11-21-07: ElizabethI saw Spartacus in HD DVD. It was so sharp the resolution was limited only by the film grain itself.
"provided the transfer is good"
Provided the transfer is good on a 480p disc it is pretty damn fine.
Now when you expect all those old movies to be 'remastered' for bluhoo or Hd-d Please feel free to hold your breath.
I'ts gonna be a looooooooooooong wait.
I also have the HD DVD of Casablanca. It is downright stunning, better than I've seen it in the old "art" movie houses that thrived in the '70s and '80s.
I have many good std-def DVDs with excellent digital transfers. The Harry Potter series and Lord of the Rings trilogy come to mind. But they cannot TOUCH the resolution of the HD DVDs I've watched, and the way HD DVD draws me into the story action.
I have what I consider a decent display, but by no means the highest rez or state of the art. It's a 55" LCD RP Hitachi in 720p/1080i, but it's enough that when I watch a good 480p excellently upconverted by my Toshiba HD-D2 via HDMI, I still ain't fooling myself that I'm watching HD.
There are already HD DVD releases of some of my favorite old westerns, including The Cowboys (with John Wayne) and Peckinpah's Wild Bunch. You can bet these are NOT 480p transfers.
Universal in particular seems to be on a mission from God to make Hi-Def digital transfers of their film library. So much so that my cable package includes channel 660, UHD (Universal HD). Many of the films that show up on that channel have been made into HD DVDs, and the other films, since the hi-def digital transfer has already been made, will probably show up on HD DVD soon.