrueHD/DTS HD MA(XA2 gained this ability via fw update). There were plans for a XA3 but the HD-DVD was losing the battle fast. Toshiba soon discontinued the HD-DVD technology.

All third generation HD-DVD players including the XA2 has the same transport and opticals. XA2 has a faster broadcom chip, other players including all third gen players have the cheaper broadcom chip so they are slower. XA2 is significantly faster. XA2 has the silicon optix HQV reon chip for video processing, offers superior noise reduction (both HD and SD) and DVD upscaling. On the third gen players, A35 has the ABT2015 chip(same as DVDO VP50), offers good upscaling and noise reduction as well. A35 was $400 when new before any significant discounts occurred. All 3rd gen players were bundled with 5-15 free HD-DVD titles.

With the latest fw 4.0, both A35 and XA2 has identical HD-DVD video output but XA2 is significantly faster to load and startup (still slow by today's standards). Onkyo and its high end brand Integra chose XA2 as their base for their HD-DVD players. They are very rare. They only offer cosmetic differences, internally they are %100 XA2.

You can find a good running XA2 for around $80 today. I wouldn't recommend any less at that low price. I helped Julien score an Integra DHS-8.8 before, I believe he is the only Integra HD-DVD owner in the far east. There was about 1200 of these players ever built, all sold out really quickly.

Note: Dolby Digital Plus can't be bitstream on digital coax/optical therefore converted to regular Dolby Digital. DD+ can be accessed through HDMI on XA2, A30 and A35. Paramount and some Universal titles had 1.5mbps DD+, Warner used 640kbps DD+. All these are converted to DD 640kbps on digital coax/optical. Some later titles also offered Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD MA but rare. No region coding on HD-DVD but some demo/documentary discs are encoded in 1080i60.


LG BH200 is also a terrific HD-DVD player. It's one of the 3 combo disc players offered and is the latest one. The other ones are LG BH100(1st gen) and Samsung BD-UP5000(very glitchy). These players play both Blu-rays and HD-DVDs. Samsung player has the HQV reon chip like the XA2 but very glitchy, Samsung abondonded this player rather quick so it didn't get some of the needed fw updates. LG BH200 got continuously updated well into 2010. LG even gave me a $75 check because HD-DVD was discontinued. Latest fw add BD-live(now defunct) and all necessary sw to play any Blu-ray disc up to 3D formats. BH200 has the Marvel's QDEO chip(unadvertised) for upscaling and noise reduction. I find its picture just as good as my Oppo BDP-105 for Blu-ray and DHS-8.8 for HD-DVD.

Summary, the list of players to consider,

Toshiba HD-XA2
Toshiba HD-A35
LG BH200
Integra DHS-8.8
Onkyo DV-805HD

Went through all the WB discs I have, which are about 20 or so. All loaded and played. I also skipped around the chapters to see if they locked up. Only one movie gave me trouble, which is Ocean's Twelve. It locked up after a minute into the film, and couldn't skip to any other chapter. I'd say the issue isn't that bad, especially considering how short-lived the format was. Remember DVDs were a lot more trouble when it was new in the late 90s. Had to return discs more than once for being defective out of the box. Still remember retailers giving a VHS tape of the movie as a replacement, instead of a working DVD.

Very thorough explanation as always, substance. Since I've put some effort into getting high-end playback equipment, I could consider replacing the player. Especially when they're that cheap. My EP10 does seem to output 1080p, so not too bad. My Cambridge Audio BD player is a lot quicker with the loading in comparison. Almost forgot how slow early HD players were.

Ep models are European versions. I don't what their equivalents are in the US. If it has 1080p24 output, I don't know if you would gain anything with any other player beside faster load up. Afaik most later units used the same transport. There are also Japan only players/recorders that I am not well aware of their functionality.

I think your azur has an oppo bdp-83 in it. Compare the backs, you will know. Bdo-83 has the abt2015 chips, best for anime DVD.

From what I can tell, the Cambridge Audio Azur 752BD is based on the Oppo BDP-103 and 105. The backside is identical with the 103 + has the extra inputs and outputs the 105 has.

The HD-DVD player says it outputs 1080p, as well as both the AVR and TV registers 1080p @ 60 Hz.