Hooked everything up, HDMI for video to my Sanyo Z3 at 720p, and optical to my Pioneer Elite VSX-54TX. I put in the firmware CD right away without even testing anything out, and it went just fine. Took about 10 minutes to update from the CD. I then put the CD in a sleeve, put that into an envelope, and already put it in the mailbox to head to Rick (BrotherBob)...

The only HD-DVD I have right now is Batman Begins...

I put it in and though, hmmm. This is pretty dang nice. I wasn't "blown away" right away so I did some A/B tests.
I took a very scrutinizing look at the video, and I knew that it was nice, but when I then put the SD version of the movie in my Panasonic S97 and did the upconverted view of the SD disc (so that I could compare to what I was seeing before and what I thought was a great picture already) THAT is when I started realizing how good HD really is. The upconverted picture of the SD DVD was really good, but it also "upconverts" any pixelation or grain to the image. With the HD, it didn't have any graininess to it, and no pixelation, and then you start noticing facial textures, hair details, rocks, dirt, everything is really clear on the HD-DVD version. Now I AM blown away! I didn't watch anywhere near even a fraction of the movie as I was "supposed to" be cleaning the basement for when my parents come to visit tomorrow, and it is 12:50 AM right now and I have more work to do yet, but I wanted to report in. YES, the HD-A2 is worth it!

Farewell - June 4, 2020