NEW HD-DVD owners: Please post your reviews here for members considering purchase! - Page 2

George_W_K · 09-04-2006, 12:38 AM

Quote:

Sure you have to throw in 100 miles but with my Continental Chase card I'll earn that back faster then it takes an HD-DVD to load!

RobertSiegel · 09-04-2006, 12:12 PM

I would like to ask a question to owners of the Toshiba player. Forgive me if this has been answered somewhere, but there are so many forums on hd I couldn't find this issue.

My Sont front projector does not have HDMI, so I am wondering if the Toshiba players upconvert regular dvd's to 1080 over component and if so how does it look. Thank you.

Robert_Zohn · 09-04-2006, 12:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobertSiegel

I would like to ask a question to owners of the Toshiba player. Forgive me if this has been answered somewhere, but there are so many forums on hd I couldn't find this issue.

My Sont front projector does not have HDMI, so I am wondering if the Toshiba players upconvert regular dvd's to 1080 over component and if so how does it look. Thank you.

Robert, Yes it does, but here are the two disadvantages:

A. Some studios have indicated they may in 2009 or later initiate ICT, Image Constraint Token, which will degrade the component video output to 4080p.

B. Your SD DVDs will not be up-converted over component.

-Robert

Sami Kallio · 09-04-2006, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobertSiegel

My Sont front projector does not have HDMI, so I am wondering if the Toshiba players upconvert regular dvd's to 1080 over component and if so how does it look. Thank you.

Yes and no. Yes only if the movie doesn't have macrovision copy protection and majority of them do. If you want to see them upconverted you can rip the image to your computer and burn it to a DVD-RW if you're not in a rush to see it.

David Ely · 09-04-2006, 08:19 PM

Here's my review of the Toshiba HD-A1, 24 hours after purchase.

I travel for work on a VERY regular basis. I come home for a week or so at a time, then leave for a month or more at a time. Yesterday, I returned from a 4 week trip. Given today is Labour Day, I knew groceries had to be bought before stores closed on Sunday. But there was something else on my list ... HD DVD.

With the release of the 2.0 firmware, I knew it was time to grab the player. I got off the plane, got my car and went straight to Future Shop to picked the unit. Only then did I go buy groceries

I brought the unit home and connected it to my Toshiba 46HX83 with a HDMI -> DVI cable. I plugged it in to my network and performed the 2.0 upgrade.

Once the upgrade was complete, it was time to try a movie.

I was a little surprised to be greeted with a dark and lifeless image. After dropping in DVE and Avia, I found a severe black crush issue. It's so bad that NONE of the black bars appear in the DVE pattern and NEITHER of the moving bars appear in the Avia pattern.

I immediately moved to component video and was delighted with the result. This was the picture I was expecting. It seems my configuration is susceptible to the reported HDMI -> DVI crush issues. I don't really care, as SD DVD looks great on the unit, even at 480P.

The image from the unit is terrific. Colors are absolutely perfect and the increased image detail is wonderful. So much better than the 'high def' content cable providers are cheating us with.

One thing I wasn't prepared for was the audio upgrade this would give me. I decided to use the 5.1 analog outputs to my Pioneer VSX-21 receiver. HOLY CRAP!!!! The sound quality is out of this world! While there is a big improvement with SD DVDs, HD DVDs are mind blowing. I watched Serenity this evening and am still in awe from the experience.

I tried Dolby True HD with Phantom and must admit the difference wasn't very apparent. The general audio mix on that disk seems dull, so that might be why. I'll have to wait for more True HD disks (I'm not interested in any of the currently available titles).

The only problem I ran in to with the unit was while playing around. I was popping disks in and out, flipping chapters and audio tracks quite quickly. On occasion, I would flip to a chapter and there would be no sound. Pausing didn't fix the problem. I'd have to switch chapters again to get sound back. I'm chalking this up to the player acting up with a series of fast commands. It's not even sitting on my radar at the moment.

Overall, the unit feels like a beta product. I'm not referring to the build quality, which is quite high, but more about the experience using it. There are still a bunch of quirks which make it unsuitable for the average consumer. For HT hobbyists, I give it my full recommendation.

