Caving in…. (1 Viewer)

[Bob_L]

With the leak of the firmware that confirms support for TrueHD out today, I also broke down and bought my HD A1. I'm in, boys!

 

[Ronald Epstein]

...hee-hee

Everyone is finally discovering just how great this format is!

Welcome aboard guys!

 

[Tim Glover]

Hey Brett, haven't popped in Serenity yet...this is planned for tonight though! Can't wait and thanks for that tidbit!

 

[Vader]

It begins.....

I just ordered my first three HD titles from Amazon: Van Helsing (yes, there are a few people on this planet who liked this -- I'm the other one), Sky Captian (same disclaimer - great eye candy, too!), and Serenity (blind-buy). I will get my player in a couple of weeks (Labor Day sales), but for now, I am gearing up with the cables I need (blue jeans).... I am not quite ready to throw in the towel on SD completely, though... When I was walking through SoundTrack looking at their demos, I noticed that the SD displays looked terrible (and not in contrast to HD, either). On the same size display I have, their picture looked like a blurry mess (if that is what people are basing their optinions of SD on, I can understand). The problem is, I have the titles they were showing, and that is not what I see. I am thinking that when they set up their SD displays, they reduce the sharpness to way below zero (zero being 'nothing added, nothing taken away') to soften the image severly, and accentuate HD. Even in the split-screen demo, the SD image was softened beyond normal. Just my opinion, though. Back to HD, I am still blown-away by my sub upgrade (dual SVS PC+ clinders); I can't wait to hear uncompressed audio over these!

Oh, one last thought on the format war; regardless of which way the pendulum swings (if it ever DOES settle down), the only way that I would end up with an expensive doorstop is if I had not bought any titles. Even if HD-DVD does go under (unlikely, as it looks now), I will still have the player and an HD-DVD library that will still bring me a heck of a lot of entertainment!

Tim, let me know how Serenity is (haven't seen it; not even Firefly)....

 

[Tim Glover]

Sure thing Vader, I mean Lord Vader.

Check out Amazon's HD-DVD stuff too. Got my player with their 10% off promotion for only $414 shipped. And get 10% off any HD-DVD movie for a year. They aren't stocking every title it seems yet or just out of it at the moment but with the discounts it's a pretty good deal.

I just have to use some discretion and not use that dang "one click" ordering so much. Might get me broke.

 

[Vader]

One last minute question, concerning placement. How much heat does this thing put off? Does it put off more heat that a regular DVD player? The place that I have set for it is not real open to ventilation I'm looking at about 1" - 1 1/2" clearance on the top, 2" in the back, and 3 1/2" on the sides in a (more or less) closed back cabinet. I can change that, but it would require playing musical components and getting longer cables, which I would like to avoid if possible (it would work great where I have planned, but am flexible). It would displace my turntable (reference Smithsonian archives under "primitive playback devices"); Yes, I do still listen to true analog now and again....

 

[Mark Zimmer]

It does give off a lot of heat; it has a substantial fan in it. I would be very leery about sticking it in a spot that has no ventilation.

 

[Vader]

Thanks, Mark. Looks like my turntable will have to take a vacation.... Glad I didn't order the cables yet (I would be about 4' too short)!

 

[JeffdDurborow]

I agree Doug the upconversion is so underated.. I can't believe how well it performs... It's amazing piece of equipment..

 

[Vader]

Well, I have my cables ordered from Blue Jeans (should be here by Thursday), several titles ordered from Amazon (site says they won't ship for two more weeks – grrrrr), and will get the player on Friday (Best Buy Labor day sale). Another question about the audio: What does the player downconvert the audio to over optical? I know the player (sans the 2.0 update, which I will have to wait for it to come in the mail) is limited to Dolby TrueHD 2.0, right? So does that mean that it will downconvert Dolby TrueHD to regular Dolby Digital 2.0? What about DTS-HD and Dolby Digital Plus? Are they full 5.1 (over the analog outputs) right now? What do they downconvert to, standard DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1, respectively?

When I got my first Dolby Digital AVR back in 1999, it was because of the terrible down-conversion from DD 5.1 to Pro-logic (it was like listening to the DTS track of WotW, followed by the DD one). How does the Tosh's audio downconversion sound? Thanx, guys!

P.S. Ron, I believe my bank account is writing a pre-emptive contract out on you, Tim, Dave and everyone else here for pushing me over the edge..... fair warning.

 

[BrettGallman]

DD Plus is output fully over 5.1 analog inputs. It's downconverted to a high-bit rate DTS track over digital audio cables, at least that's my understanding. Someone else can jump in here and correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I believe that the player will decode Dolgy True HD in 5.1 and it will most likely 7.1 mixed for some movies via HDMI once recievers and pre/pros have the surround processors. As far as I know unless it is a two channel mix you should get a 5 channel mix as I believe most Dolby True HD tracks on disc are 5.1.

According to Dolby here are the max channels for there formats:
Dolby Digital - 5.1 Channels
Dobly Digital Plus - 7.1 Channels
Dolby True HD - 8 Channels

 

[John H Ross]

Presumably this Toshiba player re-introduces the dreaded layer change?

Any chance that situation will change with future models/manufacturers?

John

 

[Robert Crawford]

I haven't noticed any layer changes.

 

[dpippel]

Neither have I. Not a single instance.

 

[John H Ross]

Really? This is quite promising! I haven't seen any mention of a memory buffer in any of the specs I've browsed. Is a memory buffer part of the official HD-DVD spec or will it be up to the individual manufacturers? Or is it simply that this particular player is built around a computer hard drive (and all computer hard drives have large memory stores)?

John

 

[BrettGallman]

I haven't noticed a layer change either.

 

[Steve Blair]

It must have a buffer as no layer changes here either...

 

[RobertDW]

The Toshiba player has 1GB of I believe PC2700. It also has flash memory but I don't know how much.

 

[TedD]

If you want to know how much buffer memory the Toshiba has, get out your watch, press stop on the remote and time how long it takes for the HD DVD to actually stop playing after the "Plackback has stopped" window pops up on the screen.

Ted