Toshiba A3 170 bucks at Sears on Black Friday (1 Viewer)

[Chris S]

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.

 

[Chris S]

Well... to somewhat answer my own question it looks like Wal-mart will offer the A2 for only $98 tomorrow (11/02). HighDefDigest

 

[Paul W]

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.

 

[Wayne_j]

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.

 

[Chris S]

You might also want to try the current Amazon deal for $199 plus 10 movies as another backup.

 

[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. )

 

[Cees Alons]

Kevin,

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

 

[Phil Iturralde]

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

 

[Patrick.C]

If you have an HH Gregg in your area, they will have the A3 on sale Friday and Saturday for $149.97.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

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

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Cees & Phil- Thanks. Good info.