Forget XP/Vista Get The A3!!

Can the A3 surf the internet? Record TV, stream audio/video to other rooms? Play DVDs off a media server?



Though I agree, if all you want is HD DVD/BD playback, get a standalone.

Of course not, but to get a standalone player that does everything right and puts out full audio quality for less than the cost of a pc drive is tough to turn down. Note that Best Buy and Walmart have similar prices.

Still it appears like blueray is still taking over market share. It makes me wonder if this reduced price is a clearance.

Troy

Only 1080i? Pass

Maybe he looked up the specs.

My HTPC is also a massive wireless fileserver so that's worth it to me.

link please?

Exactly. It's silly to set up an HTPC just to play HD-DVDs when you can buy a standalone, which will be better in almost every respect.

I have an A1 but I would still prefer to use the HTPC. WAF plays a big role (no input switching, etc.).

Also:

HTPC = HD DVD + BluRay + Cable DVR + Netflix + Pics + Videos + Web Surfing + CD Collection

If you are ONLY using it to play HD DVDs then definitely get a stand alone.

Apples and Oranges...

I love my HTPC and it does EVERYTHING thing. I tried the D3 (Costco version) with free 300 and Bourn HD-DVDs. Very slow performer. For some reason, Dolby TrueHD sounds better on Blueray titles than HD-DVD titles though. My Denon and Rockets speakers rocked the house with PS3...

My take: Nothing out there can replace my HTPC atm. Sling box comes close though.

Here is a link for you to read: http://blog.hometheatermag.com/geoff...061080iv1080p/

Buy the A3 now, throw it in the garbage when PC sorts itself out.

i read the reason to that yesterday but can´t find the link right now

HD-DVD has less space than Bluray so they limit the bitrate of the Dolby True HD track to max 3 mbit instead of max 6 mbit on Bluray, so much for the better format discussion

the question remains if studios would or are producing different? True HD Tracks for each HD format? i don´t believe that, another question is: can the HD-DVD True HD track really be lossless then...in all movies? for example Transformers is a pretty long movie and i believe they had to reduce the bitrate to still provide "lossless" Sound...but is it really lossless if you have to reduce the bitrate due to space limitations?
my understanding of lossless is: you pack it as good as your codec is able to squeeze the data but you don´t leave data out...which is exactly the case if you reduce the bitrate, either the sound needs that much space and bitrate and is lossless...or you reduce the bitrate and therefore the filesize but then it´s not lossless anymore

although I use an htpc to control the theater and playback music and dvds stored on the server, I decided to get an a3 for now.

I hope that the issues with the bd/hd-dvd playback on the pc will be resolved and then I will add. I just wish someone will release software that competes with powerdvd.

I am curious, for the people that are using the htpc, is anyone using a front end software like cqc, mainlobby etc? I really dislike the idea of navigating through windows in the theater just to launch a movie.

thanks
Itai

That's DD+ you're thinking of, totally separate. It's actually Bluray that limits that to 640k, while HDDVD does up to 3mbit (although in practice nobody uses more than 1.5mbit, there's no point). It's a lossy codec, although in blind tests nobody can actually tell the difference from the original.

With (lossless) TrueHD, 24/48 tracks on HDDVD are around 3.5mbit peaking up to 5mbit, and 16/48 tracks are 1.5mbit up to 3mbit. That's just the size 24bit THD takes on disc, there's no particular limit. That's losslessly compressed while Bluray normally uses uncompressed LPCM, so the exact same track uses twice as much space.

Also, space isn't really an issue with regards to sound - 3.4mbit is only 1.5Gigabytes/hour. It's peak bandwidth that matters.

I bought my A2 after I discovered I could make my own homebrew HD-DVDs (see the HD DVD Software forum here for details). Prior to that I was sitting on the fence waiting for the dust to settle just like everyone else. I built my HTPC to use for OTA recording when I decided to switch from DirecTV to FIOS. I didn't want to pay a bunch of monthly fees for the Tivo service or a crappy Verizon Motorola DVR with inadequate storage.

I added the X-Box 360 HD-DVD drive and later on a Pioneer Blu-Ray reader in my main PC. I have a Blockbuster near me that stocks both formats. Ripping movies to my HTPC allowed me a means of storage for playing them back later. Of course, I only do this with the discs that I personally own.

I have a large library of homebrew standard DVDs that were made from shows recorded on my DirecTivos and HDTivos. The A2 doesn't particularly like these DVDs but my old Sony likes them just fine. The A2 is a decent player but has a few quirks that don't put it at the top of my list.

