Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Blu-Ray / HD-DVD ""FREE"" movie offer, supposedly.

Right now Toshiba is the only available HD DVD player other than LG's dual format player and Microsofts Xbox360 add on. Onkyo and Wallmart (Chinese made player) will be joining with their own offerings soon.
Here is a link to compare Toshiba's players. Toshiba

I took me about eight weeks to get a card telling me the supplier was out of stock and if i wanted to "cancel" my "order" of free DVD's..... I about pissed my pants laughing at that one. It took another four weeks to get them. The selection is pathetic at best and are all the first HD/DVD's releaced. But if you don't have any, it's better than a poke in the eye.

HomeDad, thanks for the link. I was hoping to find something local just in case BlackFriday comes with a good deal on an A3 or something. I talked to a guy at best Buy who said that they were expecting a price drop "in time for the holiday shopping season"... I asked about Black Friday, and he said that he couldn't say when, but to be looking at the ads that week. Of course, this could be $20 off too... I just thought that if I picked up an A2 locally, and then in less than 30 days found a better deal, I could return it. Just being honest with my intentions.

Zarak, I can only display 720p on my projector, so for me, 1080p isn't important. By the time I upgrade to something with more resolution, the HD format war will be over . If you have a display that does 1080p, then by all means, go for it. Now, if you want HD sound, but don't want to upgrade your receiver too, then you will need something, like you said, with analog outputs on the player, and analog inputs on the receiver. Make sure that they both are 5.1 analog. Some manufacture specs say "analog" but are only 2 channel. For HD-DVD, you need to jump to the HD-XA2 to get 5.1 analog. And that will cost you around $600. I'm going cheap first, just to get the HD picture. I want to get DTS-HD too, but nothing really decodes that for a reasonable price yet, so I am waiting on a new receiver. Besides, my currently receiver is pretty darn nice if you ask me, and it seems silly to upgrade all of the time.

Amazon has the A2 for 229 and free shipping. The A3 is pre selling for 300 and the A30 is 330. I'd get the A30 out of those three. Or you could wait till I get a different one and I'll send you my A2, for a reasonable fee.

Or, just a thought, but if you have a Costco near by, they have their own A2 called the D2 for under 200 usually.

The A30 gives you 1080p over the A3, and the A3 has the same specs as the A3 but the A3 is just a tad smaller in size.

If I had a 1080p display, then I've spend the extra $30 on the A30. But without any other benefits, for me anyway, it is just a wasted $30.

I will have to check out Costco... I don't have a membership, but I think that I can find someone that does. And from what I understand, it too qualifies for the 5 Free HD-DVD offer.

I might just have to jump on that. I mean, what is the chance that the A3 will come down to $200 for the holidays. Although with the A3, you do get 2 other free movies bundled with it (300 and the first Bourne movie), but I don't care to own 300, and would rather spend the money saved on a couple of movies that can really showcase the HD capabilities.

Thanks for the tip about Costco.

The A20 and the A30 both have a better scaling chip for SD DVD than the A2/A3 alternative.

That alone was why I bought the A20. I only have a 720p/1080i display, but I wanted superior scaling if I could.

How does the chip in the A# and A#0 (fill in 2 or 3 for the # sign) compair to the SD scaling chip in the Panasonic S97? I am pretty happy with the output from my S97 for SD DVDs, so anything on that level would work for now..

I recommend the A30 over the A3 because the A3 will NEVER have the capability to pull the native 1080P/24 data off the disks, where the A30 does have the ability; if Toshiba pushes a firmware update out to enable this.

If you're wondering why I think this is important.....

HD and BR are recorded at 1080P/ 24 frames per second. This “native” information is on the disks. Until recently, ALL BR and HD player MPEG decoders would only pull the interlaced 1080i data off the disks (a significant net reduction of usable X’s and O’s for you code geeks).

These decoders would then output this 1080i/24 data to the player’s Video Processing Chip. The VP would then, if capable, de-interlace this to 1080P/24. After de-interlacing it, it would apply a 3:2 cadence to that data stream to output a 1080P/ 60hz (60 frames per second) that was more display friendly than 24 Hz. Depending on each player’s video processor’s performance, some players would do a better job at this than others. The X2 for example uses a Reon chip set, which is highly regarded for outputting a very good 1080P/60 video stream.

So….a few months pass and 1080P/24 displays start coming out. The buzz around this started to educate users and all of a sudden, consumers were starting to feel “cheated” because their “HD” players were cheating them out of all that raw 1080P/24 data. All they were getting was some possessed, or “fake” 1080P/60 video stream.

About this time BR players hit the shelves that were actually pulling the raw 1080P/24 data off BR disks. Toshiba, after about a year, decided they would follow suit and pushed a firmware update to the X2 to output 1080/P24. The X2, A20, A30 and A35 all have MPEG decoders that have the functionality to do this, but for some very odd reason, Toshiba would not enable the X2, A20 and A30 to so this and decided to process the 1080i data to output 1080P at either 24 or 60 Hz.

Currently, only the A35 outputs the actual, RAW, 1080P/24 native data on the disks. Although the X2 does output 1080P/24, it is a “processed” data stream, and not native. I do not know exactly what it does to it, but the Reon is doing something to it that changes the color space from Rec 709 HD color standards. I personally think this is a bug with the Reon itself because this exact "change" to the color space is occuring with the new Onkyo/Integra audio processors that use the Reon. It is also occuring with the JVC RS1 projector that uses a Genum VP, so it could be a simple oversight that is correctable, or it may be a hardware issue with these two chips. ABT chipsets do not do this, nor does the Realta.

So, to recap why I suggest the A30, is that it has the ability to pull the native 1080P/24 data off the disks and it DOES NOT use the Reon. Even if you do not have a 1080P display, you will still benefit from 1080P/24 because there is SOOOO much more data to work with before down rezzing to 720/P.

Clear as mud???

So, if it can read the 1080p/24, you are saying it just starts with a more "correct" image, or at least the "best" image possible before down-scaling it to 720p?

Thanks Mike, That answers the question I asked in another thread.