Tosh HD-XA2 1080p HD DVD - First End User Reports!: USERS ONLY PLEASE! - Page 102

You lose the bips, beeps, and squeaks that are not part of the motion picture soundtrack. You likely gain much better distance settings, better sound calibration and crossovers. More flexible sound format overlays, etc. and support for all the codecs your player can't internally decode, but like the usual tangent moving away from helping folks with XA2 issues, this philosophy debate is best addressed in other threads.

Don't take the bait reflexively

Hahah.. OK. So I won't get sounds that the player decodes internally like menus and stuff? Haha.

Very true. Seriously there are some things you may like that will keep you decoding in the player. For example the director commentary will get downmixed on top of the audio (but lower quality sound while somebody talks over the movie is only slightly more ridiculous than listening to people talking over higher qual sound. My preference is neither. I like the movie sound & OAR presentation. (And I yell at my kids when they talk over the movie too :O) But now I'm guilty as charged going off on an "anti-tangent."

So I have a Parasound Classic 7100 and I connect my XA2, DirecTV HD receiver, and XBox360 for video switching. All looks wonderful at 1080i and switches great. Since I'm going through the pre/pro, am I losing anything with standard dvd upconversion and the capabilities of the REON chip, or would I gain anything bypassing the pre/pro and going directly from the TV to the XA2?

Hi-
I have an XA2 (FW 2.7) connected to Onkyo 605 to a Sanyo Z2000 over HDMI.
I have the XA2 set to 1080/24 and Sanyo is reporting a 1080/24 picture.
I usually watch HD-DVD movies and all is good there.
When I watch SD movies there is an annoying problem.
I am not an expert and dont know how to properly describe this issue but here goes :
Scenes where the background is largely the same color, white sky, blue sky, green grass, curtains, for example, or for a specific example in Lost in Traslation, Photo Shoot scene, the grey screen behind Bill Murry, the background exhibits what I can only describe as video noise, the background actually looks like its moving.

I have played with the "Picture" Settings on the XA2 and many of the settings on the Z2000 and I can not eliminate this "noise"

I usually have all the settings in the Picture settings on the XA2 that can bet set to "off" or "on" set to "On" (NR, Mosquito Noise, etc.). I have Edge Enhancement Off, but setting it to 1 or 2 does not improve this "noise". All adjustable settings are set to default.

Switching from 1080/24 to 1080/60 has no effect on this.

Setting Auto/Film/Video has no effect on this problem.

If in fact my description of this problem makes any sense, can someone tell me how to adjust it away?

Other than this effect, the picture looks great.

thanks in advance for your opinions

That's interesting. I get that effect in spades when I watch HD cable broadcasts, but I have never seen it on my XA2. I believe it's known as compression noise. I am also running at 1080p/24.

I have a new XA2 (Firm 2.7) which will pass through a new Yamaha 1800 and then to a Pioneer 6010FD (Future purchase). Should I set the XA2 to 1080P/24 and just leave it there?

I saw something similar in Training Day in the diner scene at the beginning of the film. During closeups of Denzel Washington's face, his forehead appeared to be morphing in a strange "alien" fashion. The problem turned out to be noise reduction from my Sony Bravia.

So I would recommend turning off everything in the Picture menu and then checking your TV's settings to make sure it isn't doing noise reduction or edge enhacement or MPEG blah blah whatever processing. And your receiver too, if it's in the video chain.

Also try cabling the XA2 directly to your TV if it's currently running through a switch or receiver, etc...just to try and narrow in on where the issue is occurring.

I have the XA2 - 6010

1080p/24 is ok unless you happen to play the rare DVD with a 30fps rate that the XA2 doesn't detect, it may play choppy. Simply stop, press setup on the XA2 remote, and change the setting to 1080p, exit setup, and resume play. Don't forget to change it back.

Since the 6010 will automatically extract 24fps for display at 72hz as well as 30 fps to display at 60hz out of 1080i/60, you have the option of setting the XA2 to 1080i and let the 6010 figure the video out. I've tried it both ways and was not able to see any technical difference in detail or PQ... except for the placebo effect of the 1080p/24 setting . There is less processing in the way when the XA2 is set to 1080p/24, so from a purest POV that's better for 24fps content.

Thanks, when I get everything set up I will leave the XA2 at 1080p/24, unless I notice chopp, I take it this would mostly come from regular DVD's?

Hi-
I am still baffeled by this.
The 1080i signal from HD Movie from DISH network looks much better than my XA2 DVD Upconvert picture.
I cant turn Noise Reduction off on my PJ when sending a 1080p signal (24 or 60)
I can turn it off or on when I send a 1080i signal from the XA2.
I tried that, and it makes no difference.
the only other thing to try, as suggested here, is to take my Onkyo 605 out of the loop and see if that's the issue, but again HD-DVD looks awesome.
the PJ I am using, the Sanyo Z2000 has been called out as having a great PQ with upconverted SD DVD...
thx

Many of the concert type HD DVD videos are 30fps. Some menus and perhaps HD DVD extras are 30fps. Non-US films are often not 24fps.