Since I built my HTPC I like the notion of being able to play a HD movie right away without waiting 30 seconds or so for the DVD player to boot up. Perhaps this is now a bit faster with the A3 but I haven't seen any writeups on the player to know the differences between the two models.

I'm sure the A3 is a fine player, as is the A2. The bottom line is if it works for you then go for it. Stating that the A3 is better than an HTPC setup is nothing more than personal opinion and will just attract arguments from both sides with no clearcut winner. My A2 is sitting on the shelf gathering dust as we speak because my HTPC does everything the A2 can do and much more. FYI - my TV is an older HDTV that is limited to 720p/1080i so 1080p doesn't even enter into the equation until some time when I can upgrade to a 1080p model. I picked up one of the A2's on sale at Wal-Mart for my brother-in-law who owns a Sony 50" LCoS set that can definitely display 1080p so I'll get a chance to see how it performs firsthand.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm in the process of burning Happy Feet in HD to DVD-Rs. It will play back fine in either my HTPC or my A2, although I generally use the A2 for disc playback of my HD-DVDs. Once I get it booted up it's slightly more convenient to use.

Actually I believe DTHD limits are the same on both formats, those being 8 channels an 18Mbps. Further, DTHD is a lossless codec, you can't just reduce the bitrate, or lower the quality. If you could it wouldn't be lossless. You compress it and it is what it is.

And one more thing, as far as max audio bitrates go, I agree, you're probably thinking of DD+ which has a max bitrate of 3.0Mbps on HD DVD and 1.7Mbps on Blu-ray.


Dolby TrueHD is a lossless codec, it outputs what you input to it. End of story.


Transformers has a DD+ track, not a DTHD track.


Lossless compression just repackages the same data more efficiently (smaller file size, lower bitrate than the source). Just like a zip file makes a file smaller.


You simply can't do that with lossless, you can't "tune" the bitrate with a lossless codec like you can with a lossy one. The only thing you can do with a lossless codec is tweak how hard it tries to pack the audio, but you still don't have any direct control over the final bitrate. It is what it is.

If you need something to be smaller than the lossless codec will make it, you have to switch to another codec.

THX for the heads up arfster and stanger
a shame that Transformers has no lossless track guess due to the limitations of HD-DVD

Why do you assume that?

Not a limitation of HD-DVD. Just the choice of the studio when producing the soundtrack for the release. You should take a listen to the podcast from the AVS home page:


http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...3#post12094513

Or play games?

I have an Xbox 360 for that

"I am curious, for the people that are using the htpc, is anyone using a front end software like cqc, mainlobby etc? I really dislike the idea of navigating through windows in the theater just to launch a movie."

I have 2 HDTV capable HTPCs and 2 STD def HTPCs. Each run Xlobby and PDVD. Since I burn my discs to the harddrive server, I only need one BR and HD (XBOX 360) drive. I have separated the hi def movies from the std movies (this also makes it less complicated for my std HTPCs. PDVD plays all the DVD (ISO files). A RF gyro remote controls PDVD/htpc, but I also use a touchscreen interface. With 350+ std movies and 30+ hi def flicks, manually sorting through the horde of DVD titles would be a pain in the butt. As well, half my movies are BR.
PDVD IS a pain in the butt also, but at least it plays (for the most part) both formats. I am sure that in the near future,PDVD upgrades or another software player will decrease the htpc high def shortcomings.

hjackson

Nimo,

It still has the resolution of 1080i. The fact that you buffer the lines doesn't
add additional information. It still doesn't have the true information content
as "real" 1080p.

Exactly. Why would you buy an "HD DVD" player if it can't output the 1080p content that's ON the disk??

Yes it does. You're taking 1080p24 and telecining it into 1080i60. If the content on the disc were 1080p60, you'd have a point.

IIRC, the Toshiba players telecine to 1080i60 by default and then use the Reon or similar processor (if fitted) to return to progressive. It's a roundabout method, but I can understand that it would be the easiest way to handle 24fps, 30fps and 60i content consistently especially when you have to incorporate menus and IME as well.

I'm guessing that the forced 24p facility disables all telecining post-processing, but could have interesting effects on menus and 30fps/60i material.

It's a real shambles, but the consequence of permitting interlaced material in what should be a progressive-only format IMO.

Let's leave interlaced content to DVD and stick with 24p for film.