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- cricketsoda, on 10/29/2007, -4/+42Next thing you know you will get one in a happy meal...
- Kniggit, on 11/05/2007, -3/+35Ok, here's a lesson why 1080i output from the player is typically NO worse than 1080p.
What is commonly referred to as 1080i is actually something called 1080i60. This means that there are 60 fields per second (i.e. a field is either the even lines or the odd lines of a frame). If we do something called Progressive Segmented Frame, we can actually do progressive scan (i.e. non-interlaced) at 30 frames per second.
Virtually all feature films are shot at 24 progressive frames per second. Thus, we can see we can fit the 24 frames per second into the 30 frames per second as mentioned above, but we still have a problem - how do we actually intelligently reassemble the picture? The answer comes from something called 3:2 pulldown. In essence, when taking a progressive scanned image like film, we chop up the progressive frame into two segmented interlaced frames. In alternating sequences, certain fields (not all) are repeated in a specific pattern in order to fill the gap between what should be 24 frames per second and 30 frames per second.
Now, the display device like an LCD or Plasma will have its display electronics recognize that there is pulldown being performed on the film on the 1080i source. Rather than employing a 1080i deinterlacer (which you'll only find in higher-end ($3000+) tvs anyway until probably next year at the earliest; otherwise, it simply throws one of the fields away and upscales), the TV recognizes this pattern and simply reassembles the two fields into a single frame in its frame buffer without employing fancy deinterlacing. In this way, what you actually get is 1080p output from the player. This doesn't apply to 720p/WXGA-resolution screens (since they have to downscale anyway if they do it the "right" way, or may just upscale the single field), or to screens that don't recognize pulldown properly (which is some older DTVs), but the player didn't really have anything to do with that anyway and a lot of these screens don't even accept 1080p input in any form.
If you're a true purist, and you've decided that you need to get those few nature documentaries that are actually filmed in 1080p60 (which is double the bandwidth of 1080i60), then indeed you are out of luck. However, virtually all HD content right now is not of this type, but is actually movie content. From that perspective, this solution should be more than good enough as an entry-level solution. - allaboutdatiki, on 10/30/2007, -4/+32Do I hear $190? $180? $170 $160? $149.99? SOLD!
- GoingPostal, on 11/03/2007, -4/+22I own this player and it works great. Unless you have a 108" screen, I doubt you would be able to tell the difference between 1080p and 1080i. The only drawback I have found is it is a little slow on booting up. The last firmware update I did sped it up some. I am very happy with this purchase at $300. It is a steal at $198.
- daveisfera, on 10/29/2007, -2/+18Considering they just dropped the price by $100, I doubt they'll be dropping another $50 anytime soon (but that would be sweet).
- tyboulder, on 11/05/2007, -14/+29Why is everyone hung up on 1080P? If the DVD player outputs a 1080i signal, the scaler in the TV will automatically convert it to 1080P (just like when you plug a non-progressive scan DVD player into your HDTV). I'm guessing that less than 20 percent of HDTV owners can actually display a 1080P signal anyway. It's all marketing *****. The only reason a 1080P HD DVD player would be better than one that outputs 1080i is if the scaler in the player was better than the scaler in the TV... but I'd bet my money on the scaler in the $3000 TV, not the $200 HD DVD player.
- DCstewieG, on 10/28/2007, -1/+14HD DVD wasn't like Blu-ray...they had required specs from the beginning. All players support HDi.
- Propapanda, on 10/29/2007, -1/+13Cheap and good sounds better to most people than expensive and great.
- xenoputtss, on 11/03/2007, -0/+12This is a great player. I have had the HDA2 for about 3 months and it works great. About a month ago you could of purchased the HDA2 and get 5 free HDDVDs through the mail. There are many reviews online about this player, but just to fill you in on some stuff that I didn't see on the reviews.
You can do upto 1080i on both the HDMI and component connections, but if the HDDVD has a certain flag turned on it will downsample the component to a lower resolution. (I have a dvd+vcr that does upconversion to 1080i, but it will only do 480p through component).
It is a little slow to "turn on" and to "eject" videos (upwards of 1min to turn on, and 30seconds to eject a movie). (nothing else seems to suffer from this slowness).
I think i picked mine up for $180 online, brand new, retail box unopened, UPC intact. - saleem, on 10/29/2007, -4/+16sears still exists?
- HappyScrappy, on 10/28/2007, -0/+10The 360 supports HDi. I'm pretty certain this does too.
- radial, on 10/31/2007, -4/+131080p tv's arent 2-5k anymore. I just got a LG 42' 42LB5D for $1099 from sears last week.
- Ashex, on 10/30/2007, -1/+10Hope for a Thanksgiving sale then
- inactive, on 10/29/2007, -1/+10With an interlaced image you're still going to run into interlacing artifacts if you post-scale it. You don't want to see that, or at least I don't want to see it. You want your DVD player outputting a progressive scan image. I'd rather watch 720p than 1080i.
