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Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

post #1 of 31
10/28/07 at 7:23pm
Thread Starter 
http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthr...uid=0&t=641373

The first pdf has it on there
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post #2 of 31
10/28/07 at 9:29pm

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

Looks like my question on whether to go with an A2 or A3 has been decided.

According to the ad it will also be available online. Any takers on whether this will crash their site? I know I'll be hitting refresh all morning.
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post #3 of 31
10/29/07 at 3:19am

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

Those Walmart (Chinese) HD DVD players will need to be significantly less expensive, because these are the genuine Toshibas!

Below $150 certainly makes sense now.


Cees
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post #4 of 31
10/29/07 at 5:45am

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cees Alons
Those Walmart (Chinese) HD DVD players will need to be significantly less expensive, because these are the genuine Toshibas!

Below $150 certainly makes sense now.

Cees

I thought Walmart denied that they would have those type of players.
Either way, looking very promising.
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post #5 of 31
10/29/07 at 9:31am

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

What are the specs on the A3? Does it do full 1080p output?
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post #6 of 31
10/29/07 at 9:51am

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

Aaron:

A3.....1080i
A30....1080p
A35....1080p

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post #7 of 31
10/29/07 at 10:18am

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

this deal is very very tempting, but i've had my eyes set on the A35.

I may use this deal to help get friends onboard though...
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post #8 of 31
10/29/07 at 11:28am
Thread Starter 

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

How much of a difference is there between 1080i/1080p? And between 720p for the matter.
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post #9 of 31
10/29/07 at 11:44am

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

PQ-wise there's absolutely no difference between 1080i and 1080p, of course. Both have the full HD resolution of 1080 horizontal lines.

Whether or not you see a difference with a 720 lines picture, depends on the distance of your TV set (and it's size). When you watch a 39" image, or smaller, from a 12 - 15 ft distance, you won't see a difference between a 720p image and a 1080p image.


Cees
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post #10 of 31
10/29/07 at 11:48am
Thread Starter 

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

I have a 720p/1080i 50 inch Samsung DLP, well the PQ be about the same from my normal viewing distances of 10-12 feet?
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post #11 of 31
10/29/07 at 12:59pm

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

No, you will certainly see the difference!
(But even that huge TV will allow you to sit closer, say 8', if you need or want to, without viewing problems when you're watching genuine 1080-material.)


Cees
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post #12 of 31
10/29/07 at 7:49pm

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

My rule of thumb is that anything under 42" you'll likely not be able to tell a difference between 720p and 1080i at a reasonable viewing distance... Unless you read this forum.

Most of the small differences in picture quality aren't typically discernible to the average and slightly above average person but once you read thread discussions pointing out the small blemishes it will start to become more and more apparent.

That said I'm still not convinced I can see differences between 1080i and 1080p at a screen size less than 56".
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post #13 of 31
10/30/07 at 2:46am

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

Chris,

There IS no difference between 1080i and 1080p. How could it? They're exactly the same image.

(A 1080p transfer fills the image-buffer line-after-line; a 1080i transfer fills the odd lines first, then the even lines. The resulting image, read by the display, is the same, of course.)


Cees
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post #14 of 31
10/30/07 at 5:31am

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

In high motion scenes I can see a slight difference. Again the overall image has to be pretty large. A buddy and I did some blind testing with a couple projectors awhile back trying to determine which he should buy. Each time I could pick out a slight difference.
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post #15 of 31
10/30/07 at 5:55am

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

The 1080i/p difference is dependent on your display's video processing capabilities. Some can detect the cadence (and properly deinterlace) and some can't. The cadence coming out of 1080 24fps material that has been interlaced to 1080i 60 should be a piece of cake for most displays to handle.

-Reagan
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post #16 of 31
10/30/07 at 10:44am

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

Tim, thanks for the list. We'll see.
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post #17 of 31
10/30/07 at 11:25am

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cees Alon[/b
There IS no difference between 1080i and 1080p. How could it? They're exactly the same image.

(A 1080p transfer fills the image-buffer line-after-line; a 1080i transfer fills the odd lines first, then the even lines. The resulting image, read by the display, is the same, of course.)
That's all well and good, but when feeding 1080i into a 1080p display one has to hope that the display can correctly deinterlace and apply inverse telecine, which a great many cannot.
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post #18 of 31
10/30/07 at 12:31pm

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

Romier,

True, but strange enough it was the other way around in many TV-sets until last year.

