720p/1080p WMV Trailers

[MR.COATES]

I've been downloading most of the WMV trailers from the horribly titled Look And Sound Of Perfect (http://www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com/) website.

Basically if you browse the Movies On HD-DVD tab, you have the option (with some titles) to play a trailer in 720p or 1080p.

However you can also download them by copying the URL which opens up media player and 'Saving As'.

This then merrily plays back via my Xbox 360.

The files are around 100mb each but the quality is great.

[GProject]

Not just the title, but what a horrible catalogue system that site has too. I hate the 'flying boxes' design style, yeah it looks pretty cool, but it's not very practical.

Cheers for the link though - davestrailerpage.co.uk puts up links to the hi-def encodes of movie trailers for download too, that's where I've been getting them so far.

[Samiad]

Thanks for the Daves Trailer page link, downloading a few trailers now.

The other link is absolutely abysmal, what a terrible design! (but thanks for posting for the content!)

What was the web designer thinking!?

[tejstar]

Thanks - downloading a few from Dave's Trailer page here (http://www.drfoster.f2s.com/trailers_hd-dvd.shtml).

Are these better quality than those found on the WMV HD Sample page (as many of those weren't that great imo)?

[Monkey Butler]

:shrug:

Don't understand how I can save any of these trailers (from either site) to view on my Xbox 360.

Any clues please?

I also assume that if my network connection isn't fast enough to stream HD trailers that I can just burn to disc to watch.

Ta.

[kanedaa]

Nice find Mr. Coates. The trailers are very nice quality so I put together a page with links last night which tejstar has linked to.

Monkey Butler - On the link tejstar provides just right click and save as, or copy the links into a download manager. Your network connection should be fine for streaming, but if not then yes, I think with the latest update to the 360 you can just burn them to a disc and pop them in the drive to view.

[jroadley]

If you don't have a wireless network, just copy the files to a usb pen and plug it in to the front of the 360.. works a treat!

As for downloading, maybe worth installing a download accelerator and setting it automatically download .wmv files.

[Monkey Butler]

Nice find Mr. Coates. The trailers are very nice quality so I put together a page with links last night which tejstar has linked to.

Monkey Butler - On the link tejstar provides just right click and save as, or copy the links into a download manager. Your network connection should be fine for streaming, but if not then yes, I think with the latest update to the 360 you can just burn them to a disc and pop them in the drive to view.


Thanks Kanedaa.

I am currently using Firefox, and have not been using it for long, so I was looking for the "Save As" option, but I've found it now "Save Link As".

Cheers - going to take a look at King Kong and Serenity, to see what they'll look like on the HD-DVD when I get mine soon.

[Morton]

Have been downloading the trailers from Dave Trailers, they look sweet although a few needed downloading twice before they would play all the way through. Great spot.

[bradavon]

Dave's trailer page is awesome. I too hate streaming crud, if I have to stream don't bother.

[unitzero]

Cheers guys, I have been looking for some more WMV HD footage. the stuff from the windows media page is pretty weak and takes an age to d/l but the stuff off Daves Trailers site is down in a jiffy and ready for action. can't wait till Dec 1st when the HD drive is finally released.

[Watto]

Thanks for this brilliant link and Dave's excellent trailer site.

Quick question for those in the know - what's the technical difference between these HD-DVD trailers and the WMVHD trailers from Microsoft? (such as the T2 extreme edition trailer)

Just got an xbox 360 (it's 60hz VGA connection is just about the only way of getting an HD source into my old Hitachi pd3000 plasma) however if I set the output res to 1080 the display goes into a sort of negative image with dark bands across it (not compatible you'd think...) BUT if I then play one of the old WMV 1080 trailers at this res it plays back perfectly with a superb picture... and then the trailer finishes and the screen goes weird again(!)

These new trailers don't correct the display problems when I set the xbox to 1080 output however they do play ok at lower res settings (unlike the old 1080 ones which don't stretch to fill the width of the screen).

Any ideas :?:

Keeping my fingers crossed that HD DVDs display ok when the drive comes out...

[unitzero]

Is it not just a 1080i and 1080p issue? the 1080i (interlaced) will play fine on your TV but unless its pretty new it won't play 1080p
(proggressive)

[cjb110]

Thanks for this brilliant link and Dave's excellent trailer site.

