Toshiba HD-DVD Demo Tour (1 Viewer)

[Ron Boster]

Toshiba has a website set up for HD-dvd....I don't have the address handy, but a 10 sec google search should easily turn it up. They list all the cities scheduled so far. If my memory serves Houston, shockingly is not on the schedule ...but some from Houston were talking about the Plano tour date as their best option.

Ron

 

[Jerome Grate]

Toshiba HD-A1
Above is the link for the Toshiba model which is in the range of affordability. What I find interesting is the scaling feature 720p or 1080i it will provide for SD DVDs. Very interesting.

 

[Rakesh.S]

Went to Fry's in Plano, TX today..

Reps weren't in front of the tv, but the trailer loop was playing.

I thought Serenity and King Kong looked good..Corpse Bride was also fairly impressive, but any time you have animation at higher resolution it's going to look noticeably better.

Some of the other stuff like 40 y/o virgin, Constantine, Dukes of Hazzard all looked more vibrant and colorful, but I didn't notice a whole lot of extra detail.

There were 2 or 3 people constantly coming and going.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

So i went to BB in Emeryville.
Oops!
Out here in the sticks, we have BB/Mag stores!
Had to go back up the road to Magnolia.
Where the XA1 was to be found in all it's "frozen" glory. Every display in the store, had the BB "World" Series on, except one. The Sony SXRD (Mag has this set on sale cheaper than BB!) was showing the WB logo & only the WB logo. Tried reloading the disc, nothing. An employee came by and i told him to unplug the unit. That worked for getting the SD vs. HD demo (had never seen that before, it's just as bad as everyone said it was, the 480i looks worse than VHS, looks worse than CD-V, looks worse than cable! Butt, it was cool to see the transformation, always thought from the other posts this was a spilt screen of the same information, not a single frame split between SD & HD).
Had to get someone else over to get to the previews, as i had forgotten the secret code sequence to get to them & the first salesperson did not know how, either.
Well, now I know why people have posted Virgin looked great. On this very bright LCD (not Sony's 'magic' word for this technology) Virgin popped off the screen. For me the movie is lit too bright, making it look like a TV show, however is is VIVID!!!
Still like The Interpreter, which looks like it was lit too soft, butt still great detail. For me, more detail in Nicole's hair, than Virgin's 'bimbo who needs verbal confirmations' hair.
Serenity looked the best of the demo's i've been to so far, with the LCD's weak blacks helping with shadow detail on a film that was shot dark.
Kong was kingfabulous & if HD-DVD want's to have a chance at surviving... GET THIS TITLE OUT FAST!!!
For me, Bride is still the best for 3D likeness, detail (Kong's hair is great & so is Nicole's mates hair, butt...). When seeing the trailer in SD at home, the characters faces seemed to be smooth (except for intended imperfections), with HD the texture of every characters 'skin' is well defined.
Sound was by Onkyo & Vienna Acoustics. Best spk's of the demos, yet weak & feeble, ala Dolby Surround. Not impressive at all.

i feel very lucky to have seen (not heard, unfortunately) three demo's of the XA1 before it's release, sometime in the unknown future. ;-)

Just no time to get into anything more at the store, because it was time to go to The City for CD shopping & dancing!

 

[David Brown Eyes]

I just saw the HD-DVD demo today in Thornton.

Pretty neat stuff.

I do feel that the standard definition material used was extraordinarily bad. Lots of compressing and edge enhancement and certainly not the "best" SD can look.

I found the reps also were very scripted and were not able to speak outside of the toshiba provided material. If they had been better informed about the technology I would have asked about blueray and comparisons but decided it would be more like busing their balls than getting information.

The player was a demo and not fully functional and they freely admitted that when I asked to see how it upconverts standard DVD.

They also could not tell me if the sound at the demo was standard DD/DTS or the avanced hd audio codecs.

Overall the picture was fantastic, I just hope the final product is as good. I am still leaning towards Blue-Ray but HD-DVD was pretty nice.

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

It did not. The players are not equipped with HDMI 1.3 which the director of the HDMI Licensing Group says is required to output the new HD audio codecs. It has also been suggested that the difference between version 1.2a (which is what is specified for the first HD DVD players) and version 1.3 is hardware related, and thus cannot be upgraded via firmware.

If this is the case, then prepare to replace this 1st gen HD DVD player for a newer model later down the road.

Personally, I suspect that the difference is not hardware related, and that there will be the ability to upgrade to version 1.3 or even 1.x. The reasoning behind this is that if it were truly a hardware upgrade, then I suspect they would have changed the version numerology to 2.x, but unless you have it in writing from Toshiba, I wouldn’t trust anything you hear.

Of course because the 1st gen HD DVD players will also not output 1080p, and this too is hardware related, many early birds will likely find themselves wanting to replace it with an eventual 1080p player once they have a display that can benefit from a 1080p source VS a 1080i source.

 

[Robert Holloway]

If only Branagh's Hamlet was slated for HD......
or even DVD :-(

Ed it was great to read your summary of Magnolia at Emeryville. We saw the same thing, though I turned up the sound

I agree with the poster who said that for HD DVD to have any hope they need to get every big movie they can out on the street

That said...

HD on DVD does look awesome to a videophile like me, I've now seen both formats. Why stores like Magnolia aren't projecting it on their Ruby is beyond me and why there are no signs screamins THIS IS HD DVD is beyond me. Truth be told there's probably no real IQ difference between the two formats and the studio sign up will seal the deal, apart from consumer scepticism and disinterest.

I can't help but feel sad that a bunch of greedy execs could not see sense and launch one format this summer that had us all thrilled and wanting to spend money on, versus this mess.

