$198 Toshiba HD DVD Drives

Because I'm the Ex-Weightlifter-Geek out of all my Friends and Family, they always ask me to predict the future with new hardware. So far I've been pretty good at doing just that. Last year I told them to get a player for both Blue-Ray and HD-DVD because some movies might only be sold on one or the other. Also told them I was almost 100% some stores with lock in only selling one or the other, such as Walt-Disney. And when that started happening this year it was no big shock to me. I also said it's going to come down to price and where to buy it. Most people could careless about the technical aspects of which is better so long as it looks good on the screen. Time and time again Sony has come out with some good products but the people of the World for some reason don't like to support just one companies media formats. It's like too much royalty or power into one company or something? Anyway, The HD-DVD I knew would make it big in the Euro markets and it was only a matter of time before the US and Canada picked up on that as well. Soon as BestBuy and Target started doing Blue-Ray only I knew 100% that that game would fail to win because of Wal-Mart. Just think about this for a minute.. HD-DVD sounds like it's in the same group as CD-RW or DVD-R. We instantly know it's High Definition and DVD. No real reason to say anything more about what laser color it's using. Simply look at the BetaMax and VCR media.. long history there that is proving it's a repeat even today. If Sony changed the Blue-Ray name into something else like DVD-BR it would make more sense to the masses. And to top it all off China, the maker of 80% of all our cheap "Technological Junk" is cashing in to their own version of HD-DVD formats.

Glad to see they are finally selling sub 200$ HD players. To be honest I still think that's a little high priced for a player, but it's one of those must have toys that I'll just wait until they are 50$ and unlocked or have mod-chips for..lol XD
 
this is a great move to get hd-dvd beocme more mainstrea. I do agree a sub-$1000 would be the kicker. Once you drop to <$100, people will literally fight over them; I recall when DVD plaeyrs first fell under $100 suddenly I started seeing them in everyone's home. But when I shelled out $200 for my new DVD player abck in the day, it was hard ot get ocntent.


Re: 1080i vs 1080p, only if youa re watching sports or watching ona screen size 60" or bigger do you really notice the difference WHEN WATCHING BLU RAY DISCS or HD-DVDs.

At this point, ALL the cable and Dish programming is in 1080i and most movies are priamrily in 1080i, so the CONTENT doesnt really support 1080p yet. Add to that the inability to notice on smaller displays (and for eveyrone I know, 37-42" models seem to eb the most popular bya long shot),m and as far as I am concnered, 1080i HD-DVD is jsut as good as 1080p.

Now if using for a comp monitor thats not true, but thats a different story.

It seems Toshiba is on the right track and has the right mentality to become the new mainstream format. Re: the Sony PS3 strategy for pushing BR, errmmm, I think at this point we can all agree its played out and it didnt work on the scale they were hoping to accomplish.

The PS3 is literally gathering dust on every store shelf in the USA, and it did not expand BR all that much as the few who bought it were primarily gamers and not movie watchers.

First company to get under $100 willw in this war hands down and I havent seen anything in BR cheaper than $300s. Note that BR may be a superior format in tech terms, but Sony's Quality Execs appear to have lost them another spec war. Betamax Part Deux.

(and just as a notice, if BR hit below $100 first, i woudl rapidly swithc to cheering that on as I want a HD content system for my plasma and I am simply not willing to pay mroe than $100 at this point).
 
Ummm, no. IFirst, you assume the tv is deinterlacing properly, not all do. Second, I think that is with 60Mhz tvs. How about when you compare to a tv that will take a 24/72Mhz signal? Does that throw a wrench into things?
1080p televisions automatically do the weave losslessly from a 1080i source to a 1080p picture. A 1080i player splits the 1080p24 into fields, and the display does 2:3 pulldown to 1080i60, and then reassembles the fields into 1080p60. They are 100% visually identical on a 1080p television, 24hz/72hz or not because of the pulldown.
 
1080p televisions automatically do the weave losslessly from a 1080i source to a 1080p picture. A 1080i player splits the 1080p24 into fields, and the display does 2:3 pulldown to 1080i60, and then reassembles the fields into 1080p60. They are 100% visually identical on a 1080p television, 24hz/72hz or not because of the pulldown.

Ding ding ding.

1080p/24 can be perfectly reconstructed from a 1080i signal.
 
Well not only that, but if you have a tv that does 24hz/48hz/72hz/120hz, it is most likely a better tv with a better deinterlacing engine that can do a pulldown seemlessly. If you are that worried about it and owned a nice HDTV like that, you wouldn't be buying the cheapest possible HD DVD player, you would be buying one of the latest or greatest models.
 
these same players were what, $230 on amazon for the longest time, but now that they are $198, its all over for bluray!

lol.

wake up folks, bluray still maintains a 2-1 sales lead in movie sales. You can not like it, but there it is.