- inactive, on 10/28/2007, -1/+9Well the maximum resolution of DVD is far short of 1080i, so it's just don't some fancy upconversion to give you quasi-1080i output. This HD-DVD player outputs pure 1080i in it's native state. Trust me, you'll notice the difference.
- HappyScrappy, on 11/03/2007, -6/+14The retailers that stock it say "it is a non-replenishable item". Ony 18 $198 players per Wal-Mart. And it isn't the retailers slashing the prices, it's Toshiba selling to them for cheaper to the retaiers.
And why are they doing it? To get articles like this written.
It's a promotional thing.
I pretty much suspect once these run out we'll see the sub-$200 units disappear until Black Friday. - bradleyland, on 10/29/2007, -2/+9720p50 = 55 million pixels per second
1080p60 = 124 million pixels per second
That's a big difference in processing requirements. Surely more than a firmware upgrade's worth of difference. - Jofaba, on 10/28/2007, -1/+8Because not everyone has a tv capable of 1080p? I've got a 32" 768p and I'd pick up that player if I didn't have the XBOX HD player. Would I love to have a 60" 1080p? Sure! Is it in the cards? Yeah! Soon? No. This player is acceptable for now.
- TheRedNewt, on 11/05/2007, -2/+9I would say the actual issue is that most of the first generation 1080p televisions CANNOT accept 1080p signals. Everything is still displayed at 1080p, but the best input you can get is 1080i that the television then deinterlaces.
- Ub3rg33k, on 11/02/2007, -0/+6HD-DVD is region free.
- batmanjr, on 10/28/2007, -1/+7On the flip side of that, as a consumer, why buy something that most of the studios aren't going to support?
- reedatschool, on 10/28/2007, -0/+6They just need to combine the two in one player/drive so we can stop this pissing match and enjoy our damn movies and games
- tyboulder, on 10/30/2007, -2/+8If you can stomach the selection you're forced to chose from that is...
http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/00/00/0 ... - luchid, on 10/29/2007, -3/+8Yeah cause the PS3 is selling out like crazy...
hmmm...
wait... - InfiniteNothing, on 10/28/2007, -0/+5For $200 I almost want to go format neutral.
- Patranus, on 11/03/2007, -10/+15Too bad no studios or consumer electronics manufacturers really support HD-DVD.
You have Universal which has not had a hit in years and can't even release their best titles (Spielberg). And then there is Paramount. Paid 150 million to switch, who has released 1 major movie - Transformers. The only CE manufacturer is Toshiba.
Then there is Blu-Ray. Sony, MGM, Fox, Disney, and Lionsgate, all bringing hits week after week. A plethora of CE manufacturers bringing players to market such as Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, Samsung, and Pioneer.
My bet is that the majority of consumers walk into the store, see a cheep player made by Toshiba for HD-DVD and a more expensive players that are made by many company's (IE more support) and just think "***** it". They walk over to the media section and see the larger support for Blu-Ray and think once more "***** it". They end up not buying the HD-DVD player but also do not buy a Blu-Ray player.
Just because it cost less does not mean people are going to buy it. Look at all of the Linux PCs that came out back in ~2000ish. They were cheap, very cheap, when compared to Windows based PCs yet NO ONE bought them. Why? NO SOFTWARE.
Think about it. - tyboulder, on 10/28/2007, -1/+5Garbage In Garbage Out. It doesn't matter what your DVD player outputs, you're never going to see anything better than a 480P signal. A TV capable of displaying 1080P will convert a 1080i signal to 1080P however with it's scaler-- it will deinterlace the image.
- SilverBlade2k, on 11/02/2007, -1/+5still not going to buy until dual-formal players are affordable.
- duketogo, on 10/29/2007, -0/+4Ah yes, we're supposed to care about the HD format wars.
- radial, on 10/28/2007, -1/+5So who has a suggestion for a cheap 1080p player?
- tyboulder, on 10/28/2007, -0/+4Actually, the "format war" is what a lot of people like to call competition. In the end we'll end up with multi-format players anyway (so it won't matter what kind of discs you buy now) but for now the battle between the two is forcing BluRay to speed up new interactive features, and is forcing HD-DVD to keep capacity high on their discs (among other things). It's also keeping prices lower on movies. If there was only one format the morons at the studios would use this as a monopoly for their product-- and I guarantee that you wouldn't be seeing high def discs on Amazon for $20 (like you do now).
- colto, on 10/29/2007, -1/+5WalMart release a statement denouncing those rumors and stating that there are no such limitations. After intitial stock runs out they will continue to sell at that price with the next batch. Also for those bitching about 1080i, the HD-A2 outputs 1080i at 60 frames per second (1080i/60), which carries IDENTICAL information as the 1080p/24 content on the disc (or 1080p/30 if it's video-based). The resolution is IDENTICAL at 1920x1080, the only difference is that the TV reassembles the interlaced frames back into 1080p. Most 1080p TVs should do this just fine.
