Ron's HD DVD Review (2 Viewers)

[Ronald Epstein]

Jim,

I understand your position.

I rushed out and bought the Toshiba after swearing I'd sit this
format war out. Why did I do it? Just read the threads from owners
and you can see how happy they are with their purchase. I couldn't
stand reading one more positive review without getting a player for
myself.

Toshiba did things right. The players don't seem to be hack jobs
at all. I don't understand where you are reading this. In fact, many
are praising the fact that Toshiba is offering a $500 player that is
worth at least $200 more in build quality. That's another reason I
jumped into this first player -- even despite the fact I'll be forced
to buy a 2nd generation player that allows 1080p playback.

Additionally, Toshiba is backing up their players with solid customer
support. They are constantly releasing new firmware to take care of
any glitches on the player. I called them last night, gave them my
personal information, and a firmware disc is being sent to me in the
mail.

Don't confuse the problems Blu-Ray and Samsung are having right
now with the success of those who purchased Toshiba and HD-DVD.

As far as titles are concerned....

Yes, I do agree that the titles that are available right now are pretty
lame. With thousands upon thousands of titles available from WB and
Universal I am amazed that they played it really safe with the stuff
they released. There's not a single title that stands out amongst the
pack and I think they could have lured more people into this format
if they released King Kong, The Matrix, Batman Begins, Jurassic Park,
etc. I understand the studios always play it safe when entering these
new formats, but the interesting difference here is that there are TWO
formats and you would THINK each side is going to try to "up" one
another on what they can release.

Could you imagine of Fox released Star Wars to Blu-Ray? You
could have mutilated HD-DVD sales.

It seems to me, if you want to win a format war, you gotta put out
killer applications that will entice consumers to buy. I'm not asking that
any studio put all their cards out on the table right now, but some
"prime" titles to supplement the same ol' standard stuff would really
help HD-DVD along.

Getting back to your title predicament....

It's gonna be a while before players dip below $500 as the Toshiba
is already way underpriced. New titles are starting to come, with a
bulk of better stuff coming this October. Personally, knowing the cost
is not going to dip, I'd recommend a purchase as soon as you can.

Best wishes! Let us know how you make out.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Good Review Ron. I'm Solidly in HD-DVD's camp and Hope it prosper's as a format. I don't Trust Sony with a Successful launch after I have a Betamax in my closet, UMD's on my Rack, I just don't think they will stick around. Still I'm waiting on getting a player even thou I own a couple HD-DVD Titles. I'll probably dive in for my 1368x768 LCD thru the Add on Xbox 360 Drive. I'll look into a Standalone player sometime around Christmas and will probably hook that to my older Mits 65" Projection and hope they don't throw the HDMI only switch. My Projector is strictly 800x600 so no Hi Def love there. I guess I wonder if I'll see enough a improvement at 720p (vs 1080i) to warrant getting one now. My Upconverting DVD Player does a nice job on my LCD at the moment. Still I'm buying new releases I want in the HD-DVD Format, so I'm anticipating owning one at some point.

 

[Sam Davatchi]

Life is too short and I think this player is very reasonably priced for a first generation player. You people are lucky. If I had access to the player with this price, I would have bought it in a heartbeat. Here I saw it imported and ready for sale for the price of 1800 euros! That's even more in dollars I guess!

 

[Mark Booth]

Am I the only one that feels the notion of the Star Wars franchise being the "ultimate" movie titles is passe? I can think of MANY other movies that would attract me to the format long before Star Wars.

Mark

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Mark it must be the fact that they keep on being reissued for sale.

Yes let's see before Star Wars I'd like on HD-DVD:

2001
Escape From New York
Buckaroo Banzai
Indiana Jones Trilogy
James Bond Films


Just to name a few. Of course before many of those happen Blu Ray has to go down the crapper.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Mark,

You are correct. STAR WARS being ultimate is very passe,
but it's an example of the kind of title that would lure people
to one format over the other (and you know that would happen).

And another great point....

The Toshiba is $500. Half the price of Blu-Ray. Most predict that
price isn't moving for quite some time, so why not take advantage?

 

[Shaw]

Here is a reminder from DVDfile.com about the draconian copyright issues associated with the new formats...

