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Thread: Hd-dvd

  1. #1
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    Default Hd-dvd

    Anyone here planning on picking up the Toshiba? As soon as my local BB has more in stock, I'm going to go ahead and jump in. From what I've read on AVS, they seem to mate well with 1080 displays. My 1080 CRT RPTV need a new friend, so what the heck. Don't know when they'll get more in, but I'll post back when it's up and running. Hopefully won't be more than a week or so. Just wanted to know what the rest of you guys were thinking about it.
    - EVH III

  2. #2
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    It's Beta vs. VHS all over again. I don't think it'll take as long to declare a winner this time. Beta lost the war long before Sony took it off the market.
    I expect Blu Ray will come out on top this time but I thought Beta would prevail so what do I know. I'm waiting for the winner to become apparent and prices to fall (as they always do). Maybe by 2008.

    David

  3. #3
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    It may be Beta vs. VHS again, but I want to watch some HD content now that it's available. If HD-DVD wins, I'll upgrade to a next gen. player in a year or two. If and when we reach a point when Blu-Ray appears to be winning, I'll dump the Toshiba and get a Blu-Ray player. It's just a price that you have to be willing to pay if you want to jump in early. I'm also planning on picking up a HDMI 1.1 receiver to rid some of the clutter behind my equipment rack. It may well be rendered obsolete when 1.3 comes around, but if you wait until everything in A/V is stable, you'll wait forever.
    - EVH III

  4. #4
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    I'm going to wait this one out a bit.
    -curtis

  5. #5
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    Waited a bit too long, it seems. All my local BB's were out of stock, Crutchfield was out, Onecall is out. Ordered it from ValueElectronics and they e-mailed me today saying it would ship out today or Monday. I'll let you know how it goes once it gets set up.
    - EVH III

  6. #6
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    http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...ies-technology
    DVD in High Def? The Difference Is Not Eye-Opening
    April 20, 2006


    As it rolls out the first high-definition DVD player, Toshiba Corp. is boasting: "Image is everything."

    After testing the so-called HD DVD machine on three TVs of various dimensions, I hit on a more appropriate slogan: Size matters.

    Last week, a milestone in viewing was reached with the debut of the Toshiba HD-A1, which costs just shy of $500. (A deluxe model, the HD-XA1, goes for $800).

    Should you care? Probably not. Because unless you already have a state-of-the-art high-definition television at least 40 inches in size, you won't notice much of a difference.

    Here's my advice: If you've got a spare $500, use it toward an upgrade to a bigger set instead. In the time it takes to save up another $500, the price of HD disc players will probably drop and a pending format war may well be decided.

    Early this week, when the first movies in HD DVD format were released, I watched NBC Universal's "Serenity" and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.'s "The Last Samurai."

    I started on a 32-inch Sony HDTV that was about two years old. It had no capability to accept the most current digital hookup technology — HDMI — so I used the analog audio and video cables included with the player.

    Then I popped in "Serenity" and waited. Then, I waited some more.

    It took the better part of a minute for the machine to recognize the disc and ready it for playing. Not a huge amount of time in the scheme of things, but frustratingly long compared with standard DVDs.

    Indeed, many functions on the Toshiba player seemed to take forever to complete. This was probably due, at least partially, to the huge volume of data on HD discs. But that didn't make it any less irritating.

    Matters were not helped by the fact that the Toshiba remote didn't always work. And it was labeled so poorly that it was barely readable except under bright light (not true of the fancy model, whose buttons are backlighted).

    When the movie finally appeared, it was squeezed, causing shapes to be distorted. The globe in the Universal logo was more egg-shaped than spherical. Actresses in the first scene appeared even more emaciated than the norm.

    I later found in the manual that some HD DVD discs would not play properly without HDMI.

    Next, I switched to an almost new, 23-inch Samsung LCD set with HDMI hookup. The HD DVD image looked great. But a plain, old DVD of the same movie looked just as great on the set. In fact, the images looked almost identical.

    Sure, during bright, outdoor scenes, the HD DVD image looked a tiny bit cleaner, as if barely a day's worth of dust had been wiped from the screen.

    Finally, I tried the player with a 37-inch Sharp LCD set, also with HDMI. Again, the regular DVD and HD DVD images were quite good. But on a set of this size, I could see more differences.

    The overall image appeared richer, more dense. At moments, especially during scenes in which the camera was in motion, it felt more like watching a film projected on a screen.

    Using a DVD player hooked up to the same TV, I tested my perceptions by switching between the two formats. I asked a colleague to close his eyes while I chose a version, then had him open them and guess: DVD or HD DVD?

    He got it right only about 75% of the time.

    So, yes, it's better. But don't expect the dramatic leap in quality that came with the transition from VHS to DVDs in the 1990s.
    -curtis

  7. #7
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    Yup... I'm waiting.

    I don't like war and I won't be a party to this one. There may be no winners.
    cheers

    shane
    Yes Eve, I like to watch.

    My setup:
    http://www.fototime.com/5EF1F78FC789849/orig.jpg
    HT: 340SE's Front & Center - 340 Classic's Surround, SVS PB110-ISD.
    Office (2-ch): 170SE's

  8. #8
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    Curtis, that review you linked to doesn't really tell much. The guy hooked it up to a older TV with the analog cable that came with the player. Probably composite video. Hell, he didn't even realize he was running it in 4:3 mode. I take more stock in reading peoples experiences on the forums. At least you can be a little more sure about the reviewer hooking it up properly. That being said, the bigger your display, the more HD is gonna give you the Wow factor.
    - EVH III

  9. #9
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    Got my player yesterday. In short, it's spectacular. The main thing that always bothered me with OTA or satellite HD was pixellation. You know, that bit-starved look that stems from lack of bandwidth? This displays none of that, even on complex scenes. My pet peeve on standard DVD was the dreaded macroblocking in dark scenes. Glad to say that it's absent, as well. All in all, the video is better than Discovery HD on satellite, or PBS HD via OTA antenna. The audio is a wee bit strange via analog multi-channel. Mainly it's due to Warner titles having an encoding problem. Seems the audio was encoded about 10dB too soft. Also, the remote looks like it's straight from the 80's, but I use a MX-700 so that's not a problem. It's got it's warts and looks and acts like a first generation machine, but it definately delivers on my big CRT. Oh, I got the black HD-D1, not the silver HD-A1. Other than the color they are identical.
    - EVH III

  10. #10
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    Good thing they do not do SACD and DVD-A.....might be more tempting.

    Still going to wait until the format war shakes things out.
    -curtis

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