One Year ago today, Happy Birthday HDDVD - Page 3

Ahh.. I remember reading these posts and busting down to the local BB to check it out for myself. Even on the small 40-ish inch Westinghouse panel, you could tell there was some pretty amazing quality there.

For us all, the confluence of 3 events redefined what home theater could be:

- The HD DVD folks gave us amazing audio/video content at an introductory price point almost not imaginable for the quality (the fact that the A1 was a damn good SD upscaler certainly didn't hurt as well)

- Affordable 1080p displays began to hit the market... both for larger flat panels and front projection. For the latter, successive model upgrades and drastically reduced prices happened within a very short period of time.

- AVR's accepting PCM via HDMI as sources (such as TrueHD on HD DVD) became available for $1000 and under.

Within a 12 month span, it was possible to assemble a system that easily surpassed installations costing 10x more only a short time earlier.

I was sill 5 months away from finishing my basement HT when the A1 came out, but I knew what piece of gear was going to "headline" my equipment rack.

When September '06 rolled around, the 4th piece of the puzzle fell in for me as my basement was completed, and I was able to install an HD-A1, a Pearl/133" Hi Power, and a Pioneer Elite 84 AVR; all far more capable than what I had originally thought I would get out of my equipment budget.

The icing on the cake was when NetFlix sent me an email asking me if I'd prefer HD DVD discs when they are available for my title selection.

Thanks to all those involved in the format itself, and to those who shared their initial experiences that got me so enthused.

PS- Watching a HD DVD over the weekend. my (non technogeek) wife says "I love our theater... this is so much better then when we went to the movies last Friday."

happy bday hd-dvd

may the porn be with you

And to think, mine wasn't even born yet. (June 2006)

The love affair continues.

I will always recall this day and also the amazon buy ( yesterday ) as one of the best days of my internet experience.

Same here. Yesterday was beautiful. I bought my A1 at BB on April 18 and remember the exitement of seeing Phantom of the Opera in HD and the surprise at the build quality and upconversion. I never would have bought the player then if it were any more expensive and I have been a happy supporter ever since.

I remember reading about your experience of waiting for the Fedex man (and digitalfreakNYC driving all over the place) and made me lol. People were going nuts in anticipation of getting their players.

Sadly, I don't have my first HD DVD Toshiba HD-A1 (picked it up May)...I sold it and upgraded to Toshiba's FLAGSHIP HD-XA2!!!

I regret selling it ($400 CAN), could've put it upstairs. I got a great deal on it since Future Shop made a mistake and was able to use a $50 off coupon. LOL By the way, my first HD DVD was Training Day (my jaws dropped, Reference!!!) and Jarhead.

Happy B-day HD DVD! I didn't join the party until June (thanks, Robert), but it's been non-stop HT goodness since then.

I also want to thank Amir and his team at MS for all they have done for the format and AVS.

Another early adopter here, still happy with my HD-A1 after one year.

I had originally made a pre-order online for a low price, but when I saw that people were finding the players in stores, I decided to pay the full price and "get it now". I had a grin on my face like LordofDoubleD's as I walked to the checkout with that bright red and white box in my hands.

Sadly, the HDMI output from my HD-A1 died just a few weeks shy of its first birthday. However, the HD-XA2 did man-up and step into the void. It's hard to believe that it has been a year since this format launched, but it has definitely changed what we watch. I think I might have seen 15 DVDs in total in the entirety of last year. Keep up the great work, HD-DVD team!

Bill

Woohoo Happy Birthday!

I thought my A1 would like a tasty treat so I fed it a cupcake and lit candle via its tray. It took a couple of tries but I finally got it to take the entire cupcake. It seemed happy but now it will not play any HD-DVD's...maybe I need to try the hot water trick

Laters,
Jeff

PS - No HD-A1's were actually harmed in the posting of this message

Thank you HD DVD for putting the fun back into home viewing. How many of us rushed home from work to see that wonderful little (or big ) amazon box waiting for us. ....