Dave>h · 09-05-2006, 10:50 AM

HI,

Purchased my player last week from Amazon.com and did not initially get the 10% off the machine. A couple of e-mails back and forth to Amazon and got an additional $50 off the machine. Thank you Amazon!

Shipping the player to Bermuda was relatively simple although I am concerned that getting Toshiba to send me updates might be an issue.

My experience thus far has been largely positive. The machine has only locked up once (Ver 1.4 software) and I occassionally get HDMI errors on initial start up (and I cannot switch between my other DVD player and the HD A1 due to HDMI errors so it is hard to compare the image to another source. I understand this is not a software issue more an HDMI issue) but my TV only has DVI so that could be the reason, not sure.

Connections are as follows:

HD A1 to Samsung DLP (HLN61...) via HDMI with a DVI converter into the TV
HD A1 to Yamaha DSP A1 via both 5.1 analog and toslink (have not upgraded to 2.0 firmware so no true 5.1 HD for me yet) which does the majority of the work.

The picture is GORGEOUS on my 61" Samsung DLP - better than anything I have seen displayed at home (mine or anyone elses). I have not Avia'd my display using the HD A1 so I imagine it might be possible to get an even better picture (as hard as I find that to beleive). :>

I watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang last night and the image and detail were just amazing, I cannot wait for more titles to come out on HD DVD. The sound was handled via the Toslink connection and thus was in DTS on my amp. I did not do a comparison between the 2 ch HD and the DTS but would the 2 CH HD be in surround? Not sure if I understand how 2 ch HD works - is it like pro logic used to be, that is, 2 channels get mixed out into quasi four channels?

I watched some upconverted Justice League cartoons and the image was properly pillar boxed and framed correctly. Very impressive feature. My previous Toshiba upconverting DVD player would incorrectly stretch 4:3 images when upconverting to 1080i. The upconverted image was very impressive although I could not compare it to a 480P image (see above) to see what, if any, difference there were. Although the picture looked very crisp with plenty of line detail.

I also (frustratingly) compared images from The Searchers hd DVD to upconverted SD DVD and the contrast was pretty startling. Even my non HD (or anything to do with video really) girlfriend could see the obvious difference. She said the HD DVD image looked like JW and company could just walk off the screen into the living room. Coming from her, that was a great compliment to HD DVD. She would rather watch regular broadcast TV than anything on DVD and so I have deduced that she really doesn't much care about picture quality, or sound quality etc. I am sure there are lots of guys who can relate... : )

Using the HD A1 as a cd player, I spent some time comparing the analog output from the HD A1 with the digital input from my Yamaha CDC 845 to my Yamaha DSP A1, which has some very good DA converters in it. I was very impressed with what I heard. The HD A1 compared very favorably with my CDC 845/DSP A1 combo. I used the MFSL CD of both Rush Moving Pictures and Pink Floyd Dark Side of the moon (I have two copies of each so could do back to back comparisons). In some instances I actually preferred the analog out from the HD A1 to the more digital sounding combo I currently have. Albeit the differences were slight. In some cases I found the HD A1 provided a more musical reproduction - the bass sounded more natural, or the drums sounded more natural although I did notice that some of the highs did not appear as high during the vocals on DSOTM. However, the was no "digital" harshness to the reproduced sound from the HD A1, something I was hearing sometimes in the combo set up. Both did faithful reproductions of the source material but the HD A1 sounded more record like and my combo sounded more CD like, if that makes sense. Personally, I found there was more presence to the production from my current combo. I just got a better sense of "being in the room" when piano was playing or during soft lyrical bits, but when the full orchestration kicked in, I really like the way the HD A1 created a real sense of a band playing.

Whether the HD a1 performs better than my current combo is debatable but considering that both my CD player and my Amp were Yamaha's top of the line several years ago, I think that speaks volumes about the build quality of the HD A1 .

