[John Besse]

With all the reasonable prices floating around on the net... I decided to make my jump into HD DVD today. I just purchased the Toshiba HD A1 and four discs to start out the collection! I ordered Sahara, Million Dollar Baby, Happy Gilmore and The Last Samurai for $506 and change shipped! I really hope this format lives up to what I am hearing. Nonetheless, I am really excited and can't wait for it to get here.

[Ronald Epstein]

John,

Everyone swore, including myself, that we would sit out the
format war.

...however, the more praises you hear for HD-DVD the more
tempted you become to jump in.

I am very confident that you will be quite pleased with HD-DVD.
Sahara looks quite amazing!

Please, let us know what you think.

[Jerome Grate]

Count me in too, I've got 100.00 towards the purchase, my wife says I've gotta save for this one since the DVD in place Zenith DVB318 works fine. She let me get this one when I got the new t.v. First year of tuition for my son and daughter (5 and 4) and that taking up the extra cash.

[Tim Glover]

Me too. I made comments on other threads about holding out yada yada yada...."won't be much improvement etc..."... Boy do I feel like an idiot.

Have had my player a few days now. I can live with my flip flop decision. I figure at the very worse case scenario should HD-DVD eventually lose out, then I will still have an excellent upconverting dvd player. My other player was over 3 years old and was begging to be replaced.

I even love the retro type look of the Toshiba. I really do. Kind of reminds me of the bigger vcr's back in the day. Pretty cool.

We should start a support group....

[Ronald Epstein]

Now, Tim, there's the right attitude everyone should have.

At worst, figure you are spending $500 for an excellent upscaling
DVD player.

[Tim Glover]

Thanks. There are some SD-DVDs I own that I won't replace on HD and can live with their upconverted-ness New tech term to add to the HTF glossary.

Now I just need to get a real HD level monitor or projector. That's the next project.

[John Besse]

How many of you actually use the HD A1 for playing legacy (SD) DVDs? I hear how slow the unit is loading up and all, I don't think I could give up my Denon DVD-1600. Not to mention that the HD A1 doesn't do DVD-Audio, except for the DTS track on a disc. I'm actually thinking about getting the Oppo 970 to take over my legacy DVD watching, DVD-Audio and adding SACD to the home theater.

Last, to comment on Tim's last post... I WILL NOT be rebuying my DVD collection on a new format. Unless some new format comes out that replaces the circular disc technology (possibly square disks??? ), then my old legacy collection is staying put! There will be exceptions to my rule for Star Wars, Indiana Jones and major,major, major re-releases. I actually got the urge to throw in Caddyshack last night, and that transfer is so bad... But, I'm going to stick to my guns on that one. As with tim, I too "can live with their upconverted-ness."

[Tim Glover]

Let me edit that I will and already have replaced several of my dvds for the HD-DVD version. How that plays out long term I really don't know. It might be difficult to go back to standard def on some movies. The movies I really do love and like to watch alot will get the nice little maroon case HD-DVD treatment.

[Bryan X]

Does the Tosh upconvert over component or is that only available over HDMI?

[Edwin-S]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryan X

Does the Tosh upconvert over component or is that only available over HDMI?

From what I have heard the Toshiba players will upconvert over component as long as the copy protection has been removed from the DVD. In other words, if you pirate a DVD the Toshiba player can upconvert the image over component; however, if you purchase the same DVD then the Toshiba player will only upconvert over HDMI. The same situation applies to the Samsung BD player.

Thieves can watch upconverted DVDs over component but legitimate owners can't. Right on, MPAA!! You bunch of f%~#nuts!

Edit: I should add that I believe the Samsung player operates the same way. I may be wrong.