"Caveat Emptor"

http://www.dvdfile.com/news/viewpoin...005/05_18.html

 

[Ron-P]

Half the price and twice the picture quality. The more I am reading it sounds like Sony really dropped the ball with their "Beyond High Definition".

 

[Glen C]

jim - if you have 100 continental airlines miles you're about $30 away from $350 (see bargain sites).

cobbled hackjob PC is irrelevant... this really is a nice unit. the only "bad taste" is probalby people who can't afford the $500 entry fee. upscales dvd GREAT (among the best i've seen and better than HTPC). this also boots and loads WAY faster than my HTPC so the laggy-ness is not an issue here.

30-day free netflix Toshiba offer also gives you access to many HD launch titles without purchasing anything. YMMV.

 

[jim.vaccaro]

OK guys. I'm glad you're happy with your players and I hope you continue to enjoy them for a long time. Please don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to knock the format at all; in fact I would very much like to see HD-DVD succeed. I enjoyed reading Ron's review as well. It's just that despite everything that is good about HD-DVD, there are a couple of things that are keeping me away from it for now. Like I said, fix two of them (next gen player and titles, or price and titles) and I'll be all over it. Until then, I'll have to be satisfied with 1:1 pixel mapped output from my Bravo D1 to my SP4805.

 

[Christopher a]

Ron,

Others have raved about this unit's quality on sd-dvd. What's your thoughts...better than your last dvd player? And what was the last dvd player you were using?

Thanks,
Chris

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Yes. But by the same token, if I'm sitting 10 ft away from a 42" plasma where I can't see the difference between 480p and 720p, HD isn't going to do anything for me.

 

[TedD]

Say no more. No reason to rush. You should focus on upgrading to a 1080 projector first. Then you will be in a position to reap all the benefits of a 1080 format. Until then, I can believe you are fully satisfied with your Bravo.

Ted

 

[Kevin. W]

I sit 8ft from a 40"LCD and see a huge difference between 1080i upconverted from a Denon 3910 and 1080i from the Toshiba A1. In my eyes 720p isn't on the same level as 1080i.

 

[jim.vaccaro]

A 1080 projector will be out of my price range for some time, but I am looking at the IN76.....

Plus, there's always the trusty 43" HDTV to plug high def goodness into in the meantime.

 

[craigBrady]

Did the HD A1 come with an HDMI Cable?

 

[Kevin C Brown]

8 ft isn't 10 ft, and 40" isn't 42".

I did this extensively myself, by the way. Many showrooms and plasma vs plasma (different manufacturers), and plasma vs LCD; SD vs HD sources and ED displays vs HD displays. I know what I saw, and I did not see a significant difference between ED vs HD displays *and* SD vs HD sources on either ED or HD panels.

And, by the way, I would never go for 1080i. When I go HD, it will be with a player that plays both HD-DVD and Blu-ray, and outputs 1080p to a display that accepts 1080p. When either I moved close enough to see a difference or viewed a larger display, I always preferred 720p (or 768p) to 1080i. I couldn't live with the motion artifacts created by modern displays deinterlacing 1080i to 1080p. And no, I don't plan to get an external scaler.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Christopher,

My last DVD player was the highly touted Panasonic RP91. I have only
played *seconds* of standard DVD on the player just to compare it to
HD-DVD. It wasn't long enough to judge it on its merits of SD capability,
but I certainly did see how lifeless the picture looked compared to HD-DVD.

Craig,

Surprisingly...and I did not expect this...the player came with an HDMI
cable.

 

[Andy Bell]

Nice review Ron. I have been fighting the itch to get a HD DVD player and reading your review does'nt help!. I have a 6 year old Pioneer Pro-510 HD RPTV that has been ISF calibrated every two years and am very curious to see how a HD DVD would look on it.

 

[TedD]

You are confusing the deinterlacing of VIDEO sources captured on interlaced cameras with the deinterlacing of FILM sources captured on progressive devices such as telecines and film scanners.

There are NO artifacts created when deinterlacing two fields that originated from the same progressive frame. CRT displays can have problems with line twitter when displaying interlaced source, but modern solid state displays are all progressive.

As an example, The Sony Qualia 004 can be fed a 60I or 24PsF (which IS an interlaced transport with both fields originating from the same film frame) from film based source and reproduce a perfect 1080P image with no loss of resolution and no deinterlace artifacts.

Ted