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Hardware Second Gen Toshiba HD DVD Players Shipping
Brandon Hill (Blog) - December 11, 2006 3:54 PM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 55 comment(s) - last by goodstuff.. on Dec 13 at 11:37 AM

Image courtesy Charles R
Toshiba updates its entry-level HD DVD player

It appears the second wave of HD DVD players are now hitting retail stores. Members over at the AVS Forum are reporting Toshiba's second generation HD-A2 is now showing up in Best Buys across the country and through online retailers.

Being a first generation product, the original HD-A1 had plenty of flaws including issues with slow startup times, problems with HDMI compatibility, artifacting with 720p content and lack of 1080p support. Then there's also the fact that the HD-A1 was huge -- it simply dwarfed traditional DVD players that have had years to mature.

On the other hand the HD-A1 had exceptional image quality, a built-in Ethernet port, upgradeable firmware and a price that was half that of competing Blu-ray players. As of now, the HD-A1 can be had for a price of around $400 according to Froogle.

According to the folks at AVS Forum, the HD-A2 goes a long way to solving the problems of its predecessor but 1080p support is still missing (for 1080p, you’ll have to wait for the HD-XA2).

According to AVS member Kris Deering, startup times are still around 35-45 seconds. Disc loading times, however, have been cut from around 60-75 seconds down to 5-15 seconds. The unit itself is now slimmer, lighter, quieter and is overall a more polished product. Toshiba even saw fit to revise the rather poor remote included with the HD-A1.

Toshiba MSRP for the HD-A2 is $499 and you can find it online from a variety of stores or just head down to your local Best Buy to see one in person.

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Same internals as Xbox360 add-on...
By therealnickdanger on 12/11/2006 4:32:36 PM , Rating: 2
Both the 360 and HDA2 feature the same S802A HD-DVD internal drive. This is a good buy for someone not interested in gaming!





RE: Same internals as Xbox360 add-on...
By jkresh on 12/11/2006 5:15:28 PM , Rating: 2
maybe, but the lack of 1080p support is sad, and its not much cheaper then a core system + hd dvd drive (and with some of the deals available now it may actually be more expensive then even a premium system + hd dvd drive). Microsoft just needs to release hdmi out for 360 (or at the least dvi).


RE: Same internals as Xbox360 add-on...
By Vertigo101 on 12/11/2006 5:50:52 PM , Rating: 2
One thing often overlooked with the 360 add-on is the audio options.

You'll never be able to hear any of the high-quality lossless tracks as they were intended, and instead have them downmixed to DD 5.1.


RE: Same internals as Xbox360 add-on...
By jkresh on 12/11/2006 6:21:41 PM , Rating: 2
I could be mistaken but I suspect that Microsoft could release an update to just pass the audio signal directly to your receiver and bypass any internal down mixing. Plus there are very few receivers that can handle the better audio options now (and if you can buy the multi thousand dollar receiver i suspect you will have a separate hd dvd and blue player).


RE: Same internals as Xbox360 add-on...
By Reflex on 12/11/2006 6:52:13 PM , Rating: 3
MS already announced that they are working on a lossless passthrough and DTS ES support for the HD-DVD users.


RE: Same internals as Xbox360 add-on...
By Vertigo101 on 12/11/2006 7:56:19 PM , Rating: 2
What medium do you suggest they would output that signal through? The TosLink connector lacks the necessary bandwidth to output those signals in their native format.

Without HDMI, you just won't be able to hear those tracks.
It's not a big deal for most people, but it is the truth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSLINK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Definition_Multi...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_TrueHD


RE: Same internals as Xbox360 add-on...
By Reflex on 12/11/2006 9:19:37 PM , Rating: 3
TosLink is more than enough for DTS ES, it is done now via that method for other DVD players without issue. I do not know if it has enough for uncompressed PCM or not, although once again I believe that PC's can send out that signal via TosLink in uncompressed PCM to recievers, which would kind of make that possible.


RE: Same internals as Xbox360 add-on...
By ArneBjarne on 12/12/2006 6:45:36 AM , Rating: 2
sure, but DTS ES is not new, it is not HD and it is not lossless, so what is your point?


RE: Same internals as Xbox360 add-on...
By abhaxus on 12/12/2006 7:29:34 AM , Rating: 2
Technically there is no such thing as "HD" audio. The term is a video term that has passed over to the audio world.

