So it begins: Toshiba's HD-A3 falls to $99 at Circuit City, comes with 7 free HD DVDs
[Thanks, Dustin]
[Thanks, Dustin]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
TJ @ Feb 20th 2008 9:37AM
Costco has the same Deal for $80. So if you're in the market for a good upconverting DVD player, do Toshiba a favor and pick one up. They've got inventory to clear!
DrXym @ Feb 20th 2008 9:46AM
That's a pretty sweet deal even if you get a dead player. If the 5 other disks are via the mail-in offer, don't forget it ends on 28th Feb.
Ryan @ Feb 20th 2008 9:57PM
At this point I wonder if Toshiba should just start marketing what's left as upconverting DVD players. There's still (somehow) a market for $100-$130 upconverting DVD players and the A3/A30 are pretty darn good at it.
ProfWho @ Feb 20th 2008 10:11AM
At these prices I see a huge comeback in HD-DVD's future
;)
darkprime @ Feb 20th 2008 10:17AM
Be careful on those mail in free movies - thedigitalbits has reported that people have been turned down recently to receive them, so don't expect it to be honored. If it is honored, cool.
$80 at costco is very VERY good for a name-brand upconverting dvd player.
Michial @ Feb 20th 2008 10:17AM
Still too much. How bought 25 bucks. Why not put that 100 plus tax towards a ps3 or 3-5 blurays on Amazon? That would be more future thinking to me. But hey-people would probably buy a betamax for 5 bucks too
John B @ Feb 20th 2008 10:32AM
Eh ... what??!
And why, pray tell, should an HD DVD player, which acts as an excellent upconverter, be sold for $25 when most upconverters go for between $50 and $100?
$100 for a player that plays audio CDs, upconverts DVDs, and still plays what HD DVDs are out there is a great price.
andy @ Feb 20th 2008 11:13AM
John B, you left out the two free movies in teh box which are good and makes it actually the cheapest upconverter available.
nickehughes @ Feb 20th 2008 10:30AM
If betamax's upconverted some previous format to a far superior quality that the format that won could, who wouldnt havent bought it? A good upconverting player is a better choice (cost-wise) than blu-ray or HD DVD for 90% of the population.
p @ Feb 20th 2008 10:41AM
You mustn't have much free time (and quite a telephone bill), what with all that talking to "90% of the population" about their HD needs.
JVirg1 @ Feb 20th 2008 10:40AM
I agree and think people have gone over the deep end with this HD stuff. Maybe it is just my TV is too small (40" 720p LCD Samsung), or I sit too far from it (about 8.5 foot), but I can see the difference in High def content (HD DVD or Blu-Ray) vs Standard Def Stuff (especially Standard def TV) but when I play a standard def dvd in my HD DVD player it is just not a night and day difference. I still very much enjoy the quality of the picture. I think people have just gone crazy over trying to find some sort of perfection and have lost focus on the content of the film. I would say the difference in quality from either HD DVD or Blu-Ray (and I have both) is maybe 20% improved, and not worth losing sleep over.
andy @ Feb 20th 2008 11:15AM
Jvirg1,
You're right even though most people here won't admit it. And FYI, there is a difference on my 50" plasma, but at normal viewing distances, it's not very notable. Cartoons look the same in HD or upscaled, but there is a slight difference with films.
JVirg1 @ Feb 20th 2008 11:24AM
@Andy
My feeling is that the old saying is very true. Resolution is important but contrast and color are the most important things. And my Samsung gets a beautiful picture whatever the resolution. With the increased reolution for the most part you can maybe see a few more lines on someones face, or perhaps a brick building looks a little finer. And writing definately looks finer. But for 70% of the movie you would not know the difference. And as for cartoons, there is hardly any resolution to them to begin with. Always thought it was so stupid when the reviewers raved about the picture on recent Blu-Ray cartoon releases when the fact is it would be hard to not have beautiful pictures with animations. TV and video stores have been putting in cartoons for years to make people think the picture is better than it was. Have you ever walked by a rent to own place and they will have a lower quality TV they are selling at way too high of prices with a cartoon playing and you think, wow what an incredible picture?
rg23 @ Feb 20th 2008 10:39AM
Bring the A35's price down. Or better yet the Onkyo DV-HD805.