The only two complaints I have about the player are: 1) the remote is AWFUL (fixed by programming it into my Pronto so no issues now)
2) NO DVD A or SACD support (which is nit picky I know but my other Toshiba up converter did both so why not just include it on the HD A1? Seems to me to make sense and I can't imagine the cost to license either product is prohibitive. In fact, DVD A and SACD would probably pay toshiba to include the codec in their machine!)

Well worth the price of admission IMHO.

Now you studio types out there: Get us some more software titles to play!

Happy HD DVD owner

Dave

Tim Glover · 09-05-2006, 12:26 PM

Good review Dave.

I've had mine for about 3 weeks or so....my review is coming soon.

Vader · 09-13-2006, 10:09 AM

OK, second-first impressions. I've had the player for a couple of weeks now, and have had a chance for HD-DVD to settle in. This has given me a chance to view HD-DVD on my HT, and reflect on all of the other testimonials I've read here and on the Shack. Here are my conclusions, based on the limited sampling I have had thus far:

PICTURE: Everyone else has said 'WOW', so I will refrain from repeating it, though I wholeheartedly agree with it. I have, to date, only viewed two HD titles, U-571 and Spy Game, but the picture on both is stunning. U-571 is so clear that I feel I should be getting wet during the second depth charge sequence. Spy Game (blind-buy) was just as impressive, even if I was somewhat underwhelmed with the movie itself (to be fair, I need to watch it again; I was exhausted the first time and couldn't keep my eyes open). Was it enough to make me buy all future purchases, when available, on HD-DVD? Absolutely. What about swearing off all SD-DVD watching? Nope. I have watched several SD-DVDs since I got the HD-DVD player, and ya know what? I enjoyed them just as much as before. Sure, the picture was a bit softer in focus, but it was in no way bequeathed "crap status". Keep in mind that I am watching on a 65" display at approx. 2 screen widths. And that I am not using upconversion (my set is analog only). So, while 1080i is incredible, 480p still does one hell of a job (IMHO).

SOUND: This is where I was the most impressed, actually, The first HD-DVD I spun was U-571 (50-50 chance, since my only other title to date is Spy Game). Using the SPDIF connection and the DTS option, the sound seemed warmer, and more detailed than the ½ bit rate DTS on the DVD. The only problem was that the picture froze, and then stuttered for several seconds during the latter part of the film (bummer). While I have read that the original firmware was plagued with this problem, I was suprised (and a little worried) to find it in the 1.4 FW version. However, after changing to the 5.1 analog outputs and switching the SPDIF setting to 'PCM' instead of 'BITSTREAM', the problem went away completely (I am still on 1.4). The problem behaved exactly like a buffering bottleneck, which (to my pedestrian mind) makes sense. If the player is being asked to read in a high bitrate audio stream into a buffer, then downmix it to the bitstream, and all of this in real time, it seems reasonable that it might get behind. That's just my guess, though. The main thing is, no more stuttering…

Now that I have the analog connections made, and the sound rebalanced, the Dolby Digital Plus quite literally blows me away (3 MB/sec….

). I am waiting for the 2.0 upgrade disc to get full DolbyHD now, but am in no particular hurry since I don't have any tiles with DolbyHD yet ("yet" being the key word) - Is there a list of DolbyHD titles out there? ….. Bring on Batman Begins, Superman Returns, The Lord of the Rings, etc!!

In all, I am completely satisfied with my purchase, regardless of which way the format war goes. My original two conditions for upgrading now have been satisfied: No internet connection required for movie playback – check. HD video signal over component (at least until the ICT is flagged, but by then I will have upgraded both the player and display) – check.

P.S. Ron, in another thread you mentioned that you were still using SPDIF, and were still having video "hiccups". Try changing SPDIF to 'PCM' and using the 5.1 analog jacks. I have not had the slightest problem since!

dkny75 · 09-13-2006, 01:10 PM

Vader, great write-up. Glad to hear you're enjoying your player. Right now there are only 5 titles that feature TrueHD. Phantom of the Opera (part of the intial WB titles with lower sound), Perfect Storm, Constantine, Training Day (which looks and sounds amazing), and Troy.