New Firmware 4.0 HD-XA2/HD-XF2/HD-A20 - Page 15

24fps sourced dvds like movies and recent tv series play fine in 1080P/24 on my XA2, but you definitely don't want to use 24 for mixed framerate stuff or things shot specifically at 30 fps.

I was at v2.7 and upgraded recently to v2.8 and then v4.0 with following results:

With XA2 brightness/contrast at 0:

- No BTB and WTW with v2.7 with XA2 (standard vs enhanced did not work)

- BTB and WTW with v2.8 with setting at standard (enhanced gave PC level comparable to v2.7)

- BTB and WTW with v4.0 with setting at standard (enhanced gave PC level comparable to v2.7)

My XA2 feeds a Lumagen HDP video processor and then into my front projector CRT via moome hdmi input card.

So version 4.0 worked well for me.

Note: v2.7 did allow me to get BTB and WTW only when I adjusted the brightness/contrast in XA2 from 0.

Hi Frank,

To properly calibrate black levels the brightness control is adjusted so that blacker than black is at the same level as standard video black, rendering the blacker than black sample invisible. Therefore, if at your default settings of zero the image yields no visible blacker than black, this may not indicate clipping, but rather proper calibration.

If you temporarily raise the brightness above zero and the blacker than black sample appears it means you are not clipping black levels.

As I understand, it in order to truly be clipping black and white (versus being merely slightly miscalibrated) the blacker than black samples and the whiter than white samples must remain invisible regardless of how high the brightness is set and how low the contrast is set.

Larry

In my post above the brightness/contrast references are meant to only be in relation my XA2 controls and not my displays control.

With v2.7 and XA2 brightness at 0, no matter how high I put my video displays brightness there would be no BTB using my DVE HD pluge pattern. So I did get clipping of BTB with v2.7. With v2.8 and also v4.0 the BTB appeared and hence no clipping.

With 2.7, I get BTB off the DVE pluge (non-HD version) at the XA2's default setting by only slightly raising brightness on the display.

DD+ dropouts are a known issue with Pio and Onkyo receivers mated to the XA2 or one or more of the A players.

The only fix is to decode in the player and send as PCM. Easy enough to do.

New owner question. If I have 2.7 version software, do I want to or need to go to any other newer version, 2.8-4.0?? Are there Pros/Cons of leaving it as is? Will 1080p/24 output work with 2.7?

From HighDef Digest:"Updated Video News (October 3, 2008)

In an astounding development, 9 months after Toshiba officially pulled the plug on the HD DVD format, the company has issued a new firmware for all of their HD DVD player models. That's an impressive level of commitment. Thankfully, Firmware V4.0 finally fixes the problem with jaggy artifacts on AVC encoded discs that was first introduced with Firmware V2.8 (this applies to both the HD-XA2 and HD-A35 models). The release notes also cite the standard boilerplate about "playback stability," so some of those glitchy Combo discs may play a little better now. This update is highly recommended for all HD DVD owners."

I kept 2.7 until 4.0 and now run it on both my XA2 and A35. 24fps will work with Firmware 2.7.

so assuming I'm not having any problems with 2.7 , what exactly will 4.0 provide that's of value??

If you do not have any issues as related to the previous post or otherwise and you are getting blacker than back and whiter than white than probably nothing.

fw 4.0 still working glitch free for me

I just bought 16 HD DVDs at $5 each from Amazon brining me over the 200 mark , why pay for expensive BDs ?

I do thimk tho my Pio 51FD is now at par with my XA2 when it comes to DVD upconverting........

Gman

Updated my player Toshiba a20 (bought used with a bunch of discs) awhile back via ethernet (thx toshiba for keeping alive site even after you lost format war).
Had problems with several HD-DVD titles thereafter "Heroes Season 1 Disk 1", "Carlitos Way" (towards end of flick brutual). Freezing then pause. Thought great another brick in cold storage. After some research looking to to revert to 3.0 firmware from 4.
Read update from other forum poster to Initalization after doing update woah.
No more problems would like to thank poster but...lost link closing browser.
Toshiba A20
"Setup", "General", "Maintenance", "Initialize" click okay then "yes" "Is it OK to perform the initialization?"
Hope this helps some...

I have a Toshiba X-A2 hddvd player hooked up to my Pioneer Elite SC-05 receiver bitstreaming high res audio to the receiver where the decoding of the hi res audio is done in the receiver. For some reason hi audio will drop out for a second and then pick back up immediately about five minutes after I start a movie. It does this continually during the film roughly every 5 minutes and is quite annoying. It never happens in the same place twice so it is not the discs. Anyone else experiencing this? Can I firmware upgrade back to 3.0? I don't remember it happening before the 4.0 upgrade. The player did not do this with my Onkyo 805.