Justin @ Feb 20th 2008 10:41AM
I actually sold my hd-a3 player last night for $140 + the 7 free movies + 2 movies I bought that I owned since October. He was a really nice guy and I made sure he was aware of the press releases lately. In good conscience I couldn't sell to someone unaware, and for anymore money than that. I feel very fortunate that I was only out $60 for the two hd-dvd movies I did buy and the 5 months entertainment value I got.
I think what ultimately sealed it for me was Netflix's decision last week. I don't buy many movies anymore, but I did enjoy several HD movies via Netflix over the last few months (when they weren't ridiculously delayed!)
I'm def taking a backseat for the next few months until the prices drop a little more for a standalone BR 1.1 spec players (hopefully!)
Mr. E @ Feb 20th 2008 10:49AM
I'm not touching it. I can get at least four or five BDs for that price!
Iridium @ Feb 20th 2008 11:22AM
If you have a 720p TV you may not notice that much difference between a good upscaled DVD transfer anf a BluRay or HD-DVD. If you have a 1080p screen you will notice a huge difference between DVD and HD-DVD or BluRay. Considering that 720p is pretty much disapearing in any TV larger than 32" with a few 1080p 32" available, it is safe to say that the majority of HDTV sets sold from here on out will be 1080p sets.
One big thing that matters is resolution. HD-DVD and BluRay start with a maximum of 1080 lines of resolution, DVD starts with 480. Even with a good upscaling DVD player there is no way to create the details that are apparent in a true HD movie. Things like freckles, hair, wrinkles, blades of grass, and many textures are impossible to add detail to through upscaling. Also, when you display a 2.35:1 format movie it makes a huge difference in resolution. A 480p DVD in 2.35:1 format is really only 422p. Even though the movie says it has 480 or 1080 lines of resolution they count the black letterboxing bars with that. 1080p at 2.35:1 is really 950p on a 1080p screen.
TFG @ Feb 20th 2008 11:56AM
I think that was the point other people were trying to make: Most folks don't care about freckles and blades of grass...that stuff doesn't take away or add to the content, the stories in the movies and TV programs. So most people don't really see the need for that level of definition at that cost.
Matt Brundage @ Feb 20th 2008 3:50PM
Iridium~
> A 480p DVD in 2.35:1 format is really only 422p.
In the early days of DVD, that was the case. But look closely at most widescreen DVDs. They say something like "Enhanced for widescreen TVs". This means that the video is anamorphic, and the full 480 horizontal lines of resolution are retained, no matter how wide the film is.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphic_widescreen
Iridium @ Feb 21st 2008 1:19AM
actually not true, anamorphic movies are stored with rectangular pixels in a 4:3 format. This was done because there were very few widescreen tv's available. If you formatted a DVD to a 16:9 ratio with 480 lines of vertical resolution you would end up with an image a 4:3 TV couldn't display. You would actually need to have a zoom out function. When viewed on a 16:9 TV the anamorphic picture is stretched and appears normal. It has nothing to do with vertical resolution. If your TV can display 480 lines and 12% of those lines are made up of black bars, you are not showing 480 lines of resolution made up from the movie. The only way a DVD can display 480 lines is if it is a 4:3 movie or a 16:9 movie displayed on a widescreen set or zoomed in on a 4:3 set.
Those who think that HD-DVD and BluRay are somehow only marginaly better than an upscaled DVD need to watch more HD content. I have PiratesII on DVD and PIII on BluRay. Played through my PS3 with full upscaling the DVD can't match the detail of BluRay on my 42" 1080p screen. It really isn't close. The reason why 2D animated movies upscale well is that most of the pixels are the same color, it's pretty easy to add more pixel detail when the surrounding pixels are all the same. 3D Pixar films like Cars benefit greatly from a BluRay 1080p transfer. The results are stunning compared to DVD.
andy @ Feb 20th 2008 11:28AM
I'll be looking for a better sale. There's no reason for them to go under this price, especially when throwing in a couple of decent movies. However, I think the HD-A30 and 35 will come down to this range too, and I'll definitely hop on those when they do.
