Decided to switch my main focus from Laserdiscs to HD DVD for a little while, see how far I can get to finishing the entire set before I start college in the fall.
I picked up:
Pan's Labyrinth (2006) [1000032076]
Top Gun (1986) [13055]
Elizabeth (1998) [61101939]
Doom (2005) (Uncut)
[26453]
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) [7039]
Superman: The Movie (1978) (Uncut)
[80968]
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) [07040]
Zodiac (2007) [13133]
Babel (2006) [122224]
Anyone here still actively pick up HD DVDs? They're dirt cheap, and pretty much all use the same masters that their more expensive Blu Rays use. I've got about 50 of them, and am steadily building my collection. It's quite fun. Right now I'm watching Blood Diamond, which I picked up for 3 bucks on Amazon. It's astounding how many of them are on there for a cent plus shipping.
Any warnings about the discs I picked up above?

I do not have any of the HD-DVD's that you list so I cannot say if any of them are "bad". I will use your list as a reference should I run across any of them in the future.

I, too, am buying HD-DVD's from Amazon and the prices are amazing. I currently have an inventory of 16 discs.
The following ones play well:

2001
Aeonflux
Bourne Identity
Bourne Supremacy
March of the Penguins
Serenity
Stardust
U-571

These I have not played yet:
Bourne Ultimatum
Children of Men
Chonicles of Riddick
Tremors
Troy, The Director's Cut

Of the 16, I have 3 "bad" ones: Purple Rain, 300 and Santana: Live at Montreux. The 300 disc is a combo disc: the HD side is not recognized by the player; but, the SD side plays okay. Purple Rain freezes at about the 16 minute mark and the Santana HD-DVD is not recognized by my player at all (Toshiba HD-A3 with firmare 4.0). I currently have Batman Begins coming from Amazon.

With a failure rate of 3 out of 16, the probability of a disc being "bad" is low, but it still exists. Of the 3 "bad" ones I have, I was hoping that Purple Rain would play okay. I will have to look for a copy of it on CED or Laserdisc next.

I am going to keep buying HD-DVD's off Amazon as long as they are available. It is a great way to increase your movie collection and is definitely cheap, cheap, cheap!! Keep on buying!

I have over 300. About 20 imports. There are many titles superior to blu-rays or exclusive to hd-dvd. All universal titles are dnr'ed on blu-ray but got lossless audio upgrade.

Most HD-DVD's that fail we're made for Warner by Technicolor - Universal discs were made, for the most part, by Panasonic and don't have any kind of major failure rate. The dual-disc titles seem to fail at a higher rate and sometimes physically come apart. I don't know what the failure rate is for the HD-DVD's that contained a DVD layer on the same side as the HD layer (kinda like SACD's CD layer) - but then, except for demo's, I don't know of any titles released with DVD/HD layered discs.

It's shocking how much DNR Universal has applied to their BD reissues of HD-DVD titles - yea, they got upgraded lossless audio but Dolby Digital Plus on HD-DVD is, for all intents, audibly transparent. It's not the strange hybrid of Dolby Digital for the front channels a DD+ for the surrounds like a blu-ray requires.

When I watch an HD-DVD I still marvel at how well the format works, unlike BD unless you have a PS3, which is stupid. BD has been around long enough now that it should be as smooth and work as well as HD-DVD did from the start... And not require new player purchases or a specific player to get acceptable performance.

I try to veer away from HD DVD ports because I'd much rather have the HD DVD at a much cheaper price. It's good to know for future reference that Universal DNR'd them, because they're honestly the worst for DNR on their Blu Rays overall.

If you only have 50 I would recommend buying a couple of lots first to expand your collection. I purchased two big lots and am now just buying individuals. Shipping at 2.98 adds up even at .01 per disc. I too have focused on HD DVD for awhile, trying to get as many as I can. I'm between 215-230 right now with some imports, like Total Recall, Resident Evil, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer, Terminator 2, Rambo I-III, Running Scared, The Island, The Fog, Deathproof, also have the Jack Ryan collection which is hard to find now and Deadlands Rising, supposedly the last HD DVD produced, but I don't consider that one the last since it's basically something anyone could throw together. I consider Twister the last US HD DVD, and Deathproof the last international HD DVD made overall. After that it's just fanboy stuff.