It appears to be a known issue with Pioneer and Dolby Digital Plus. Have the Toshiba decode the signal and pass PCM through HDMI.

Thank you, the problem is the X-A2 will not decode DTS-HD HRA or MA which I have about 5 or so discs. Did this problem occur with 3.0 in the X-A2?

can't believe they put out a new firmware. I was searching on here to see if there was a user-modified one available but this is fantastic.

All firmware versions are the same re both DD+ bitstreaming drops and non-decoding of DTS-HD HR or MA (except the 1.5 mps core). However, I've not heard of any sound drop issues with such DTS tracks (of which there are few).

I flashed my A20 from 2.7 to 4.0. Now having problems with some combos. I've searched, but I just can't find out how to re-flash back to 2.7. If someone could point me in the general direction, I'd appreciate it. PM

Thx

HD-A20 Ver2.7 rollback.iso

Thx Viking

Can someone confirm if the XA2, using the latest firmware 4.0, can bitstream or internally decode DTS-HD MA? I'm thinking of getting the XA2 and I always wanted to listen to the full DTS-HD MA lossless audio track of the UK version of Terminator 2 that I have. I can currently only listen to the core track. Thanks.

It can bitstream the raw code only for decoding in your AV receiver, if your receiver can do DTS HD Master. IIRC, it can do Dolby True HD internally.

Thank you very much. I have the Onkyo 805 with DTS-HD MA decoding capability, so since the XA2 can bitstream the raw code I will be able to have the full lossless track! Great!

I have updated to 4.0 firmware. But now having problem to play The James Taylor concert (my favorite), my XA-2 stopped and displayed 408bc509 error code during the Sting track.

I think I will roll back to 2.7 !

The only glitch with 4.0 on both my XA2 and A35 is that sometimes they change the resolution output on their own. But I must say, 2.7 was bullet proof and wonder really what we "gained" with 4.0 other than the useless Auto Frame Rate addition to the setup menu.

VER UP baby! I'm now running 4.0 as of yesterday.
I was having network problems with accessing the Tosh servers last couple weeks.
Well, a power failure and resulting rebooting of all my switches/networking equipment seemed to help and I had no problem updating my new XA2 to 4.0 yesterday evening.
I've now set up the player to 1080p/24fps, TV to perfect 1:1 pixel mapping, turned off all processing on the TV (CineMotion or whatever the hell its called on Sony Bravias 6) and plan on watching "The Thing" tonight when I get home.

Thanks Toshiba.

My XA2 has been bulletproof since I bought it, until 4.0. I'm experiencing the same problem that HDMI audio/video will shut off for a period of time; typically two hours or so if you leave it in standby.

I can force it to come back by switching to composite, going into setup, changing video resolution to something else, then back to 1080p, and HDMI works again.

I'm going to downgrade to 2.7 to see if this is a hardware issue.

UPDATE: I downgraded and I still had the problem. A few weeks ago I swapped HDMI cables with my PS3 as a troubleshooting step while the XA2 HDMI wasn't sending any signal. It didn't send a signal, so I swapped them back.
I decided to force the HDMI to work again by switching resolutions, shut the XA2 down, and swap the HDMI cable with my PS3. Since I did that, I haven't had the problem and it should have done it by now. I loaded the 4.0 firmware on there and no issues; yet! It might be just me, but it seems like 4.0 upscales better than other firmware versions. I definitely prefer the CD audio on the XA2, so I'm happy I have my XA2 back.

Could someone please post a link for the v4 XA2 firmware.

I cant seem to find it on the tosh site.

(I find 2.7 and 2.8)

EDIT : I must have been looking in the wrong place !!!

Here is 2.7 3.0 4.0

http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/customer...p?model=hd-xa2

Many thanks,

Andy.

I bought my XA2 as soon as they became available ( so I have had it awhile) and basically have had no problems. I updated my firmware right up to 2.7 and then stopped from all the backlash on 2.8.
For the first time I received an error code. 408bc504 ( what is this??). Right at the end of Elizabeth the Golden Years. Like about 5 minutes left. It was probably the 3rd time I watched this and no problem til today.
Any ideas??
I don't know whether to trust going to 4.0. I didn't even know there was a new firmware until today, looking to see what this error code is.

Thanks