I'd really like to see a decently priced hybrid player though. I'd buy two right up front.
Michial @ Feb 20th 2008 11:49AM
Ooh, how exciting. A 1080i upconvertor? I guess if you dont have full 1080p its a good intro into almost high def-plus it comes with a dead format. What a bargain. A little short sighted but if you dont mind upgrading in the future have fun with it. Id rather buy 4 or 5 1080p blurays.
Keith @ Feb 20th 2008 12:41PM
I can't believe people are throwing money away on obsolete tech.
That's $80 off a PS3 in my eyes...
John B @ Feb 20th 2008 1:23PM
Really? So, upconverting DVD players are obsolete now? Who woulda thunk it...
HDpurist @ Feb 20th 2008 7:22PM
Agreed. But hey, as the old saying goes: "A cheap person pays twice."
John B @ Feb 21st 2008 1:26PM
Typical Blu-ray fanboy ... it's all about the money that you spend, not the value that you perceive. Pathetic.
h0mi @ Feb 20th 2008 1:34PM
Are the 5 free movies the rebate movies?
andy @ Feb 20th 2008 2:49PM
5 yes, 2 mentioned in the box.
I'm still wondering why they weren't doing this before Christmas. We'd be having a different discussion now.
Anyway, this isn't the firesale yet. When we see unsold merchandise sitting around mid March, that's when I'll start to get excited. You know there will be some real deals coming then.
Michael @ Feb 20th 2008 8:55PM
See, what a lot of people are forgetting is that some of us (myself included) have put a lot of money into HD DVDs. What happens 3 to 5 years down the road when our current HD DVD players stop working? Oh that's right, we have to rebuy all of our HD DVDs on Blu-ray. Well, my collection of 44 HD DVDs could cost me up to $1300 to rebuild! I don't want to put that kind of money into rebuying when I could instead pay $100 for a 2nd HD DVD player that I keep sealed in box for when my first one finally dies. With this logic, I save myself $1200 and am able to watch my HD DVDs for years to come...
I'm guessing 2 players could last me 10 years... which is as long as DVD lasted before the next format came out. At that point I'll be rebuying everything on UltraHD* anyway.
*UltraHD is my fictional next NextGen format. Theoretically there are higher resolutions than 1080p, even though we don't yet have mass market TVs for them.
rg23 @ Feb 20th 2008 9:42PM
I finally found an A35 for a decent $169.99 at tigerdirect.com. It comes with 4 HD DVDs (the two in the box+FF Tokyo Drift+Apollo 13). I think I'll go for it as my main player and box-up my A30 as the back-up.
I bought my A30 shortly after Thanksgiving 07 and with my pre-orders for Tuesday's HD DVD releases I'll have 40 HD DVDs. I also have no plans on replacing my HD DVDs with blu-ray. I love my HD DVD movies.
I'll only consider blu-ray when a 2.0 player (standalone) comes out.
digh @ Feb 21st 2008 11:37AM
I admit it. I'm one of the idiots who bought an A3 at Best Buy a few weeks ago for $149. Had 30 days to return it, so nothing to loose. Was just about to return it when I saw the Circuit City $99 deal. So I went to BB got a price match, and they adjusted the price on my card to $95. Considering I got 9 movies, 2 in the box, 2 I picked out in the store, and the other 5 on the way, and a brand new great upconverting DVD player for $95, I'm a pretty happy idiot. With over over 500 titles already, disc prices dropping, and those jumping ship selling off their collections, discs will be be pretty cheap. I don't play video games and am on a tight budget, so I will not buy a BR player or a PS3. By the time the price comes down, I'll be downloading Hi-def movies like most of you anyway.
Drewcifer @ Feb 21st 2008 6:18PM
"...I'll be downloading Hi-def movies like most of you anyway."
I think this is the most important and forward-thinking comment on this page; a lot of us get lost in argument and the need to defend our actions, when we might as well bow to the gods of change. To join a lot of you up on the soapbox, my opinion is that people should enjoy what they have, and change habits/needs/hardware when their enjoyment suffers. We can't take money with us when we die, so we might as well spend it on whatever we like as long as our quality of life doesn't degrade. *steps down from soapbox and spends time outside... after playing Wii*