My apologies for this restart. There were a number of requests in the original poll to make it public in order to promote honest responses. However, there is no way to change a poll once it is created. Thanks to Mark for closing the original thread/poll and allowing me to create this new one.
I agree. PQ for both HD and SD is superb, at least as good as the A1 - for personal disks. Real test is with Netflix rentals, the reason the A1 went back. Load times much improved.
My apologies for this restart. There were a number of requests in the original poll to make it public in order to promote honest responses. However, there is no way to change a poll once it is created. Thanks to Mark for closing the original thread/poll and allowing me to create this new one.
See what I meant? You can see who really owns and supports your format. Now you can separate the wheat from the chaff.
You have a fraud poster here= Dave-Blu-ray, who trashes HD DVD every chance he gets even his slogan reads: "Blu-ray is the only format that matters! No more short timers!"
You can be sure that he doesn't own the player at all!
Quote:
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Blu-ray is the only format that matters! No more short timers!
Posts: 78 Good for Blu-ray bad for hd dvd ... as always
Just got the HD-A2 today from FedEx (Thanks again Robert... I'll be sending more customers your way..). I photo documented the unpacking and install process (in case someone really needs to see it... and also for proof if something was damaged during shipping.
I played some of Troy and The Last Samurai from HD-DVD... booyah... that looks really awesome! I also played the beginning of Gladiator (the DTS ES DVD version) and lastly the 5th Element (Superbit edition) all the way through. No hicups at all - however my software is in pristine shape.. and not a real hard test.
Some things noticed:
1. Some have reported that it felt flimsy or even cheap. I never bought the HD-A1, so perhaps my perspective is a bit different. I wouldn't call it rugged but it seems solid enough for what it is. My DVD is a Pioneer DV-414 and that seems more 'fragile' imho.
2. Most pictures seem to indicate that the front bezel has a sort of chrome strip at the bottom.. it's shiny and chrome like but less pronounced than pictures depict it.
3. Device setup/menus were a breeze to understand and the manual had enough information to explain what everything does.
4. I have "old" video equipment and am forced to use component (BTW - my RPTV looks absolutely tremendous in 1080i and I would do the pepsi challenge with any new LCD panel out there.. I am not convinced that my set is too 'dated' at this point, and the lack of HDMI/HDCP upgrade is a real slap in the face..) - so if there is any question, SD DVD get played in 480p - and its a fine improvement form the other player, but not the 1080i I was initially hoping it would be.
5. DD+ and Dolby TrueHD do go out the optical SPIDF and are down-converted to DTS. It was VERY quiet.. Normally the BK will blow you out of the room at around -8db (in fact the Gladiator disc will set the NEIGHBOR'S house alarm off at that level on the opening scene).. at -5 db TLS was far too quiet. The Troy disc was much better but still lacking volume - and was the same for both the DD+ and TrueHD tracks. So I think the amplitude is lost or something in the down convert to DTS. I need to calibrate/config the amp for it (its set for 7.1 and the down convert is to 5.1) so this may change once everything is on the same sheet of music (pun intended).
6. Audio tracks on the DVD required going into the menu and changing it there for the 5th Element.. the audio button would not change it. Not a big deal, but it was odd. Both the HD DVD discs didn't have menu support to make that change and told me to use the audio button.
7. The new remote is far better (I prefer my GF Approved Harmony.. but if its important.. the new remote is a much better design).
8. Load times, imho, are about the same as most DVD players I have used.. I didn't find it inconvenient in the least.
9. Its VERY quiet. My IBM laptop fan was drowning out the sound of the player...
10. I dont really own any other Toshiba equipment, but I thought the manual was quite well written for "stereo equipment".
11. Not as many CD codecs are supported as I was hoping but the major stuff seems to be there - I haven't tested it yet.
12. The door has a little bit of scrape to it, but its nothing to get in a twist over. If it was a $2000 player I would expect a far more elegant process (and something worthy of a ta-da). However I am not displeased with what it does currently.
13. Makes use of a linux kernel, I am going to surpress the urge to test for exploit... but if you are a supporter of such things its good to know.
14. I dont like that when you cycle through the audio button you have no idea what's going on. You have to use the Display button to get a status window of whats going on.. It would have been nice to slip a GUI gfx on the lower part of the screen indicating your current selection... this is a minor complaint though.