Twister is the last US HD-DVD? When was it released, and is it rare? Knowing that about Twister is making my collector-insanity activate and now I'm going to have to own it.

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/released ... rical.html
Twister came out the same day as P.S. I Love You. I might buy that one soon

I remember Jack Ryan box sets selling for 40 bucks I thought it was too much lol
If you have a complete set of Freedom (volumes 1 to 6, vol 7 was never released) you can score some big bucks
also band of brothers japanese set is dnr free but extremely expensive that is if you can find them

for titles you can find cheap enough and worth hunting for...
The Thing - slightly better video more extras(bd has all extras as PIP)
Star Trek TOS S1 - Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio, nice packaging, 78 min featurette not on BD
Blade Runner suite case is cheaper on HD-DVD(BD version is oop goes for $200+)
T2 french release is dnr free(second best edition after superexpensive oop japanese bd)

Twister is pretty easy to get on Amazon, if you don't have it, I'd recommend getting it soon. It could go the way of Mission Impossible II on LD.

As far as the rare crown jewel, I'd say from what I've seen and read so far, the Jack Ryan collection might be the hardest and therefore the most expensive to get now. I believe they even pulled these from the shelves because they stated on the back they had special features when in fact they did not. I got mine in a 80 something HD DVD lot with an XA2, I think the seller didn't realize they list by themselves for 200 plus on eBay and Amazon now so I lucked out. They're pretty hard to get now. Also Band of Brothers, like mentioned before but I never see it listed so don't know the cost. I'll probably just upgrade to the Blu ray. The disappointing thing about Band of Brothers is they cropped the original 4x3 frame into 16x9 and only the original DVD release you'll find the full frame. All later DVD, HD DVD and Blu ray releases have the cropped 16x9 frame. The same for From the Earth to the Moon, the original DVD is the only original full frame source.

I know there are a few more later releases after Twister and Deathproof, but I just don't consider them personally because they're not normal studio films. There was two Deadlands features and something else, essentially there are enough blank 15 GB media discs out there one could go on releasing HD DVD final releases for decades. I'm sticking with Into the Wild/P.S. I Love you/Twister (May 27, 2008) and Deathproof (Dec. 15, 2008), final answer.

Twister has shot up in price from 8 to 13 bucks in the last week, so I nabbed it while it was still relatively cheap! Also got Mission Impossible 2, Purple Rain, and Shaun of the Dead on the way too.

Let me know how Purple Rain plays for you. My copy freezes at about the 16 minute mark and will not continue playing. Even after a careful cleaning, it would not go past ~15 to 16 minutes. Before the "bad" section, there is some good music, though.

I have Twister on LD so I am ambivalent as to whether I want to get a copy on HD-DVD.

You will get a hoot out of Shaun of the Dead (if you haven't already seen it). I have it on DVD and it is a real comedy.

My small tiny HD-DVD collection list at present and I still have to watch the rest and rate them.

I own several US hddvd discs you bought...
Superman the movie gave me some freezing issues before I installed 4.0 firmwire... Now it works like a charm.
I play my discs on a hd-xa1 and/or a HD-EP35. both do a fine job with 4.0 firmwire.
Had some trouble with combo discs before. FW fixed that one also...

Just picked up 11 hddvd's from ebay.com. new sealed and dead cheap. always a pleasure

I was thinking about adding my hddvd's on LDDB.
To my surprise they're not many dutch released references to be found on lddb.
When I feel up to the task I guess I have some "submitting" to do before adding my 150 hddvd (and growing) collection.
Belgium got some nice releases back in the day when HDDVD ruled
1408 and rescue dawn come to mind

Got a defective copy of Superman The Movie, luckily the seller was more than willing to ship me a brand new copy. Here's hoping for a more successful second copy!

Defective? freezing up picture?

It won't even start. It plays the Warner Bros. logo and then an HD DVD advert and cuts to blackness for the main film. Chapter search does nothing, nor does anything else.

Strange issue for sure; never encountered this problem myself and believe me I had a few "bugs" when I got into the format.
hddvd can be a challenging format. I've been trying several players trough the years. Own about 8 players now. To my surprise the most capable machines are the first gen.Tosh HD-XA1 and HD-A1 (sharing the same internal components)
Internal decoder outputting 5.1PCM sounds amazing.
Firmwire 4.0 proved to be a must for any player I own.

Let's hope your next Superman discs works... keep us informed please