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***Official HD-DVD Player Thread*** (1 Viewer)

Ron-P

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The local Best Buy got in 3 today. One went up for display (they were hooking it up as I walked in) the other 2 were for sale. Bought their first one. I added the 4 year service plan for $40. Picked up an AR HDMI cable to hook it up. Here's a couple of pics.








More to come as I play around with it this weekend.
 

Lou Sytsma

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Ron you surprise me. Didn't realize you were a bleeding edge consumer. Will you be getting a Blu-Ray as well?

Can't wait to hear your thoughts. Let us know how you find upconverted DVDs.
 

Jordan_E

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See it has one of those annoying Toshiba cardboard things on top!:D Have fun and please let us know what's what with this player.
 

Ron-P

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I had to buy an HDMI cable in the store. To put this in my rack I need a 35' HDMI cable so I'll have to shop around, just using a 6' AR (Acoustic Research) for now.

I played scenes from several films (King Kong, LotR: Fellowship EE, Animatrix and The Phantom of the Opera).

Before I get into image details please note that I am no pro at this and no videophile by any means. There is a slight improvement with upscaling to 720p, if I were to put a number on it, Id say about 15% over 480p, not a huge leap but enough to notice. My wife walked in during the scene when Kong was being captured and she said right off, "the image looks sharper". That comment even surprised me.

I used the same settings I had for my component connection and right off I noticed a slightly sharper image, mostly close up shots, distance shots really didn't benefit much. The colors were a bit more vibrant and blacks were deeper with more detail. The improvement in blacks caught me off guard as I was not expecting that.

It hung up a bit trying to load the Animatrix disk, took about a minute or longer to get that one to load, the other 3 were up in 15-20 seconds. It had no issues at all playing the disks, FF, RW skipping chapters, no navitation issues at all.

The fan is a bit noisy. More so then my Z3, it is noticeable but I had it sitting right behind my head on a box on the couch, once up on a shelf or in the A/V rack I doubt it will be noticeable. I'd say it was around 25db. It sounded close to what my old Panny PTL-200u PJ was like.

The machines menu set-up is very easy to use and navigate, set-up took only a few minutes. The remote on the other hand, a pain to use. Small buttons with very hard to see descriptions. Not a very user friendly remote at all.
 

Lou Sytsma

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These players need a fan? Wow, haven't really been following the hardware that closely. Is this true for BluRay as well?

Seems like a step backwards.

Your upconversion experience is interesting. I have a LG7832 - same as the Zenith318 - that upconverts to 720p or 1080i. Your results are in the same ballpark as mine.
 

Stan Rozenfeld

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Ron,

Congratulations! I am waiting for mine, to be shipped to me mid next week, so I've been told.

Sounds like upconversion is at least adequate. Please come back and tell us more of your impressions, particularly when you pick up the hd titles.

Stan
 

Johnny G

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Congratulations indeed Ron, sounds like you could be the first on HTF to have HD-DVD, Maybe the Western World!!!!! :)

How does it feel?
 

Lew Crippen

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It sounds great Ron. Continue to keep us posted as you experiment. As with many others I’m interested in how well this upconverts DVDs, as well as the technical aspects.

Interesting news on the fan—I suppose that is no big deal, but a bit surprising nonetheless.

Your impressions of the software will be most interesting.

While I don’t wish to direct your time and effort, there will be many of us who would be interested in come comparisons of HDMI/component connections. Do you plan to try both ways? (Just a bit of the geek in me, I suppose).

A comparison that really takes no time or effort, and which would be much more fun, would be to see if you can determine the sharper image via upconversion after a couple of ales. ;)
 

Ron-P

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Lew, I'm surprised at you, asking a question like that, everything looks better after a few ales...:D

More will follow. It's going to be a long wait for Tuesday.
 

PatWahlquist

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Congrat, Ron! Can't wait for your evaluation.

What is the sticker on the box, something about a free offer? Is that for the mail away disc? And that box is huge!

I stopped at my local Ultimate Electronics yesterday and they said they had gotten 2 in this week and both went out as special orders. Between our two UE stores in town, they are expecting around 50 of them. They have not hit their warehouses yet, which is odd seeing as they're supposed to be out in the next week. They also said any they get out of the first shipment will go to special orders. Then they guy I'm talking to tries to sell me a Denon 5910. Gotta love salesman.
 

Ron-P

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Pat, no free offer, just an add. The box is huge as is the player itself, big and heavy.
 

Mike_G

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I literally ran out the door when I saw this. My local BB doesn't have them in yet. Three on order, they'll be in on Thursday.
 

Citizen87645

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I was looking at HDMI/DVI cables yesterday and Blue Jeans Cables has very good prices.
 

Mike Frezon

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Congrats, Ron! How cool!

Forgive the basic question: But, am I correct that with the component connection you don't ge the upscaling to 720p? That you'll only see that with the HDMI cable?
 

Jay Mitchosky

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Exciting times. Makes me think back to the early days of DVD. I'm going to establish this as the official HD-DVD player thread and am moving it to the hardware section for further discussion. Screenshots when available will be appreciated!
 

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