Toshiba HD-A1 - Got It - Looking good for X360

[Symtex]

I got a Toshiba HD-A1 last night. The only thing i can say is : Blu-ray what ?

First of all, I would like to say that I have HD Broadcast at home already, so when I purchased the HD-DVD, I was at least expecting the same level of quality.

Toshiba was grace enough to include component and HDMI cable with the player. Not bad quality cable either. After the initial TV hookup, I setup the player to retrieve the latest firmware update. Took around 30 min. On a side not, the player didn't want to accept a IP address from my router's DHCP. I had to setup everything manually.

I only bought 1 movie : Training Day with Densel Washington and Ethan Hawk. It took around 1minute after I put the disc in the tray before I get an image. Impatient, be advise, don't panic, just wait. The picture quality is even better then Discovery HD (video bitrate of 17.8mbps from by provider). The transfert is flawless. No grain, no artifact and very smooth. What impress me the most though, was the audio quality. The audio output of the player is a bit on the lower side, so crank up your system. Dolby Digital plus is not yet fully supported by the player so I had to set it up to DD 5.1.

While the movie is playing, you can bring up the menu and go the chapter selection, all of that without interrupting the movie. This is got to be on the best feature of HD-DVD. So the future is looking bright for X360. I understand why Microsoft has sided with HD-DVD. If the External drive is anything like the Toshiba, expect to see lots of post in the near future by satisfied customer.

You can play regular SD DVD and the upscaling is very good. insanely good. So if you are a movie fanatic (like me), forget about MPEG2, bad quality Blu-ray and do yourself a favor, get an HD-DVD.

[Dagless]

Sounds awesome! and thanks for joining the guinea pig club. I won't be investing until, well, they actually hit the UK. Unless they're being sold privately - my shops aren't stocking them yet.
Or I might just import. They're likely to cost a bomb over here. I hear there is little encryption to kick start the HD-DVD system, that true?

All I have left to say is.

Training Day

[xparaparafreakx]

Ill wait it out. I know im going to get a PS3 and Wii on release. 360 will be later when certain games get out, which then Ill think about the HD-DVD.

[coffey7]

Bluray is having a few problems. they demos look horrible at the stores and they are having a recall or something with their chips.

[Tommyg117]

I, like raggedjimmi, am not going to choose a side until I see what happens. I would love them both to succeed and have a combined player come out like the one speculated about on engadget.com.