 Re: Toshiba HD A2 for $98.87
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Joined: May 2004
Posts: 1,201
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connoisseur
Joined: May 2004
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I need a monitor to see the A2 menu? Is that the reason why?
*Michael*
AV123 Refugee - X-LS Encore, X-Voce, X-Omnis, Elt-Dpa's
Denon AVR-591
Magnavox NB500MGX BDP
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Re: Toshiba HD A2 for $98.87
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Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 3,301
connoisseur
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OP
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Joined: Dec 2005
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Exactly, you will need it to get to the menus which my A2 went to the first time it powered up , the A2 itself will show the progress when updating and the monitor at that point says updating don't turn off. I'm not sure if you need a monitor when updating by disc as I've allways gone through the ethernet.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
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Re: Toshiba HD A2 for $98.87
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Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 280
local
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local
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 280 |
Homedad,
Since you have both the HD-A2 and the HD-XA2, how do these two compare in their performance regarding upconverted DVDs and HD-DVDs at 720p/1080i? The HD-XA2 has the Reon HQV video processor, a 12-bit 297 MHz video dac with 4x oversampling (vs 11 bit/216 MHz in A2). Is there a noticeable difference on 720p/1080i ? Thanks.
John
Last edited by ihifi; 11/04/07 05:26 AM.
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Re: Toshiba HD A2 for $98.87
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Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 3,301
connoisseur
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OP
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Joined: Dec 2005
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John,
As for HD-DVD if there is a difference in picture quality between the XA2 and A2 from my limited comparison of the two I can't say I've noticed a difference, that may change with more viewing but I don't think it would be significant.
For SD the A2 does a very nice job regarding upconverting, but to me there is a very noticeable differnce between it and the XA2 with the Reon processor. The XA2 makes SD DVD's look better than any player I've ever owned, the picture quality is sharper and better defined to the point where some SD movies almost look like they are in HD. To me spending the extar dollars on the XA2 just for the Reon HQV video processor was worth every cent.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
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Re: Toshiba HD A2 for $98.87
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Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 280
local
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local
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 280 |
Michael (HomeDad),
Thank you very much for the follow up. Your impressions are the same as those I have read elsewhere; namely, no/negligible difference with HD-DVD but better upconversion of standard DVD with HD-XA2.
What is interesting on the audio side is that, for people without HDMI on their receivers, both the XA2 and A2 will transcode and output the "core" DTS audio in DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and DTS-HD Master Audio as 1.5 Mbps DTS via SPDIF. For Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby True HD, the A2 transcodes and outputs these also as DTS at 1.5 Mbps, whereas the XA2 ouputs them as 640 Kbps Dolby Digital. In this regard, A2 is little more favorable for people without HDMI for audio. Of course, for receivers that have HDMI, Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby True HD can be sent as PCM over HDMI in both A2 and XA2 and should sound better than the 640 Kbps DD via SPDIF.
Why did everything become so complex when the concept is a simple one of getting both audio and video in one cable/connection?
Thanks again
John
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Re: Toshiba HD A2 for $98.87
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Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 171
veteran
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veteran
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For anyone burning the firmware to a disc, I can't stress enough to follow Lorenzo's advice and use Active ISO Burner. When I bought my first HD-A2 a couple of months ago, I downloaded the firmware fine, and then burned about 6 coasters with Nero, Roxio, Sonic, etc. I then saw a recommendation on AVS to use Active ISO Burner, and it worked the first time. Here's what I did last night. I still have Active ISO Burner on my computer. I downloaded the firmware again from Toshiba (first shows up as HD-A2-2501N), and then unzipped it. It shows up as an ISO. I then right-clicked the ISO image file, and I did Open With, Choose Program. I found Active ISO Burner in my desktop list, chose that, then the ISO file should pop up in the ISO burner. I dropped the burn rate to 8X to be safe. Clicked burn. Finished the burn in about a minute, popped the disc in my new HD-A2, and it worked again just fine. Here's Lorenzo's link again. I've used Active to burn ISO's since I first used it, and it works every time. Nero and Roxio hardly ever work for me with ISO's, so this is a great program. http://www.ntfs.com/iso-burning.htm
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Re: Toshiba HD A2 for $98.87
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Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 4,877
connoisseur
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I burned it fine with nero version 6. you can open nero express,
the last one on the list says "disc image or saved project"
select that, then change the file type to iso from the pulldown menu and select the update file.
simple as that.
Last edited by terzaghi; 11/04/07 01:55 PM.
-David
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Re: Toshiba HD A2 for $98.87
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Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 6,331
axiomite
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axiomite
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 6,331 |
For anyone burning the firmware to a disc, I can't stress enough to follow Lorenzo's advice and use Active ISO Burner. When I bought my first HD-A2 a couple of months ago, I downloaded the firmware fine, and then burned about 6 coasters with Nero, Roxio, Sonic, etc. I then saw a recommendation on AVS to use Active ISO Burner, and it worked the first time. Here's what I did last night. I still have Active ISO Burner on my computer. I downloaded the firmware again from Toshiba (first shows up as HD-A2-2501N), and then unzipped it. It shows up as an ISO. I then right-clicked the ISO image file, and I did Open With, Choose Program. I found Active ISO Burner in my desktop list, chose that, then the ISO file should pop up in the ISO burner. I dropped the burn rate to 8X to be safe. Clicked burn. Finished the burn in about a minute, popped the disc in my new HD-A2, and it worked again just fine. Here's Lorenzo's link again. I've used Active to burn ISO's since I first used it, and it works every time. Nero and Roxio hardly ever work for me with ISO's, so this is a great program. http://www.ntfs.com/iso-burning.htm I couldn't agree more. I was very frustrated trying to unsuccessfully burn the .iso with Roxio. I downloaded and installed Active ISO Burner, downloaded the firmware zip file (I used the HD-A2-2.5 ISO rather than the 2501N  ) , unzipped, clicked on the ISO image file, and up popped Active ISO Burner with the correct path and burner already set. I, too, lowered the speed just to be on the safe side. I burned the disc, put it into the machine and it worked perfectly. The only interesting thing I noticed was that my A2 only took about 10 minutes to perform the upgrade, rather than the 25 to 35 minutes as stated in the instructions, and which others are reporting. After upgrading, I checked the firmware version and it was, indeed, version 2.5 (up from 1.2). I watched a movie, and everything worked just fine. Thank you Lorenzo and everyone else who contributed to this thread. I much appreciate the help. 
Jack
"People generally quarrel because they cannot argue." - G. K. Chesterton
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Re: Toshiba HD A2 for $98.87
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Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 6,331
axiomite
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axiomite
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 6,331 |
Interesting. That link brought me to the Canada site and the file is indeed different. Unfortunately, after burning to disc and trying to update, I'm still getting the same error code on the Toshiba!
I had to walk away for a few minutes. Ethernet isn't finding a connection either and I admit that I'm lousy with networking knowledge so the disc is probably better for me to persue. Mark, if all else fails (see my post above), I'll be happy to send you the disc I burned which worked perfectly in my A2. Just PM your address to me.
Jack
"People generally quarrel because they cannot argue." - G. K. Chesterton
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Re: Toshiba HD A2 for $98.87
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Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 3,301
connoisseur
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OP
connoisseur
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 3,301 |
The only interesting thing I noticed was that my A2 only took about 10 minutes to perform the upgrade, It took about 15 minutes to download the update from the Ethernet to the A2, then about 10 minutes for the A2 to install the update. With the disc you get to bypass the first step.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
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