I don't know what to tell you, have you tried a few different SD DVDs? There are some that look awful when upconverted and others that, on first glance, look like HD.

HD movies over DISH should look better than upconverted SD DVDs. DIRECTV HD movies do even when they are cropped or over compressed (annoying yes but still technically pretty good PQ). In my experience, Its rare that even a XA2 upconverted SD DVD would look better than its HD counterpart regardless of the HD source, especially on a large screen. I've heard DISH is currently providing less HD PQ quality than DIRECTV, but it still should be better than SD DVD.

Do you have the Mode switch set too 1 or 2?

I have read on another thread here on AVS that the 2.7 Firmware upgrade increases the decibel level; i.e., movies sound much louder then before the upgrade. Is this true? What has been your experience with this upgrade?

I definitely don't need or want more volume. I have plenty. In fact, I would like to reduce it for several movies I have without having to miss dialogue.

If this is the worst problem with this version I'm in because I have a volume knob!

[quote=tdsnumbers;12778740
I definitely don't need or want more volume. I have plenty. In fact, I would like to reduce it for several movies I have without having to miss dialogue.[/QUOTE]

If you think the background and special effect volume is way too much louder than dialog, then you may want to try using your AVR to compress the dynamic range (or turn off any dynamic range enhancements if you have them on). Dynamic range is the difference from loud and quiet parts of the movie and they say one of the benefit of the improved AQ. But not everyone likes it. You also can try using the tone controls to turn down the base in reference to the mid and high tones where dialog normally is.

I don't think this firmware version changes the dynamic range, but you may have to decrease your overall volume a bit.

Do you have the Mode switch set too 1 or 2?

Was the Q for me? if so, when I send a 1080p signal to the projector I cant change the Progressive mode...if I set the XA2 to 1080i, then I can change the Progressive MOde to 1 or 2 but does not relive this issue.
If this question was not for me, nevermind.
I started a seperate thread with my SD Upconvert issue but for some reason (probably a good one) the mode moved to this thread...

Without searching through this thread even more to see how much this is rehashed, I can confirm that this worked for me also. When trying to update i was getting an error message. Set date and time and then instantly went back to update and it worked immediately.

I just received this unit a couple of days ago and I finally hooked everything up and it is being ran through my Denon 2808CI. The bad news is the unit keeps shutting down so I called Robert over at Value Electronics. He has offered to ship me out another unit but I am attempting to install the latest firmware update first.

I followed the directions online and I downloaded the firmware to my PC and then burned it over to a CD-RW. When I put it into the player, the player told me that it couldn't read the disc.

Anybody else have a similar problem? Robert has suggested using a CD-R instead.

I really want to get this working by tonight, so if anybody can help that would be great!

Thanks,

Folks with the wide field posterization/noise suggest trying a higher quality HDMI cable, returnable. Also check the colorspace (computer vs theater) settings as you calibrate.

On upconverted SD not looking as good as compressed HD Movie Channel(s), even with the sat compression and poor HDnet mastering I'm not surprised. The sat feed still has roughly 4-5 times as much picture information and even the best upconversion can't "create" resolution.

Did you burn using a Mac or PC? If a Mac, I can possibly help ....

FWIW - I burned 2.7 to a CD-RW, and my XA2 updated just fine. But -- I still had the "shut down problem" on every HD-DVD I tried playing at 1080p. I've sent my XA2 back to Toshiba, and am waiting for a replacement unit to arrive.

I assume you're aware of the thread dealing with the XA2 shut down problem:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=939795

In short - I think the consensus is this occurs when playing a HD-DVD at 1080p. Playing at 1080i or 1080p/24 isn't usually a problem; that was certainly the case for my XA2. If you're trying to show off your system tonight, that'd be worth a try.

I am burning them from a PC. I think I was skipping a step so I am in the process of making another disc. If that doesn't work or if it works and the unit still shuts down, I am going to consider getting the HD-A35....

I guess I am not understanding how to get the firmware on the disc the correct way...lol

This is getting fustrating, so I think I am going to call it a night messing with it....

Hello:

Did you just copy the ISO file to the CD or did you use burning SW to create the disk from the ISO file?

If you just copied the ISO file over it's just a copy of an image file.

You need to create a CD from the ISO file.

Splotto

My XA2 is running firmware 2.7. I don't play SD DVD's very often and just noticed that my PIO PRO150 shows it is receiving 1080p yet the display on the XA2 shows 1080i. I have the XA2 set to up to 1080p. When playing HD DVD's, both show 1080p Has anyone else noticed this? Thanks.

Jim

Thank you...

I see where I have to do this, but I have not been able to figure out how to do this... Any suggestions or direction would be helpful..

Thanks,

COACH.

If you use a program like NERO to do the burning there is usually an option to create a disk from an image or restore an image.

The ISO file is an image (like a WinZip file holding the files you need).

I also seem to remember someone here (or on the A35 thread) posting a link to a program you can use if you don't have NERO.

Splotto

Thank you... I will check it out....

Nero works fine. Or you can grab "ISO Recorder" Just google for it.