Toslink could easily do Dolby Digital Plus at 1500Kb/s like DTS does, but most receivers do not have DD+ decoders, and the original DD decoder only supports 640Kb/s max.

The thing limiting the next gen audio codecs right now is that receivers do not support them. I personally would be happy with DTS 96/24 at 1500kb/s transcoded from the higher standards for the time being, rather than having to unhook my dvd-a/sacd player's analog outputs from my receiver.


By rushfan2006 on 12/12/2006 9:05:27 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Technically there is no such thing as "HD" audio. The term is a video term that has passed over to the audio world.


Technically you are wrong. Ask Intel about that one. ;)


By ArneBjarne on 12/12/2006 11:25:20 AM , Rating: 2
The bitrate and sample frequency seems like a reasonable definition of the definition of digital audio.

You are right that the standard dts 96/24 is just as high definition as the new formats under the dts HD hat, the latter are just not compressed as hard.

In any case the dts ES is still not HD, and even if Reflex had refered to dts ES 24/96, which is HD, it would still not have been one of the formats that the orginal post was referring to.

Those formats, whatever you want to call them, require more bandwith than S/PDIF can handle.


By therealnickdanger on 12/11/2006 9:47:11 PM , Rating: 2
'Tis true, unfortunately. Until Microsoft unleashes HDMI for the Xbox360, the best we'll ever be able to do is 1.5Mbps DTS over TOSLINK... which is almost 3X better than being downmixed to DD 640kbps, like it is now. However, given that there are currently no TrueHD HDMI receivers available, we aren't at a disadvantage yet. Until that time, we can at least feel some comfort in knowing that the Xbox360's downmixing abilities are excellent.



A2 is $399 street.
By Eug on 12/11/2006 5:40:36 PM , Rating: 3
I must say, lack of 1080p support doesn't bother me at all. The 1080p support of the XA2 is p60 anyway, not p24. (All will read 1080p24 of course, since that's how the discs are encoded.)

BTW, the street price at some stores is US$399 for A2 (including 3 free HD DVDs), so it's cheaper than getting an Xbox 360 with HD DVD add-on. At this price there's not much point in getting the A1, which is much slower anyway. Then again I got my A1 for just over US$200 on close-out... but then returned it because although it had a beautiful picture, it was very slow when first booting up. I'll just use my 360 HD DVD add-on for now.




RE: A2 is $399 street.
By bisoy on 12/11/2006 7:59:19 PM , Rating: 2
I agree.

Also if your TV has a good deinterlacer then it can convert your 1080i signal to 1080p without much video degradation.


RE: A2 is $399 street.
By Goty on 12/11/2006 8:02:53 PM , Rating: 1
Not if it's not supported by the player.


RE: A2 is $399 street.
By bisoy on 12/11/2006 11:02:34 PM , Rating: 2
it's a question more of whether it is supported by your tv and not the player. If you have a 1080p capable tv, chances are (especially the newer ones) that it can convert a 1080i source to 1080p. The question however is whether the pq will be as beautiful as an unconverted 1080p/24.


RE: A2 is $399 street.
By bisoy on 12/11/2006 11:08:13 PM , Rating: 2
And to think you will need a very good 1080p capable display to even notice the video improvement over 1080i -- and these displays don't come cheap.

So for me 1080i is just fine.


RE: A2 is $399 street.
By FITCamaro on 12/12/2006 7:00:36 AM , Rating: 2
I've got a 42" Samsung DLP. 720p looks perfectly fine to me. 1080p would just make standard definition sources look horrible.


RE: A2 is $399 street.
By abhaxus on 12/12/2006 7:21:46 AM , Rating: 2
That's not true at all... more pixels means that the display can more accurately scale lower resolutions, not the reverse.


New Tech vs $$
By cheetah2k on 12/11/2006 8:59:10 PM , Rating: 1
Ok, so $1000 for 1080.... Remeber the first BetaMax player/recorder that hit the shelves for $799? If not, I do (starting to show my age!) - It too was a HUGE box of goodies ;-)

Wait 6 months, and it will be half that price. New tech is always more expensive when its released. Throw in some stiff competition to the toshiba, and we'll all be smiling shortly.