We humans are sooo stoopid
Rob

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

It is! While I was surprised no one ever asked about it in the Warner chat last month, they are in fact working very hard on this release and are hoping to have it out before the end of this year (10th Anniversary), but at the very least they feel confident that if not this year, it will certainly be ready by early 2007.

 

[Dave Moritz]

You have to admit that Toshiba's HD-DVD player is not the best looking peice of gear. It reminds me of an ugly old 80's vhs player.

I have no intention of investing money into hd-dvd but I will at least want to see a demo of it in the store anyway. And since Denon is staying away from offering both hd-dvd and blu-ray, until the format war is over. I will be most likely be buying a Sony or Pioneer blu-ray player.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Robert,
Thanks again for directing me to my third HD-DVD demo!
You really think they would hook the Tosh up to the Sony?
i don't think you'll be seeing to many Sony BD players hooked up to Tosh displays, although i could be wrong! ;-)

That's funny cause the guy at Mag's Monday night said Denon was doing a uni. Took that with a "Ton of Sea Salt".

 

[Dave Moritz]

Hey Ed,

I was told by Denon via email that there where no plans to offer ether HD-DVD or Blu-ray HD. They said that they would not offer a player until the format war was over. IMHO it is likely that the salesman at Mag's is missinformed.

Because there will most likely not be any Denon players available this year. I will most likely end up with ether a Pioneer Elite or Sony ES Blu-ray HD player.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Some people on this forum do not believe others will pay $1500 for a HD player! Glad your taking the high road on this Dave & hope you get every pennies worth of enjoyment out of your investment.

 

[RobertSiegel]

Here's a look at the HD DVD screen for Batman Begins.

http://www.dvdtown.com/announcement/...enuscreen/3115

 

[Dave Moritz]

I was only adding my own observation, sarcasm is not necessary. I did notice your comment "Took that with a "Ton of Sea Salt". I think that we have to take anything that retailers like Mag's, Frys or Best Buys has to say. They seem to be some of the poorest trained salespeople in the industry.

I to would be interested to know when the war would be considered over? Would it be when one format has market advantage, or would it be when there is only one format on the shelves? I think Denon is doing the smart thing even though I would love to see a player when the format is released. McIntosh takes a stance like this and evaluates if it is worth it for them to use resources to build players for new formats. They have a wait and see attitude and seem to treat new formats as possible flash in the pan technologies. Denon is most likely taking a similar stance as not to waste time and money on a format that may or may not survive. I guess we shall have to wait and see how many other companies take the wait and see attitude? So far companies like Denon, McItosh and Meridian will not be offering HD-DVD or Blu-ray players anytime this year.

I will not be buying the machine as soon as it is available, because I would have to save up for it. But I too hope that I am not wasting my money on a format that disappears a short time later. Or dry's up like DVD-A and SACD has. I think that I am like many others that have been waiting for HD to come out and we are very excited about the prospects.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Meridian has yet to release a SA-CD player!!!
(nothing against you, Dave)
It will be interesting to see what the top eight (ten, minus Sony & Tosh) do. I see Denon (and other Japanese CE companies) acting faster than highend American & British CE companies. I'm hoping Denon's success with HiDef audio universals, leads them to the ultra-multi format as well.
Does anyone think Denon will not have a HiDef disc player by the '07 holidays?

 

[Dave Moritz]

My bad Ed, I appologize

 

[Dave Moritz]

I would kill for a Denon HD player.

I would rather have a Denon player than the Sony and Pioneer. Thats not to say that nether of the players are not nice. I would prefer to have a Denon, that would go with my new Denon reciever when I finally upgrade from my old Yamaha RX-V995.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Hey Ed,

I looked at the post again and I am sure it displayed the same way earlier. The wink gif did not display it only showed up as text and I did not realize what it was. Again I say sorry. :b

 

[Ed St. Clair]

No problemo Dave.
I've probably been snotty to you before & got away with it, so I just figured I deserve that one!!! ;-)
Oops, is it OK to wink again?!?!?!

I'd rather have a Denon over a Sony as well. Just that when Sony gets it right, they can produce reference gear. Pioneer would be no problem at any price point. My first DVD player was a Pioneer, still works. And the two under $250US universal players they did, may have be the best bargains in A/V at the time of their release.
I'd look forward to Onkyo as well, just they are usually a step or two behind time & feature wise, although when they catchup it's with a vengeance, to the other Japanese manufactures. Glad the LG is coming, just a little scary knowing their track record. Tosh would be cool, just don't know if that would happen for a while. Panasonic could be a ultra-multi player!

 

[David Coleman]

Well today I got to see the tour come to Cincinnati area.

Just some random notes.

Was hooked up to 60" Toshiba DLP. Wasn't put in a home theater just set up to one of the display televisions.

Got the standard disc with the different movie trailers on it. Loved the KING KONG trailer and the BATMAN BEGINS trailer.

Colors and contrast was excellent. Didn't see any pixel break up. Disc said it was encoded with AVC. Saw the split screen comparison where the HD DVD looked sweet in comparison to the DVD but you could tell the DVD video was basically "blown up" with no scaling involved so it looked a mess. The DVD wouldn't look that bad if it were upconverted.

Was really disappointed that it wasn't hooked up to a surround system. Would have loved to hear it if it was encoded in PCM or one of the lossless audio formats.

Asked about how noticable the difference was between 1080i and 1080p and was told your eye couldn't really measure the difference (yeah right)!

Was told that the disc was encoded 1080i (thought it was encoded 1080p)?

Told also that no player (Blu-Ray)included could pass a 1080p until the new HDMI standard is set.

Impressions-

Was very nice display and honestly if I had a HDTV that was 1080p i'd be interested in thenext generation player that can output all the format is capable of.

Anxious now to see what Blu-Ray can do!