Toshiba HD-A2 on store shelves now
[Thanks, Ken F.]
[Thanks, Ken F.]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
hmurchison @ Dec 8th 2006 6:15PM
So far so good. The players are getting great preliminary reviews. Even tough discs like King Kong are playing fine. Great news.
Ed @ Dec 8th 2006 7:18PM
This is nice. Some people actually say it looks better than the last generation HD DVD and Blu-Ray players and even the 360 HD DVD which I have and HIGHLY recommend.
Sing the HD DVD Petition to end this silly formart war.
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/HD_DVD_Studio_Support
img eL @ Dec 9th 2006 2:58AM
i like both camps & knock both camps, one knock for HD-DVD is where are the HD-DVD burners for the public? whats up?
Dave @ Dec 9th 2006 5:27AM
What a crap player. The old glitches are still not fixed. Where is 1080p?
Same player in new box...
Vlad @ Dec 10th 2006 10:08PM
Dave, How much SONY pays you for this?
pliepl @ Dec 10th 2006 1:16AM
What a crap player. The old glitches are still not fixed. Where is 1080p? Same player in new box...
Would you elaborate which glitches and why is it crap? If youre going to make statements like this, you should provide reasoning behind it; otherwise it just makes it seem like spam.
If you want 1080p, they have that available with the more expensive XA2 version. For those out there with 720p TVs, and theres a lot more of them then there are true 1080p owners, this is a very cost effective option for high def disc movies than anything from a standalone BRD player.
Ed @ Dec 10th 2006 10:20AM
Oh Dave, you are the village idiot. Most people still dont own HDTV's and does that do or will soon jump in will have 720p/1080i TV's, wich have shown that unless the TV is OVER 60" the average consumer will not tell the difference and will be VERY please with this. Toshiba thinks about the consumer unlike Sony. If you TV is 720p/1080i they buy the HD-A2 if you TV happens to support 1080p and you MUST then have the HD-XA2. Why would you buy a 1080p player if your TV don't support it?
Xyzzy @ Dec 10th 2006 2:23AM
That, and even if you have a 1080p display, there's no discernable difference between 1080p and 1080i according to most/all published (aka: not opinion) reports.
Wellinformed @ Dec 12th 2006 12:34AM
"Why would you buy a 1080p player if your TV don't support it?"
To be able to use the player for a longer time period at top video performance. When you buy that 1080p TV, it will be waiting to dial up the picture quality for you. Why not get a 1080p player for $500 (PS3)? It's better than the $500 HD DVD player that only does 1080i, only has HDMI 1.2a, no hard drive, doesn't play HD DVD-R/RWs, can't surf the web, etc.
Disney and FOX have announced that they have NO plans to support HD DVD in the future. http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents
By the way, where are the 200,000 to 300,000 HD DVD standalones promised by the end of the year?
pliepl @ Dec 12th 2006 8:00AM
To be able to use the player for a longer time period at top video performance. When you buy that 1080p TV, it will be waiting to dial up the picture quality for you. Why not get a 1080p player for $500 (PS3)? It's better than the $500 HD DVD player that only does 1080i, only has HDMI 1.2a, no hard drive, doesn't play HD DVD-R/RWs, can't surf the web, etc.
The flaw with that is how often do consumer actually upgrade their TVs? Its probably one of the least updated electronics. You can probably bet that the millions of people who have purchased 720p and pre-HDMI1.3 TVs in the past year wont be updating theirs in the next 2-4 yrs or probably longer. Not to mention the massive amounts that still use analog TVs and probably will still do so (with a converter box obviously) even after the digital transfer date in 2009.
With that in mind, youre asking people to pay for a technology they probably wont use for probably a half-decade or more at todays higher (new tech tax) prices. Thats assuming the unit is still working at that time. Theres no doubt about the formats getting cheaper (a lot cheaper) in that time period. Electronics is probably one of the worst things to buy for later since prices are always dropping and things are always being upgraded/updated.
Disney and FOX have announced that they have NO plans to support HD DVD in the future. http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents
Dave already tried to point this out in another article comment. And Ill say it here like I said it there
Thats right up there with me saying HD DVD has already won the format war based on what someone says in a column
Unless that was a press release, its just rumors and is lumped into the same category as the hearsay about studio switching.
shovro @ Dec 23rd 2006 4:59PM
I hooked up HD-A2 with my sony 3lcd rear projection hd tv (with HDCP DVI input) via hdmi to dvi cable, but my hd-a2 video output is only 480p. I have tried five different hddvd titles.Any advice will be appreciated.
Smack @ Dec 29th 2006 12:08AM
I am a complete novice with this stuff, but I had a problem with my HD-A2 and my DVI input on my Samsung television. I could see the HD-A2 setup menu over the DVI input (like you I was using an HDMI to DVI cable), but I couldn't get any video signal at all when I tried to play a movie. After trying every possible combination of settings, I decided that the problem might be with the cable (I knew the television was HDCP compliant -- at least that's what the manual had told me!). So I took off the Monster cable and switched it out with an RCA HDMI to DVI cable that I picked up at Wal-Mart for $29. And, voila, the signal came through just fine, including upconversion to 1080i. I don't know if it would help you (there must be some technical reason for why my Monster cable wouldn't work), but you might have better luck if you try another cable.
DerekPowell @ Dec 29th 2006 2:21PM
just because someone doesn't have plans to do something NOW doesn't mean they won't suddenly make plans to do it later. Fox and Disney didn't announce that they will never support hd-dvd, merely that they don't currently have any plans made up to do so. Does this mean they can't MAKE plans later? no! this naysaying point is moot. Learn to read.
net3400 @ Jan 4th 2007 9:40AM
First of all, Blu-Ray players only output 1080P because there is a secondary chip which deinterlaces the signal before it sends it to the TV. This is basically useless since if you own a 1080P TV it will do the same thing. In other words, even if the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player is outputing the signal in 1080i, the 1080P TV will take the two halves of the full picture, and display them in 1080P, so you get a full 1080P picture as long as the original disk has been recorded in 1080P. For that reason, there is no purpose in waiting for the HD-XA2 unless you need analogue inputs for the sound. You will not be able to tell the difference between the picture from the HD-A2 and the HD-XA2 because there is no difference.