I'm not a sony fan either, but I those of you touting this as some majory victory of pricing apparently haven't been paying much attention. If $30 was keeping people from jumping in, they certainly won't jump in at $200.
 
and no...I'm not a sony or bluray "fanb*y", but I don't ignore the facts either.
 
Personally I think all the people saying it's crap because it's a 1080i player should just STFU because they don't understand how video works. As for 24FPS displays I'm willing to be not one person that posted in this thread even has one. Please people, do your homework instead of listing specs.
 
and no...I'm not a sony or bluray "fanb*y", but I don't ignore the facts either.

Here's a fact for you, all current BD standalone players are obsolete! I'll take a "crappy" 1080i player over an unfinished product any day. Don't even mention the PS3 because a game console will never be apart of my HT.
 
Here's a fact for you, all current BD standalone players are obsolete! I'll take a "crappy" 1080i player over an unfinished product any day. Don't even mention the PS3 because a game console will never be apart of my HT.

*Ding* We have a winner.

Forcing me to upgrade the $1000 "next-gen" player I purchased on promises that it was next-gen? Come on, give me a break. It's ridiculous, I can't wait to see the consumer backlash when the next wave of Blu-Ray discs won't play in their expensive player.
 
I agree but at a differant price point. I think a sub $150 player is what it will take to make a big diffferance, but a Sub $200 will also. I know at $200 that puts it in my price range. i think anything below $100 wont sell that well because people that have HD-TVs well want something quality made, and anything below $100 will make them think its not a quality player, if it is or isn't.

you underestimate the cheapness of the average consumer... we are living in a throw-away society, if it breaks, meh, buy another it was only $99! right?
 
This is exciting news! (especially since I just jumped on the HD DVD bandwagon ;)) I think a lot of people don't realize just how big a selling engine Walmart is. Sure, prices have been close on the internet if you know where and when to look, but a lot of people don't know, hell a lot of people haven't even shopped on the internet before. When they can actually see HD programming/movies in action while shopping it makes a huge difference. Believe it or not, there are people that don't get off on electronic stats alone.

1080i looks like crap? There may be some distinguishable difference (and I'm sure there are, I've never done an A/B) between a movie in 1080i and 1080p, but I guarantee the difference is nowhere near the difference between 480i and 1080i. For someone coming from a standard TV, 1080i is heaven on a screen. ;)
 
There was no way I would spend 100's of $ on a player to risk having the other format win. I have been waiting to decide which way to go. When something gets under $200, it starts to get my attention.
 
Movie sales are actually now 60:40 in the US, and that is pretty pathetic considering there are a few million more Blu-ray capable devices out there.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUKN2352882020071023?pageNumber=2

The 60-40 gap is going to get even closer if this continues. The PS3 had an initial run ahead thanks to the Sony fans who ran out and bought a PS3 on launch date. These fans are the ones buying BD movies, as they continue to wait for the rash of real games that keep getting promised to the them and then pushed back.

HD-DVD is about to surge ahead if this price stays and isn't just a one-time thing. As stated, the average consumer does not search online for electronics, and they don't know what B&M stores to look at in real life. The average person shops at Randall's, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy, in that order. This is what they see:

Best Buy - Blu-Ray players starting at $600. Too expensive!
Best Buy - HD DVD players starting at $400. Too expensive!
Best Buy - Game consoles with HD playback starting at $400. Joe Sixpack does not play video games, and is incapable of reading the box to find out he is getting more than a video game.
Wal Mart - HD DVD player for $200. "It's cheaper than Best Buy, and it's from a good name-brand electronics company!"

Guess which one they buy. ;) My point: the average consumer does not, and will not purchase a video game console with movie playback capabilities. Enthusiasts do that. College students do that. Middle-aged blue collar workers do not do that. Nobody other than enthusiasts bought PS2s for cheap DVD players back in the day, and this still holds true today.
 
these same players were what, $230 on amazon for the longest time, but now that they are $198, its all over for bluray!

lol.

wake up folks, bluray still maintains a 2-1 sales lead in movie sales. You can not like it, but there it is.

I'm not a sony fan either, but I those of you touting this as some majory victory of pricing apparently haven't been paying much attention. If $30 was keeping people from jumping in, they certainly won't jump in at $200.
That's exactly the point. These players have been available for $230 on Amazon. Not in retail stores. There's a difference. A lot of people are still afraid to shop online, so that $230 Amazon price tag means absolutely nothing to a large portion of people in this country.

Anyway, I may visit my local Wal-Mart soon to see if they have these players in stock yet. I already have the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on drive, but I want to get a stand-alone player to put in the living room so my parents will understand what high-definition is all about. Dish Network HD looks terrible, and they are impressed it. Imagine what they will think of HD DVD.
 