It's been a nice shot in the arm for Home Theater in general and also a shot in the arms and legs for my budget!

Reading and being in that original thread was the most fun I have had here. Thanks to all.

I can recall the mad dash to best buy, the mild begging for movies before street date, the explaining to my wife that we have an HD player but nothing to play on it, I think that tuesday was the first time I took off work to stay home and watch movies.

In the year we built our first dedicated HT room with a PJ and added other various toys, BR player, xbox 360, video iPod.....but I still smile at the old girl everytime i fire her up........(my A1, not my wife)

Echo

Damn! Six years already, I'm getting old!

Is it 6 years already?!!! I guess time flies when you're having fun ! Still got some sealed HD DVDs that need watching.....life in the old dog yet !

Yep, and I still remember that day as if it was a week ago. I went to a Best Buy near the breakfast I had just finished, but they didn't have the players. They found another store 20 miles away that did, though, so I zoomed over there, hoping that all three players (that each store had at the start) were not gone by the time I arrived. A half-hour later, I got the second one of the three. It is still here, back in its original box.

I was just testing my new theater with HD DVD. My team at Microsoft gave me one where the whole team hand signed the top of the unit. I remember looking at all the signatures yesterday, putting a smile on my face. But did not remember the occasion. Thanks for the reminder! It was one memorable ride....

Gosh, I didn't realize all the nice follow up posts to my first response in this thread. Apologize for not acknowledging them! I do belatedly so now . You were all part of the extended HD DVD team!

Well, unrelated to this anniversary I decided to reconnect my player to my INTEGRA processor the other day. I too still have unopened movies I've not watched!

I seem to recall something of the following, but have actually forgotten the specifics: does anyone here know whether the Toshiba A-1 (I think that is what I have) only signifies MULTICHANNEL on the front panel display of the INTEGRA, no matter what the selected sound format from the HD DVD unit? In other words, even for those titles that were DOLBY TRUE-HD, and that was the selected format, your front panel on the INTEGRA would still only show MULTICHANNEL?

Many thanks for your help!

Happy birth.... I mean happy its gone. Sorry couldn't resist.

I think I've opened them all, but haven't watched about half of them. One of these days...

I still have dozens of unopened HDDVD's (out of over 200). Picking up an A35 from an electronic consignment store next week bundled with another 9 discs (4 I don't have). Brings me up to 2 A30's and 2 A35's currently in use. Also have a XA1 still hooked up in the kids room, and an A20 (with no audio output??) in the garage. Still living the purple life, never did get toward that number of blu rays with netflix and HD on demand.

All HD DVD players will have a multichannel audio output through their HDMI ports regardless of audio encoding on various discs, unless you turn on the "bitstream" option on one of the few players that had that available. The only players I remember with the "bitstream" option are the HD-XA2 (and its Onkyo/Integra clones) and the HD-A35.

Hi - yeah I've got an A-1 aswell, and it cannot support bitstreaming hence your INTEGRA amp will just say multi-channel. If you use the SPDIF connection to your amp it would show Dolbu Digital or DTS, but SPDIF doesn't have the bandwidth to support the HD audio formats. My A1 is up in the loft now and I use the Xbox HDDVD add-on connected to a Home Theater PC that gives HDDVD playback with bitstreaming HD sound !!

So last week I finally got an HDMI-capable receiver. In the "old" days I had my HD-A1 hooked up via the analog outputs to get TrueHD but it was still a hassle and with the player taking up space and not being used, I had it in a closet for the past 2 years only brought out once to watch a copy of Midnight Run I got a while back. It might be old and not the quietest but feeding the PCM over HDMI and bypassing all the problems with the Speaker set-up and so on gave the player new life. Just watched 300 (despite having it on Blu) and it sounded and looked amazing and played flawlessly. I'm still on the lookout for a newer model with bitstream and 1080p but I'm gonna spend this weekend watching HD-DVD's like it 2007 again