Your biggest issue(s) with HD DVD player? (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

In fairness, it's not only the HD DVD players, but also the Samsung Blu-ray player which is that on both formats you can't see how much time is left on the movie. You can see how much time has lapse, but not how much time remains in a film or documentary you're watching.

Also, I want the ability to turnoff the upconverting if it's ever necessary.





Crawdaddy

 

[Walter Kittel]

While I am pleased with the HD-A1, I agree that the time remaining would be nice to have. As it stands, I try to remember to read the feature's runtime before I start and then mentally calculate the runtime based on the information the Toshiba does display.

Robert, can't you just switch the resolution to eliminate upconverting?

- Walter.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I tried to switch the resolution to 480I, but it won't allow me to do so, thus a 480P or 1080I flag is raised which means my Pioneer Elite Pro-710HD television will go to Full Screen automatically once it detects either flag.

 

[Steve Blair]

The toshiba shows the time remaining I believe on the player screen itself when you hit the display button....

 

[Hayes Preston]

well you learn something new every day, thanks for the heads up.

My biggest issue is the HDMI error when you switch the display input to another input, it's a pain to check something on tv and have to restart the disc.

 

[Cees Alons]

This thread is meant to accumulate "issues" (and their possible solutions) with the HD DVD players only. Please post anything about BD players in the similar thread in the other forum.

Thanks!


Cees

 

[Robert Crawford]

Thanks Steve for the heads up. I can see it fine now.




Crawdaddy

 

[Steve Blair]

YW Robert Know how I came to that conclusion? I remember their first gen dvd players did that back in 97'. I bought the SD3006 for MORE than this HD DVD player. Wow, that puts things in perspective lol

 

[Kevin. W]

None. I did replace the feet of my player with Vibrapods that I had sitting around

 

[Ron-P]

I wish the HDMI connection was more stable, mine is very loose and was causing video dropouts. I am rigging up some velcro to tighten it up. Not a Toshiba issue but more so an HDMI issue, a very crappy connection.

If anything a quicker load time and power up. Other then that, no issues, I am a very happy HD-DVD camper. Oh and that upscaling, simply awesome.

 

[Cees Alons]

I wonder if that isn't really an issue of the TV set.

IMO the TV-set should go on supporting the HDMI-input (handshakes) when switched to another source, even when it's no longer using the signal-data.

Of course I don't know this for sure, but I don't see how the player could handle it differently.


Cees

 

[Steve Schaffer]

While probably not the player's fault, I would like to be able to resume from the stopped point if I have to stop a movie and go do something else. I believe this may be more of a disc dependent thing since Warner discs do allow for bookmarking, which will "stick" after the player is turned off or even if the disc is removed and put back in the player with no other disc being played in the meantime.

Making the display dimmer setting "stick" instead of having to reset it every time I turn on the player would also be nice.

These are by no means major issues for me, just minor stuff that would be nice to have.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

The lack of a resume feature is annoying, but that's a software rather than a hardware issue, I think. The specs call for a flag to be set by the authoring studio to allow resume, and for some unknown reason they refuse to do it. Ticks me off.

 

[Travis Hedger]

Shitty remote, and no resume feature are my biggest issue.

Solved the remote problem with my Harmony 360. No resume is more of an annoyance.

You can see how much time has lapsed on the LED screen as normal, to see the remaining time go into the chapter select menu. To the right of the timeline you can see time remaining. All HD DVD titles do this. Wish it was a toggle option to show on the main display though.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

It is, kind of. Hit Display, and the OSD shows the time elapsed; the LED on the front of the player says the time remaining. Awkward, but it's there.

 

[scott>c]

I pretty much like everything except the slow start up time. Other than that I find its been pretty good. Oh I know, only having the 5.1 preouts instead of the 7.1. I would have loved that since my rears arent getting used as much now.

 

[Hayes Preston]

I don't think any TVs with HDMI keep the handshake active when not active on that source. Several people I have talked to (both consumers and folks at my local electronics shop) say that they have the same problem on all brands of TVs with the Toshiba. FWIW my cable box has HDMI output and it just keeps the output active even if the TV is switched to another source. I can tell by selecting the audio of the cable box when on a different source. When switched back the front of the cable box blinks that HDMI is now active, and continues along it's merry way.

I guess my point is if the cable box can do it, why can't the DVD player?

 

[Cees Alons]

Hayes,

I didn't mean to imply that it was your, or anybody's specific TV set that was at fault.

But my point was: shouldn't a TV set keep up the "communication" when it is using another source. I don't know if the comparison with a cable box is correct, because I don't know what a cable box expects from the set. A player, on the other hand, needs the communication to function properly.

Now, if it is true that (almost) none of the TV sets handle it this way, then I can imagine that future firmware "ignores" the loss of contact, or at least doesn't report it.

But still, I think it is very likely that, logically, both parties should try to keep up the link.


Cees

 

[Roger Mathus]

Last week I purchased a Toshiba HD-XA1 player from OneCall. They seem to have had both Toshiba models in stock for some time. I ordered at 4 PM in the afternoon and it shipped same day within 2 hours. They offer a small discount.

I have encountered the following quirks:

1.0 About half way in Cinderella Man severe drop outs and breakup was encountered and all functions on the player froze. It was necessary to disconnect power for a couple of minutes then re-boot the player. I cleaned the disc and it then played without the problem.

2.0 Lack of resume is a problem. If one wants to enter set-up to change a setting movie re-starts at Chapter 1.

3,0 Lighted remote is nice but it is light activated by motion. The light, however, goes off very quickly....before one can locate desired button...one must be fast.

4.0 As reported by many.....loading and selection change is very slow.

I also own a Samsung BD player and that product seems more refined from an operation point of view. I have encountered no problems and have no issues with the Samsung. EDIT....I did see the often reported jitter in PUNISHER but only in one pan scene. It was so minor (as I saw it in my system) that I would not have noticed it if I had not been looking for it.

In general, the picture quality seems better and more consistent with the HD-DVD discs but I think (my opinion) that the issue is with the authoring or source material rather than with BD vs HD. Both seem capable of delivering high quality images but HD seems to have better discs out now and more films to my liking.

Administrator question.......Is there a thread for those who own both BD and HD players to post? It appears that there are only BD and HD owner threads.
Please advise where to post and I will add more observations as I view more titles.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Hiya Roger!

Good to hear from you!

It was a tough call for us to break up the HD areas, but we
did so in order to avoid arguments between the two formats.