That for you people in the US, Toshiba is still running the MIR for 5 free HD-DVD's until early next year.

At a price of at least $25 a pop, that means you're player is only costing you $75.

In Canada Toshiba has deemed 3 free HD-DVD's to be the rebate, but with my purchase they were including a free copy of Transformers on HD-DVD, so I'm not too upset.
 
Here's a fact for you, all current BD standalone players are obsolete! I'll take a "crappy" 1080i player over an unfinished product any day. Don't even mention the PS3 because a game console will never be apart of my HT.

no, heres a fact for YOU, the movies themselves will still play fine. Most people don't give a rats ass about extended "internet enabled" and other bullshit extras.

As for what plays and what doesn't, you obviously have never checked avsforum and seen the myriad number of problems various titles on hd-dvd have.
 
oh, and here's neilsen videoscan as of 9-23

2005569175697052990_rs.jpg
 
You just linked an article with a HUGE letterhead stating:
"Blu-ray outsells HD-DVD in U.S. for first 9 months"

thanks.
I hope that you're thanking him for correcting you, because you said "wake up folks, bluray still maintains a 2-1 sales lead in movie sales" which is absolutely wrong.
 
I hope that you're thanking him for correcting you, because you said "wake up folks, bluray still maintains a 2-1 sales lead in movie sales" which is absolutely wrong.

did you actually READ his link?

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Blu-ray DVD titles outsold rival HD-DVD titles by almost 2-to-1 in the first nine months of the year


hello?
 
Funny how they always post Pro-HDDVD news here, never about Blu-Ray still outselling HDDVD by a large margin last month even with the Transformers selling 115k copies on HDDVD. Or that Blu-Ray is still amost 2-1 lead in less than a year over HDDVD. You never see "good news" post from the [H] editors on Blu-Ray.

Maybe if we did these threads wouldnt end up as flambait.
 
this is a great move to get hd-dvd beocme more mainstrea. I do agree a sub-$1000 would be the kicker. Once you drop to <$100, people will literally fight over them; I recall when DVD plaeyrs first fell under $100 suddenly I started seeing them in everyone's home. But when I shelled out $200 for my new DVD player abck in the day, it was hard ot get ocntent.


Re: 1080i vs 1080p, only if youa re watching sports or watching ona screen size 60" or bigger do you really notice the difference WHEN WATCHING BLU RAY DISCS or HD-DVDs.

At this point, ALL the cable and Dish programming is in 1080i and most movies are priamrily in 1080i, so the CONTENT doesnt really support 1080p yet. Add to that the inability to notice on smaller displays (and for eveyrone I know, 37-42" models seem to eb the most popular bya long shot),m and as far as I am concnered, 1080i HD-DVD is jsut as good as 1080p.

Now if using for a comp monitor thats not true, but thats a different story.

It seems Toshiba is on the right track and has the right mentality to become the new mainstream format. Re: the Sony PS3 strategy for pushing BR, errmmm, I think at this point we can all agree its played out and it didnt work on the scale they were hoping to accomplish.

The PS3 is literally gathering dust on every store shelf in the USA, and it did not expand BR all that much as the few who bought it were primarily gamers and not movie watchers.

First company to get under $100 willw in this war hands down and I havent seen anything in BR cheaper than $300s. Note that BR may be a superior format in tech terms, but Sony's Quality Execs appear to have lost them another spec war. Betamax Part Deux.

(and just as a notice, if BR hit below $100 first, i woudl rapidly swithc to cheering that on as I want a HD content system for my plasma and I am simply not willing to pay mroe than $100 at this point).


No way man I can tell a difference! 37" westinghouse. 1080i looks good if it is upconverted, but 1080p is just much better for fast motion.
 
Funny how they always post Pro-HDDVD news here, never about Blu-Ray still outselling HDDVD by a large margin last month even with the Transformers selling 115k copies on HDDVD. Or that Blu-Ray is still amost 2-1 lead in less than a year over HDDVD. You never see "good news" post from the [H] editors on Blu-Ray.

Maybe if we did these threads wouldnt end up as flambait.

I think the "well the bluray price this, and the bluray price that" is funny when bluray has ALWAYS been the more expensive HD format to get into and has continued to outsell hd-dvd by 2 and 3 to 1.
 
No way man I can tell a difference! 37" westinghouse. 1080i looks good if it is upconverted, but 1080p is just much better for fast motion.

...if you have a 37inch westinghouse lcd you aren't seeing anything at 1080i to start with..its an lcd, its progressive.
 
...if you have a 37inch westinghouse lcd you aren't seeing anything at 1080i to start with..its an lcd, its progressive.

No I watched Interlaced signal on it via the comptuer. Dragging around windows everythign is super choppy and flickers, switching to 1080p everything looks much better.

Or were you refering to TV signals?
 
