You will need a 5.1 system to enjoy any of the new audio codecs-DD+, TrueHD, DTS HD-MA. you should be able to get 2 channel sound, but not at the same quality as if you had an HDMI apable reciever.

Sorry if this question has been asked, but I didn't see it (and I read all the posts):

I don't have a HDTV or either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player, yet. I'm actually looking to buy both in the next week or so (look for my post, asking for suggestions for both!). The question: Do either discs support standard DVD players? I thought I heard/read somewhere that HD-DVDs are double-sided, so the discs can be played in either a standard or HD DVD player, one side for one format, and the other for...well, the other.

Thanks!
Steve

Blu-ray does not.

HD DVD can, but the amount of combo disc is limited, and only two studios are using them, Universal and Warner Brothers. Most of these title are limited to new Day and Date titles, such as 300, Hot Fuzz and TMNT.

Catalog titles such as Out for Justice, Bourne Identity, Shawn of the Dead and the like can only be played in HD DVD players.

To find out which titles are HD DVD / DVD combos, check out Grubert's thread here: Release Calandar 2007

It's a little tedious with the codes, but it is the simplist way to find out the info.

fitprod

I have the A2 Toshiba. I have both the HDMI & component cables going at the same time. Is that ok??. I have a 50 inch LCD Hitachi model from 2005

Thanks!

Does any Blu-ray player play all-region DVDs? If not, is there an upconverting all-region DVD player?

same thing i've been wondering...

No it does not. The Oppo does upconvert and is region free.

Sorry if its been asked, but i've noticed most HD/BR's that say 2.35 do not fit the full screen on my 32" LCD. However there are some that say they are 2.35 (Crank) and they fill up the entire screen (i didnt have the fill option or anything).

What makes for the difference in the 2.35, or was Crank actually 1.78?

The packaging for Crank is mislabeled. The movie is actually 1.78:1. Hulk on HD DVD is similarly mislabled.

2.35:1 movies will not fill your 1.78:1 TV, because 2.35:1 and 1.78:1 are not the same number. Read here:

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...rs_Go_Away/764

Ok, so I understand that by owning a 50" 720p Sony set my picture quality will look much better than SD, and that the difference between 720p and 1080p on a set 60" or smaller is negligible at best when viewing from at least 10 feet away.

My question now is: I have a Sony out-of-the-box home theater that sounds great, but will I notice any improvements in this dept. based on Blu-ray/HD audio? It's only hooked up through a coax cable since it doesn't have an HDMI input. I'm not a total audiophile, but an marked improvement would be a little more of a selling point.

^Short answer: No, you won't get much, if any, improvement in audio quality with such a system.

Why? Using coax or Toslink optical cables to connect the player to the receiver will require the player to convert the lossless audio (if the disc has it) to something that will fit over that S/PDIF connection. In the case of HD DVD players, the audio is converted to 1.5 Mbps DTS. I believe that Blu-ray Disc players do much the same thing. The reason for this is that S/PDIF audio connections don't have the bandwidth for full lossless audio, unlike HDMI.

Assuming that your Sony receiver can decode DTS, the HD disc audio should sound as good or a bit better than the best SD DVDs now.

If your receiver has six channel analog inputs, and you buy an HD player that has six channel analog output, you could use that for lossless sound.

BUT, my guess is that with a "Home-Theater-in-a-Box" speaker system, such as you say you have, you will be hard-pressed to tell the difference between lossless and converted audio anyway, if you did a properly controlled study. However, if you are pleased with the sound of your system now with DVDs, you should continue to be pleased with the sound of HD DVD or BD.

[One technical note: the entry level HD DVD player, the HD-A2, does not have a coax S/PDIF audio output, just the optical Toslink one. I assume that your receiver has both; if not, you need to be aware of this.]

Does anyone know if both BD and HD-DVD will feature region free coding? As a Briton living in the US it's a constant struggle to find British DVDs here and whenever I change my DVD player I always have to hope that I can remove the region coding from it so I can play my British discs. I heard that HD-DVD only uses region 0 (so far) so it will presumably work with discs bought in any region, but I don't know about Blu-Ray.

Also, if Blu-Ray is region specific, will it be possible to find ways to remove the region coding (as it is with regular DVD players)?

I asked these questions in another thread but got no responses (not even from Josh Z ). Anyone?

I just got my A2 as well and put on 300 & TMNT. They have a choice of a DD+ track or a DDTrueHD. Both say 5.1. So what makes them different?

I have a Denon AVR-1803 and it is set up for 7.1. It really only decodes 6.1 tracks but it matrixes' in the two back speakers together. I have the A2 hooked up optically.

Anyway, it decodes the tracks as 5.1 as it should and does a DD Matrix to make it 7.1. I noticed that the surround use on the two back speakers is mild as usual using the DD+ track but it is heavily pronounced using the TrueHD track. I am just mainly curious what makes the two tracks different and if I have to hook my system up any different acheive the best sound short of getting a new receiver at this time.

I have read that the Lossless tracks have to be done by HDMI and not optical, correct? Granted I don't have a disc with that feature yet but I wanted to make sure I was using the TrueHD track as it should?

Some other quick questions/clarifications:

Enhanced Black Level: On/Off - anyone use it and do I need it?

Picture Mode - why is this choice even needed? Why would you manually have to choose between Video or Film? Just curious.