Apparently, they had de-interlacing logic installed and to accept 1080p, the manufacturer had added an interlacing circuit in these machines. Sometimes these worked lousy, sometimes not, but it added another level anyway.

I think that the newest TV sets and projectors simply handle both, 1080i and 1080p, correctly. If they do, the "theoretical" question of which of the two is best becomes moot.

I make a point of this, because so often one encounters the notion that 1080i would be a lower grade of 1080p (somehow closer to 720p, or worse ), which isn't true at all.


Cees
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post #19 of 31
10/30/07 at 7:42pm

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

No problem Aaron. Good Luck man!
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post #20 of 31
10/31/07 at 9:48am
Thread Starter 

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

Best Buy has the A2 for 180 now
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post #21 of 31
10/31/07 at 11:30am

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cees Alons
I think that the newest TV sets and projectors simply handle both, 1080i and 1080p, correctly. If they do, the "theoretical" question of which of the two is best becomes moot.

This could very well be the case. We did the test on what would now be 2 year old equipment so I'd be curious to see if I could still tell a difference. But I digress from the topic at hand...

So with players being sold so cheap now anyone want to wager on seeing $100 units on Black Friday? 6 months ago I would have said it was completely out of the question but I'm not so sure now.
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post #22 of 31
11/1/07 at 9:42am

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris S
So with players being sold so cheap now anyone want to wager on seeing $100 units on Black Friday? 6 months ago I would have said it was completely out of the question but I'm not so sure now.

Well... to somewhat answer my own question it looks like Wal-mart will offer the A2 for only $98 tomorrow (11/02). HighDefDigest
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post #23 of 31
11/19/07 at 10:03pm

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

I went to the Frisco, TX Sears tonight (11/20) and saw the actual flyer with the HD A3 priced at $169.00. I asked if I could pick one up tonight at $199 and come back Friday for a price match (7day sales law here in Texas) and the manager said as long as I showed up between 5am and noon (the black Friday sale time), they would honor the difference.

Good thing I bought tonight mine tonight because they only had the one and could not actually guarantee they would get any more before Friday. They were not aware of any shipments coming in before then.

If your state has a 7-day sales match law, you may want to go on in Tuesday or Wednesday and pick one up to make sure you have it in your hands (early, even) and get your extra money back on Friday morning.
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post #24 of 31
11/20/07 at 8:15am

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

Thanks for posting this. I'll probably still try Best Buy first because of their 7 free HD-DVD offer but I'll use Sears as a back up.
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post #25 of 31
11/20/07 at 4:15pm

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

You might also want to try the current Amazon deal for $199 plus 10 movies as another backup.
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post #26 of 31
11/20/07 at 5:19pm

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

Cees- You say there's no difference between 1080i and 1080p, but as others have pointed out, that really depends on how the display processes the 1080i signal. OK, so we all know it is extremely nontrivial to deinterlace 480i to 480p, and some DVD players still don't do it correctly. So, my impression is that I shouldn't assume that any particular display is going to correctly process a 1080i signal either, right? It is still better (i.e., safer) to have a player output 1080p and a display that can accept a 1080p signal? (Assuming of course, that the *player* does it correctly. )
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post #27 of 31
11/20/07 at 6:13pm

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

Kevin,

Quote:
So, my impression is that I shouldn't assume that any particular display is going to correctly process a 1080i signal either, right?
Or a 1080p signal. But recent models seem to do fine, AFAIK.

Until into half of last year (2006), there were still several TV-sets on the market that were labeled 1080p (in fact they often said "1080p display" - which is basically nonsense: ALL plasma and LCD displays read-out their screen memory sequentially, unlike the operation of CRT screens - hiding the truth about their input signal logic), but who only accepted 1080i signals.

Newer versions then, also accepted 1080p, but had addition circuitry, converting a 1080p signal to 1080i first! There were rumoured to be be some that accepted 1080p as their native 1080-signal, but converted 1080i signals to basically 540 (by using only half of the image: "bobbing"), but I personally don't know any models doing this.

So it wasn't such a bad idea at all that the first HD-players had 1080i output, but no 1080p yet: 1080i was the only one guaranteed to be read by all HD-ready TVs.

It certainly still is a good idea to test one's TV-set in case of any doubt (in the same vein, some players produced a better image in 1080-mode than in 720p mode, so some 720p TV-sets (e.g. 1366 x 768) produce a better image from those players when the input signal is 1080i than if it is set to 720p!)