No I watched Interlaced signal on it via the comptuer. Dragging around windows everythign is super choppy and flickers, switching to 1080p everything looks much better.

Or were you refering to TV signals?

sigh. this is why I hate these threads. You have a very small minority of people who actually know what the hell is going on, both with tech and in the marketplace, then you have a vocal majority of people who are completely clueless.
 
No I watched Interlaced signal on it via the comptuer. Dragging around windows everythign is super choppy and flickers, switching to 1080p everything looks much better.

Or were you refering to TV signals?
Your display can't *show* a 1080i signal directly. It deinterlaces the 1080i signal so it "becomes" a 1080p signal.

That's not to say that it won't display a 1080p *signal* much better than a 1080i signal, though.
 
Your display can't *show* a 1080i signal directly. It deinterlaces the 1080i signal so it "becomes" a 1080p signal.

That's not to say that it won't display a 1080p *signal* much better than a 1080i signal, though.

Obviously or I would have lines on my screen.
 
Well... looks like some people think Blue-Ray is being sold more. Think about this for a minute. More DVD MOVIES are being sold because of Block-Buster ONLY renting BLUE-RAY and BestBuy is ONLY SELLING BLUE-RAY and Walt-Disney is ONLY Releasing MOVIES on BLUE-RAY. I've got to say SONY has pulled the eyes over alot of you people and still you go out and buy into their proprietary garbage. So if your kids wants that Disney movie you will need to get a system that supports both formats and this in turn makes the sales charts look wrong. If they even the playing field you would see more HD-DVD movies being sold by a wide margin and they know it, why else would they do the "ONLY BLUE-Ray" Deals.. I'm shocked they have not been sued at this point because it's the same old problem just like with ONLY Windows Pre-Built computers.
 
I just got a A2 and I must say I am blown away by the picture quality. I got mine @ circuit city for $197.00, IMO there is no way Sony/Blew-Ray can compete with HD-DVD. The cheapest Blu-Ray player I can fins is $499.99.

Blue-Ray Player = $499.99.

OR

A2-HD-DVD Player = $199.99 (living room)+ 5 Free movies offer
A2-HD-DVD Player = $199.99 (bed room) + 5 Free movies offer
4 HD-DVD Movies = 100.00
--------------------------------------------
Total = $500.00

OR

A3-HD-DVD Player = $299.99 (2 Free movies in the box) + 5 Free movies offer
8 HD-DVD Movies = 200.00
----------------------------------------------
Total = $500.00

And the winner is = NO BRAINER.
 
Same with the Blockbusters in my area. They have both formats so your most likely unlucky to not find them.
 
Now finding Transformers checked in...that's a whole nother issue. :D
 
God dammit both formats are still irrelevant until I can go buy a DVD for $15. $25-50 is ridiculous.
 
I just got a A2 and I must say I am blown away by the picture quality. I got mine @ circuit city for $197.00, IMO there is no way Sony/Blew-Ray can compete with HD-DVD. The cheapest Blu-Ray player I can fins is $499.99.

Blue-Ray Player = $499.99.

OR

A2-HD-DVD Player = $199.99 (living room)+ 5 Free movies offer
A2-HD-DVD Player = $199.99 (bed room) + 5 Free movies offer
4 HD-DVD Movies = 100.00
--------------------------------------------
Total = $500.00

OR

A3-HD-DVD Player = $299.99 (2 Free movies in the box) + 5 Free movies offer
8 HD-DVD Movies = 200.00
----------------------------------------------
Total = $500.00

And the winner is = NO BRAINER.

Well for me the clear winner so far is the HD/Blueray Combo Drive for $270 which is still to much IMO
 
I just got a A2 and I must say I am blown away by the picture quality. I got mine @ circuit city for $197.00, IMO there is no way Sony/Blew-Ray can compete with HD-DVD. The cheapest Blu-Ray player I can fins is $499.99.

Blue-Ray Player = $499.99.

OR

A2-HD-DVD Player = $199.99 (living room)+ 5 Free movies offer
A2-HD-DVD Player = $199.99 (bed room) + 5 Free movies offer
4 HD-DVD Movies = 100.00
--------------------------------------------
Total = $500.00

OR

A3-HD-DVD Player = $299.99 (2 Free movies in the box) + 5 Free movies offer
8 HD-DVD Movies = 200.00
----------------------------------------------
Total = $500.00

And the winner is = NO BRAINER.


Funny. You forget that Bluray also includes 5 free movies with the players and you seem to fail at 1080i vs 1080p comprehension... you also seem to fail at price shopping as local stores carries their players for much cheaper than what you posted (499).
 
Well for me the clear winner so far is the HD/Blueray Combo Drive for $270 which is still to much IMO

Word. I am only going the hybrid route, no need to pay more for a single meduim and play this whole 50/50 game.
 
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