Toshiba HD-A1 HD DVD - First End User Reports! - Page 8

Really hoping we'll see plenty of screenshots of the players/HD-DVD movies in action between today and end of the weekend......... *hint, hint!*

Only via the analog out, there are no pre-pros or receivers that use the new sound formats.

DD+ might also be avaliable via HDMI as well, but I think it is turned into LPCM

WHat setting works best with HDMI... I heard it gets grainy...i have a Zenith 50 plasma....sugesstion 480..720...1080

I do have a HDMI reciever, so I should use analog 5.1 anyway?

With a Denon 5805 I would try it out via HDMI to see if your receivers can do 6 channel PCM via HDMI

I'm still a tad confused. I have a Momitsu V880 that supposedly upconverts SD DVDs to 480p,720p, and 1080i over component. Am I just deluding myself that that's what's happening? Or is the Toshiba unit different? Should I hang onto the Momitsu for SD DVDS?

Until this morning, I had no intention of buying an HD DVD player -- I was just going to sit and wait until the Sony Blu-Ray player hit in August. That all changed when I read this thread! Seeing all the pics, especially LordofDoubleD's shot of him standing outside Best Buy with his player and movies, was just too much.

I jumped in the car, drove to the Valencia, CA Best Buy and I now have a HD-A1 sitting in my living room. This is an addictive hobby we have, huh? I'll still get the Blu-Ray, but this will make the wait a lot more bearable. I've already changed my Netflix preferences.

As much as I begged and cajoled, the BB salesman claimed not to have any of the titles in store. I envy you guys who already have movies to play with!

Thanks to all for the pics and reports...

Roy

There is no universal correct answer. Try them all. See what looks best.

I just picked up mine at BB in Mission Viejo, CA. They had the Phantom and Samurai and I got them both, HECK YEAH!!! I have a Sharp 12k (110" silverstar) being fed via HDMI/DVI. I currently have a Pioneer Elite upconverting to my projector's native 720p resolution which I will compare the new Toshiba HD-DVD against. I will post a full review and comparison as soon as I can get it all hooked up and calibrated.

By the way, anyone picking up more than one of these with plans to sell them on EBAY should be ashamed of themselves. A guy came in to the store when I was walking with mine to the register and his eyes lit up like a kid in a candy store, priceless. Had I bought all 3 of them. like some people did, it would have been selfish on my part and I would have deprived 2 other guys of that great elation I felt when I found one. Any way, that is just my humble opinion. Buying them for a friend is one thing, but for personal gain on EBAY is another. Let as many guys as possible have that wonderful feeling of finding one of these at Best Buy on the shelves. I felt like a kid on XMAS morning again. I will get off my soap box now.

Review will follow shortly...

Jack

I guess I'll have to wait till tues for some movies.

The Toshiba will only output SD DVD at 480p over component, according to amirm. The Momitsu will upconvert to your choice of 480p, 720p, 1080i. You'd have to see both to know for sure, but depending on the display, the Momitsu may look better.

What format is the mastered disk that you were playing? Is it an HD TS stream copied to a DVD+R? If so, I may just jump in and buy one of these! I'm tired of feeding my DVHS player from my laptop via Firewire to watch TS streams.

Here's a good comparison for ya.
School Ties on HDNet movies right now, has a small pq improvment over Serenity HD DVD.
Hbo.. House Arest is about the same as Serenity.
TNT.. The Avenger looks better than all of the above .
All being watch on Directv
So now you know how I see.
All of these differences are pretty small.

Thaxx, are you able to get DD+ using 5.1ch analog outputs?

No

Anyone know if the manual is online yet at TACP? I can't seem to find it

Why

That should work fine, DD+ is decoded to 5.1 analog, Amir confirmed with Dolby.

http://www.*********************/imag...N%20Manual.pdf

Thanks to Robert, at Value Electronics.

Tell me how I would be able to tell if it's DD or DD+

Thanks for the comparisions, thaxx. Do you have any other software available, or just SERENITY?

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I've got Last Samurai too, I'll take a look at it again.

Got the player! Got Phantom (DD TrUE) Got things set up in a true analog pass through on my MC-12, my calibrator is emailing down a custom bass software file to input into my DSP for this player. Set up should be ideal for audio and video! Can't wait to run it!!

I picked up a HD-A1 at the local BB (Charlottesville, VA) but unfortunately there were no titles to be found.

Anyway, I set it up on my "bench" as follows:



Turned on DHCP and it immediately came up on my LAN:



Close up of the main PCB, looks identical to the XA1, in fact the board is called PC-DIGITAL-XA1:



I also popped the front cover and it looks like they are using an internal PC HD-DVD drive. It appears to have a regular power connector and IDE interface on the back.

I need to back track on the audio part, I'm using coax for 5.1, not the analog.
Sorry

I was able to get DD+ using the 5.1 outs to a Yamaha 5890.

I just spent the first two hours of my shift (Best Buy employee) messing with the Toshiba hd-a1 and a Sony 50a10. My manager called me last night at closing to let me know they hooked it up, so I was very excited to come in today and check it out.

I started with The Last Samurai. As another poster has said, I wasn't blown away by the picture quality like I thought I was going to be. Was it a great improvement over sd-dvd? Yes. Was it identical to the HD I've been watching on DirecTV here at work and Adelphia Cable at home? No. The colors were much better than the sd-dvd version of the film. There are a few specific things on DirecTV that looked better to me (on this TV) such as the drifting car show on Discovery (the name escapes me right now) and a few other movies have more of a "wow" factor then the media I've seen so far on the hd-a1.

I'm gonna hookup the hd-a1 to a 60xbr1 and hopefully it will have a better chance to shine.

Posted earlier in the other thread. These are some of my initial thoughts/findings. The only HD-DVD title I bought was The Last Samurai. Through HDMI, 1080i produces a better picture than 720p into my Toshiba MT700. The unit wouldn't play non-R1 SD-DVDs, the front panel would say "Error". For Upconverting SD-DVD I still like my Oppo@720p better. With SD-DVD changing resolutions can be done on the fly, but with HD-DVD you have to start over at the beginning. The load time for HD-DVD was about 1 minute while SD-DVD was about 25 seconds. One weird thing though, currently I am using optical out and my Yamaha HTR-5490 is saying that the 5.1 track is DTS.

Ditto this. People who bought all three from their store should be ashamed. As soon as I had mine up and running, I cancelled both my preorders - one was from vanns.com for only 449.00. I could have made a profit selling it on ebay, but that just didn't seem ethical.

Seeing your menu on here made me go back and look at mine.
Mine is not very sharp at all.
My pj's menu is very sharp but the players lettering and logos are very soft.