Dynamic Range Control: Auto/On/Off. I have mine set to Auto but reading the description in the manual I was wondering if I need this on at all?

Dialogue Enhancement: On/Off. I have this set to off but was wondering if any of you use it and why is it necessary.

Maintenance - Update (Firmware). In the manual it states that "if no update is available a message will note this and the process will terminate." I did a firmware update via ethernet and after it was done it states in that box "2.2/T22T." (before the update it stated 1.3 or something) Now is that 2.2 message stating the firmware I currently have or is that a new update I need? When I tried to update again it said the machine was already updated with that info. Kinda clear on screen but not really clear in the manual. Just wanted to double-check.

Oh...and something the manual does not tell you that I went thru several times before I found this posted on the net somewhere...after setting up your ethernet connection you have to power down the system and then power it back up to do the update. It mentions this no where in the manual that the player has to "reboot" before it will accept the update. It just keep giving me a message stating "Cannot find server" or something like that until I powered it off & on. May save a few new guys a minor headache.

Thanks.

ps. So far I am loving the HD player. Very easy to hook up & the picture looks fantastic even through component at 1080i. TMNT is probably one of the best looking pictures I have ever seen. 300 appears grainy in areas but I figured that was on purpose. The Fountain doesn't appear to have a perfect picture (especially in normal settings such as the hospital scenes) but the futuristic scenes look near perfect.

The DD+ track is a lossy compression codec, and TrueHD is a lossless codec. Both are the same 5.1 mix. In technical terms, TrueHD is better, but whether it makes an actual audible difference depends on a lot of variables.

To get either track in its full quality, you need to connect your player to a receiver by either HDMI or 5.1 analog. If you use a Toslink or coaxial connection, both tracks will be downgraded to standard DD 5.1 quality.

Theoretically, this shouldn't have any effect on Component or HDMI. If you try it both ways and do see a difference, 'On' is probably preferable. In either case, you should calibrate your TV with Digital Video Essentials.

This has to do with the deinterlacing and upconversion of standard DVDs. "Auto" is your best setting there.

You should turn it off, unless you're watching late at night and want to lessen the volume of explosions in relation to dialogue. This is equivalent to the "Dolby Digital Night" mode on your receiver.

Turn this off as well.

That box tells you what firmware is currently installed. 2.2 is the most recent firmware for the A2, so you are all set for now.

300 is grainy on purpose. The grain was actually added digitally in post-production.

HD DVD has no region coding and no NTSC/PAL compatibility issues. Any HD DVD from any country will play in any HD DVD player.

Blu-ray does have region coding, but it's less restrictive than regular DVD. There are fewer regions, and generally speaking most studios don't region code catalog titles (just new releases).

Thanks for the response Josh. Knew I could count on you.

Samsung 1080p (4661F) vs. Samsung 720p (4642H) - viewing about 8-9' away, will there be much of a difference viewing HD DVD & BRD? Have neither the TV or the players yet, just trying to decide on the TV first. The 1080p set is about $490 more.

Worth it? (I know there's a lot variables in answering that question, but in your quick opinion)

Personally I would recommend the 1080p if you can afford it. Why buy tech that's already outdated? Also, do you know if the 720p display can even accept a 1080p signal? I know a lot of 720 displays that only accept signals up to 1080i. That, to me, would be a major downside.

Goop point. Buy 720p and upgrade in 4 years, or buy 1080p for $500 more and upgrade in 6 or 7 years (or whatever time frame you want to put on it).

I have the Optoma HD70 projector. I use it to play the X-Box360 on it. Hadn't really thought too much about upgrading to Hi-Def yet, but with that Best Buy deal this week, I was considering it. However, if my projector only does 720p, then I'm not going to see the difference with an HD upgrade, correct? Thanks in advance.

I'm considering the Toshiba HD-A2, and just want to ask a quick question for clarification: will this play DVDs from any region, or only HD DVDs from any region. Thanks!

HD-DVDs have no region coding. The A2 will only play Region 1 SDs. At this time, there is no known HD-DVD player that can be made region free for SDs.

are the players now like the standard dvd players years ago, i.e. in order for me to get DTS capability both the player and the reciever need to be DTS capable.So if I want TrueHD both the player and reciever need to be capable of that?

^Generally no. All HD DVD players and some Blu-ray Disc players can decode TrueHD and send it to the receiver as PCM, if the receiver has an HDMI input. Some Blu-ray Discs use PCM for lossless sound, so the players can send that to a receiver if it has HDMI.

Some players can send the decoded audio as six channel analog; this works with older receivers that don't have HDMI capability (most HT receivers have six channel analog inputs).

Because the optical S/PDIF connection doesn't have the bandwidth to handle lossless audio, TrueHD gets downconverted to DTS or DD (depending on the player) and sent to the receiver as a bitstream for decoding by the receiver. Such downconverted audio should sound as good as, or a bit better than, regular DVD audio.

There are a few players that can send Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD-MA as bitstreams to receivers — again via HDMI — but there are very few receivers thus far that are equipped to decode those formats. That's why the players generally can do the decoding for TrueHD (and eventually DTS-HD-MA via firmware updates, we hope). The player manufacturers realized that receivers weren't ready to handle the new audio formats so they came up with the onboard decoding.

You certainly will see the difference! While it may not be quite as detailed as 1080p, 720p is just fine.