- luchid, on 10/28/2007, -0/+4Upscaling is never nearly as good as native 1080... even if it's interlaced...
- kanefsky, on 10/29/2007, -0/+3The only player which doesn't fully support all the HD-DVD specs is the first-generation LG combo Blu-ray/HD-DVD player. Most likely that was for legal/contractual reasons rather than technical reasons (the rumor being that Sony did not allow licensed Blu-ray players to support HD-DVD).
- swordedge, on 10/29/2007, -6/+9Ignore still, the insane format war goes on.
- Drizzit, on 10/29/2007, -1/+4I do not see why this is an argument at this point. If you look at what's selling the 1080i units are selling because they're cheaper. Only technophiles are getting the 1080p sets and they're the 5% of the market that's already purchased their tv's for the most part.
Is there even any television stations broadcasting in 1080p and worse is there a cable company coax/fiber who would even carry something that would require a huge chunk of bandwidth on their networks. I doubt it. - MrSteamTank, on 11/03/2007, -2/+5Because one of the main selling points about HD DVD is that it is cheaper than bluray. I think this format war will last a long time. 8P
- askjeffro, on 10/29/2007, -2/+5I have tested this player with various screen sizes. @ 108" you will definitely notice the lack of 1080p unless you are sitting very very far back. For general home use I saw no difference with this player then a 1080p one on screens 50" and smaller as long as you are greater then 4 feet back. Also worth mentioning is that the unit does excellent upscaling as well. I highly recommend this player if your screen is 50" or smaller and you sit at least 4 feet away from the TV, no need for a 1080p there.
- mszunefan, on 11/03/2007, -1/+4$179 HD-DVD player for the 360 and now a stand alone $199 HD-DVD player? Wow Blu-Ray has only two ways to survive, sell more PS3s by having more games for the system or by making a stand alone player under $400.
PS3=3D0 - maley, on 11/02/2007, -1/+4Despite the fact that movie studios are releasing tons of movies in HD and BRD, the HD formats were never really meant for some movies. A romantic comedy in HD, who gives a *****. The only movies that should ever be replaced/re-bought in HD are movies that are visually or sound intensive. Star Wars...I will rebuy this in a heartbeat when Lucas finally decides to bring it into the new era. LOTR. I will rebuy this as well. As for movies now, the only stuff I'm buying in BRD (don't own HD-DVD) are movies that like I said before are visual/sound intensive.
- tyboulder, on 11/05/2007, -1/+4frame-matching and performing 3:2 pulldown is what "scaling" does. There should be any artifacting if everything is working properly.
- HappyScrappy, on 10/29/2007, -1/+41 minute is not "a little slow". It's a LOT slow.
- inactive, on 10/28/2007, -1/+4you are joking, right? You don't relaly think that do you? You can't be that dumb, can you?
- tyboulder, on 11/05/2007, -0/+3The "HD" you see in stores is a compressed degenerate 720p signal that's been split 80 different ways. It's like using a VCR to show what DVD is capable of. If you have an HDTV, 200 bones isn't much to be able to watch true HD movies. Just get Netflix and watching HD-DVD's is even cheaper.
- heinousjay, on 11/05/2007, -1/+4Bluray hasn't sold anywhere near well enough for that scenario to be likely. By the time Beta players went on firesale, VHS was the clear winner. That's just not the case here, unless you're a Sony fanboy (but we've all seen how realistic they are.)
- zeppo, on 10/29/2007, -0/+2most stores have the HD DVD & Blu-ray players if they have them running through composite or S-Video connections instead of component or HDMI for some reason.
- solid12345, on 10/28/2007, -0/+2Your insane if you think" most" consumers really care that much about quality. This is the generation of people who sacrifice CD quality sound for portable compressed mp3's. I bet you most average people cannot tell a huge difference between a blue-ray and an upconverted DVD.
- drjekelmrhyde, on 10/28/2007, -1/+3Yes and we won in Iraq already
- philhatesyou, on 10/29/2007, -0/+2The problem with your argument is that the studios are seeing higher sales of Blu Ray films than they are HD DVD. If you look at films released in both formats, 300 for example, Blu Ray clearly gives you more money. Thus, by your logic, they're more likely to release on Blu Ray.
The problem with your logic though, is that it's all more complicated than this. - SouthsideIrish, on 10/29/2007, -2/+4And the fact that you need a large screen. Most people do not need 1080P because they don't have a large enough screen, or if they do they don't realize how close you need to sit to the screen to get the full effect of 1080P. Most people buy a screen, set it up, turn it on, and watch it.
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