Quick question for those in the know - what's the technical difference between these HD-DVD trailers and the WMVHD trailers from Microsoft? (such as the T2 extreme edition trailer).
Could be nothing, but the chances are they use a different codecs...view the file properties within media player.

i think the original ms wmvhd's were in the latest wmv codec but these might be using the vc1. Which are similar but not identical (but then most of the codecs used by the HD stuff uses the same base principle AFAIK)

[Watto]

Thanks for both ideas on this, much appreciated.

Is it not just a 1080i and 1080p issue? the 1080i (interlaced) will play fine on your TV but unless its pretty new it won't play 1080p
(proggressive)

Interesting thought...

So the Xbox 360 auto defaults to output 1080p (which is why my older set can't handle the menu screens)

But as the older WMV files were (possibly) only encoded to play back at 1080i the 360 switches output to interlace during playback and so the picture looks fine while they're playing.

If HD DVDs are going to be 1080p and there isn't a way to select i/p output on the 360 - I guess I'll have to stick to the lower res!

Thanks.

[scoobyood]

The 360 only does 1080p over VGA for DVD or HDDVD. Component is limited to 1080i for both.
Component does play games at 1080p though.
That is probably what is happening.

[MR.COATES]

I picked up a VGA cable yesterday (after having tried it previously a few months ago and I must say that although the 360 Blades etc look really bland compared to Component.

The HD trailers look absolutely fabulous, the lighting in particular is much better than I could get after numerous tweaks via Component.

Still saying the 8th of December at PC World though for my 11th of October pre-order despite it officially being the 1st and that odd Game e-mail quoting the 24th of November (?!).

[Grandmaster]

The trailers look good but they are not indicative of true HD DVD quality. The Xbox 360's dashboard WMV player only uses one core, so HD DVD quality encodes (which stress the entire CPU) are way beyond it.

I've had practically zero luck getting true HD DVD compliant streams at high bitrates working on it without dropped frames. I've been assured by Microsoft that the media player facilities will get a significant boost at the next dashboard update - most likely to counter PS3.

[MR.COATES]

Well on closer inspection I'm now back on Component with the 360. Close-up the image on my Hitachi Plasma looked quite poor, especially with black portions of images. The component connection looks flawless close up.

Oh well, I can't do 1080p and I'm not too fussed about upscaling as DVD's look great to me when played on the 360.

Not many new trailers though.... :shrug:

[Watto]

Not an HD DVD trailer as such, and 'only' 720p, but the spidey 3 trailer looks superb played back through the 360 via VGA (WMV link available on Dave's Trailer Page).

So good it really shows up the unfinished CG work :thumbs:

At least I hope it's unfinished(!)

[Monkey Butler]

Not very impressed with the initial batch of HD-DVD releases, or the next batch coming in the new year (360 HD-DVD add-on coming soon and nothing to play on it). :(

Anyway, decided to look around and see what alternative WMV HD trailers are out there.

Found these, for anyone interested:

Terminator 2 (720p) (http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/5/0/15092c6c-5af1-4208-b5e2-54af6f1009a4/T2_720.exe)

Spiderman 3 (720p) (http://a123.g.akamai.net/7/123/22372/v0001/asmstor.download.akamai.com/9177/spiderman/spider-man_3_trailer_720p.wmv)

Plus the Microsoft sites HD DVD showcase page here (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx)

Hope they work!

[brendonw]

So does the 360 automatically switch between 720 and 1080 if your TV supports it ??

/noob mode enabled :lol:

[miraclemaxx]

Thread revival...

I'm after some HiDef demo's to try out. The sites mentioned earlier in the thread have broken links now. Does anyone know of anymore sites (apart from the microsoft one)?

[Aardvark_DK]

Thread revival...

I'm after some HiDef demo's to try out. The sites mentioned earlier in the thread have broken links now. Does anyone know of anymore sites (apart from the microsoft one)?

Provided you have a 360 you can just download trailers from Dave's, rename them to .avi, and most of them will stream just fine.

[Terribly_Mauled]

Another idea, and what I do, though I agree the 360 idea is perfectly sound.
If you're feeling technologically minded, download the 1080p quicktime and convert it to another format [personally I convert to mpeg in Adobe premiere as it gives me the best results] bung it on a flash drive and load it onto a PS3.