So far I am real happy with the device.. I need to spend some more quality time with it, but so far my initial impressions are that this is a steal at under $500 for what it is doing.
Merry Christmas to everyone and thanks again to Robert at VE... a real pleasure doing business with you.
There should be another choice it seems. How about BR fans that don't have a A2 but decided to vote anyway to make it look worse for the A2. Take a look at some of the signatures in the poll results. Now do you think they really have a A2????
I guess I'm not surprised that there are BD supporters trying to skew the poll. It is my hope that most of the voters are honest.
The real reason behind this poll is that I'm worried about the folks coming through here to look at information in preparation for a purchase. The HD-A2 forums are mostly full of reports of glitches, hardware compatibility issues and lacking features. I don't mean to minimize the problems that people are having. It's important to have a place like this to discuss these problems and share remedies and procedures for work-arounds until Toshiba puts out updates to fix them. On the other hand, I would also like to make sure there is a good indicator of what percentage of players are working without problems. My feelings before creating the first poll were that the HD-A2's are for the most part, working fine. The first poll was certainly showing that, and this one is going in the same direction.
Thank to everyone who has participated so far. Please spread the word to other HD-A2 owners to come and vote.
I guess I'm not surprised that there are BD supporters trying to skew the poll. It is my hope that most of the voters are honest.
The real reason behind this poll is that I'm worried about the folks coming through here to look at information in preparation for a purchase. The HD-A2 forums are mostly full of reports of glitches, hardware compatibility issues and lacking features. I don't mean to minimize the problems that people are having. It's important to have a place like this to discuss these problems and share remedies and procedures for work-arounds until Toshiba puts out updates to fix them. On the other hand, I would also like to make sure there is a good indicator of what percentage of players are working without problems. My feelings before creating the first poll were that the HD-A2's are for the most part, working fine. The first poll was certainly showing that, and this one is going in the same direction.
Thank to everyone who has participated so far. Please spread the word to other HD-A2 owners to come and vote.
I see there are some "questionable" voters participating. A recent one comes from someone who has posted in the past regarding "HD DVD fanboys". Voting in this poll without owning an HD-A2 sure seems like "BD fanboy" behavior to me.
Well, it looks like the majority of the voters are honest people wanting to participate in a positive way. I'm greatful for that. As for the a**holes that are voting just to screw with the poll, we'll just have to tolerate it. Not to worry though, their behavior will come back to bite them someday.
I have the HD-A2, and I must say that the Gladiator DTS-ES version is probably one of the best looking SD-DVDs I have ever seen. It pretty much looks like OTA HD with the upconversion provided by the A2, but is still no where near actual HD-DVD or BD movies. I love High def
, oh yes no defects so far, it even plays nemo fine.
I'm keeping the A2, but I cost me a new Elite 84 to replace the Elite 72 that wouldn't pass the A2 HDMI. I am thinking the problem is with the A2, since both my HD Tivo and BD10 worked fine with the 72 HDMI switching. The problem has been reported to Toshiba.
The A2 will only display 480p on my Toshiba 57HDX82 TV (via HDMI - DVI cable). I double-checked the player's video output settings and they are indeed set to "up to 1080i".
I emailed Toshiba's tech support about the issue but haven't heard back, yet. If they don't foresee a firmware fix within the next month, I will be forced to return the unit to Futureshop for a refund and stick with the A1.
I'd rather keep it, of course, because I've already gotten used to the faster start times.
I've watched three whole movies now (yeah, not a lot), and on two of them experienced the most minor of audio drop-outs right at the start of the movie, during the opening sequence/credits. I'm not sure if they are repeatable. And I wouldn't have noticed if I wasn't watching like a hawk (and, um, listening like an owl) to see how things went. No glitches during the meat of the movies. And it might not be the player - I'm using an improvised audio system temporarily: a Creative Inspire 5.1 system. So the Creative amp might not have liked the 1.5 Mbps DTS signal momentarily or something.
I don't FF or Rew, so I haven't noticed that issue yet.
So far, I've watched a few SD DVDs and (today) my 1st HD-DVD (16 Blocks from Netflix). So far, so good. Even the scratched up HD-DVD disc from Netflix played without any problems. A bunch of additional HD-DVDs have somehow managed to get to the top of my Netflix queue, although some of them have long waits (I guess HD-DVD is getting more popular).
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