Call me different *but* I don't see all of the hype for HD DVD thus far...

This morning I did get a chance to make it to WallyWorld to get my hands on 1 of 10 available Toshiba A2 Hd-DVDs for 98 bucks, got it home and did all of the proper connections and to my somewhat surprise I just didn't personally see the big deal.

I'm comparing the A2 to a Denon 2910 as well as an Oppo 980H via an H/K AVR635 and a Mitsubishi 73-727 73" RP DLP 1080p TV and to be quite honest, thus far I am unimpressed. Both the Denon and the Toshiba are connected via HDMI to the TV and Optical to the receiver. Along with the A2 I also bought 'Transformers', 'Face Off', 'The Last Samurai' and to me they all seemed to be either very dark in the background or dark on the foreground, so I inserted the Pixar movie 'Cars' to compare SD quality and I thought the Denon and Oppo was better... with the A2 the movie looked awfully light in contrast to the Denon and Oppo.

Firmware updates? I'm not in IT, I'm not in any sort of computer engineering field nor do I care to be, sell a freaking unit ready to for us old folks to use, will ya!!!

I place the A2 PQ below the Oppo and the Denon only because I'm unimpressed with the HD DVD side of the A2 and I believe the Oppo as well as the Denon up convert 1080i better than the A2 and I place the Denon and Oppo light years ahead of the A2 for SQ via the optical interconnect, maybe a $1,500 receiver with all of the HDMI bells and whistles will change that, I dunno.

Also the unit is rather cheaply built....you can't shut the front cover door with the disc tray extended out, how freaking lame is that! But for a hundred bucks, what the hey.

Rick
Our Room

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