However, most models and certainly the newer ones can faultlessly place the odd and even lines into the image memory, no matter how they are transferred (each line after another = 1080p, or odd lines first and then even lines = 1080i), and of course they are read out by the plasma- or LCD-display in proper order.
The image will then be absolutekly identical.

It's never "safe" to assume that 1080p is a better chance. Either the PQs are equal, or else it could very well be that 1080i is better for that particular TV model!


Cees
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post #28 of 31
11/21/07 at 10:14am

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin C Brown
Cees- You say there's no difference between 1080i and 1080p, but as others have pointed out, that really depends on how the display processes the 1080i signal. OK, so we all know it is extremely nontrivial to deinterlace 480i to 480p, and some DVD players still don't do it correctly. So, my impression is that I shouldn't assume that any particular display is going to correctly process a 1080i signal either, right? It is still better (i.e., safer) to have a player output 1080p and a display that can accept a 1080p signal? (Assuming of course, that the *player* does it correctly. )

One way to verify your player / display are working together and applying the right de-interlacing to achieve the full 1080p image, ... is to test it with ...

... HQV Benchmarks ...

... which comes in either HD-DVD or Blu-ray format.

I received my HD HQV Benchmark on 06-20-07 (ordered 6-8-07), and here's the results ...

DISPLAY: Toshiba 62HM196 62" DLP 1080p HDTV
PLAYER: Toshiba HD-A1 (HDMI) w/v2.2 FW

HD NOISE REDUCTION =............................... 25 PASSED**
HD VIDEO RESOLUTION LOSS =..................... 20 PASSED
VIDEO RECONSTRUCTION 1 = ....................... 10 PASSED (Jaggies - 3 bars, De-Interlacing)
VIDEO RECONSTRUCTION 2 = ........................ within ±10-degree PASSED (Jaggies- 1 rotating bar vs. angle, De-Interlacing)
FILM RESOLUTION LOST TEST SMPTE = ......... 0 FAILED*** (Vertical bands strobing / boxes with the stripped horizontal lines)
FILM RESOLUTION LOST TEST - STADIUM = ... 10 (PASSED*** - No moiré or flickering in the upper stands)

**Toshiba 62HM196 DNR Control = HIGH (Previously OFF! I can finally see it's effectiveness with HD HQV Benchmark - see "The Perfect Vision" article below)

*** According to HQV Testing & Scoring Guide, since the 62HM196 Failed the 1st FILM RESOLUTION LOST TEST, ... the 62HM196 will "Fail" the 2nd FILM RESOLUTION LOST TEST - STADIUM, ... which my 62HM196 PASSED!!!

Comments:
Whatever Toshiba is doing, the 62HM196 video processor can (to a degree - by passing the 2nd FILM RESOLUTION LOST TEST - STADIUM) identify the source cadence and apply the proper inverse cadence to recreate the original 1080p image. Also, Toshiba's video processor in my 62HM196 can properly recognize the source type and apply the right de-interlacing to achieve the full 1080p image.

My results coincides with The Perfect Vision Winter 2007 review & benchmark results with the Toshiba 72HM196 HDTV ...

Quote:
(pg. 84)
Digital noise reduction was somewhat effective- a setting of high offered some improvement over off, and it didn't degrade the picture, so I left it on. The processor picked up 3:2 pull-down reliably, but not so quickly.

The same was true for a 3:2-pulldown test clip in 1080i from HD DVD. However, once it did lock on, the clip looked exceptionally smooth, leading me to suspect that it must be performing inverse telecine instead of motion-adaptive deinterlacing. Rather than trying to compensate for the extra unpaired fields in a 1080i/60 signal, inverse telecine simply discards those extra fields and reconstructs the original film frames using only matched pairs of fields.

I Highly recommended this HQV Benchmark HD DVD (& Blu-ray HQV)!

It can show you how GREAT (or not) your 1080p HDTV display is!!!


================================================== =========
FYI: SAMPLE IMAGES FROM HQV's Testing & Scoring Guide Document :


HD NOISE REDUCTION


HD VIDEO RESOLUTION LOSS


VIDEO RECONSTRUCTION 1


FILM RESOLUTION LOST TEST - STADIUM

Phil
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post #29 of 31
11/21/07 at 11:45am

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

If you have an HH Gregg in your area, they will have the A3 on sale Friday and Saturday for $149.97.
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post #30 of 31
11/21/07 at 2:22pm

Re: Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday

Costco is selling the A3 now for $179 regular in-store price "with instore rebate".
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