The S7000 was my first DVD player, purchased a few months after its release. I loved it and still wish I had it for the coolness factor. It was also a pretty darn good CDP and a great transport.

Josh,

Well, I see that Tosh has promised to allow their player to output 1080p. Someday. That's point #1, and it's reduced a bit by that latest press release so good for Toshiba. 1080p is the killer app for either of these formats. They need to distinguish themselves from HD television, as DVD did over NTSC television and VHS. That isn't much difference, but it's all they've got besides ownership and convenience.

Dolby TrueHD: 2 channel only. Perhaps if nobody notices this format, it won't matter. Which is entirely possible, given the SACD/DVD-A fiasco.

5.1 analog output instead of 7.1. Are you kidding? So there is no way to play the new codecs (DTS-HD, DD+) natively? At all. Someday the HDMI will be able to output the full signal. And someday we will have a receiver that can decode it via HDMI. Begin holding breath.

I'm sorry. I'm not a Sony shill, I've been boycotting them for a couple years, now. (just picked up a PS1 since I'm sick of fighting with emulators and want to play some FF) But the Tosh HD-A1 could be the new definition of 1st gen screwups, taking over from the Pioneer DV-434 in the video disc world. If these specs are wrong or change last minute, great. I'll recant.

"Hello, Denon? Are you there? Hello?"

There are reports that 1080p will be supported via a firmware upgrade. This is a feature that not many people will be able to take advantage of anyway since most sets max out at 1080i.

As far as the 7.1, there will be new receivers hitting stores from now until the end of the year supporting HDMI connections for audio. It sucks there aren't 7.1, but is that worth another $500? To the person for whom money is no object or the person that has to have the best, there is a "high end" HD player with more features.

I still think it's crazy not to counter this unit with a comperable BR unit, even if it were "crippled" too.

For the bargain hunter or price conscious consumer, you can get a HD player and 13 or 14 discs for the same price as just the player for BR. Sort of a no-brainer to me.

Denon stated during CES thay have no plans at this time to do either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. They're going to let the market shake out a bit.

I wouldn't expect a unit from them until this X-Mas at the earliest.

fitprod

1080i/1080p is very misunderstood. I don't see 1080p as a "killer app". First of all, there are only a small handful of 1080p TVs on the market, and of those an even smaller number that can accept a 1080p input signal. The vast majority of HDTVs available are limited to 720p or 1080i.

Further, the 1080i output from an HD-DVD player can be deinterlaced to 1080p the same way that 480i DVD output can be deinterlaced to 480p, and if the data is stored on disc in 1080p24 format it will be easier to reconstruct the progressive frames accurately than it is with DVD now.

Blu-Ray is harping on 1080p like it will be their killer app while attempting to play down the fact that their discs will be mastered with MPEG2 compression for at least the first generation.

Both formats have small, frankly insignificant advantages and disadvantages over the other. I am certain that on a technical level they will both come out about even.

The next-gen audio formats are just as confused on the Blu-Ray side.

You're missing the point, and spreading false information.

The point is, the signal sent from Blu-Ray players doesn't have to be deinterlaced by the TV. It doesn't have to be processed (in the general sense) at all. Technically, you can have your 1080p signal go to your 1080p DLP HDTV and have a straight digital signal - the TV does nothing but display what the player sent. I mean, techically, I can buy a TV with 1080i natively, and have the TV upconvert my 480p DVD signal to 1080i, but it doesn't look as good as my upconverting DVD player sending a 1080i picture to it.

So yes, the TV will deinterlace, but for those looking for the ultimate viewing experience (read: early adopters), 1080i just doesn't cut it.

And as I already mentioned, Sony is the only company which has said they were using MPEG-2, so the other studios, such as WB or Paramount, will most likely use the codec they are using for HD-DVD. You can't say Blu-Ray is downplaying MPEG-2, because Sony is the only company which has said they are using it. Sony does not equal Blu-Ray.

And yet some of us do understand it, gimme a break. Look at DVD. It was a big hit for 2 main reasons. It was inexpensive/convenient. And it offered a clearly superior picture to other NTSC sources. Same goes for LP, CD, hard drives, etc. at their points in history. Without having seen them yet (tonight!), the specs say that high-rez discs offer almost nothing over ATSC broadcasts. And frankly, not all that much over DVD with a good conversion. The media is still good and should be inexpensive fairly soon, so that part is good. But without a reason to look at the new stuff, the masses will simply ignore it and 3 kinds of look-alike discs on the shelf at Walmart will just confuse the hell out of them.

The manufacturers better figure this out soon and play to it or they will have problems. And I'll just wait for 4K. The player I talked about seems like an April Fools joke, and Toshiba is going to bring out the REAL player soon. I keep waiting for a Nintendo-esque press release that says, "Gotcha!! All kidding aside, these are the real specs."

So you are saying that 1080p24, interlaced by a player, then de-interlaced by a TV will be just as good as passing through the progressive signal? That doesn't sound like you.

I think I've pointed out why that means Bluray is ahead right now, at least in the way they are handling themselves.

But I was only talking about one player in my previous post, not comparing the formats. As I tried to make clear. The biggest problem with both formats right now is that they aren't even out, yet. It's a waiting game to see which matures the best/fastest and which can gain the market's approval.

Good luck with that.

Studios don't want to support it and they're not even prepping for that type of release right now. I'd say that's at least 10-15 years down the road. No thank you.

Um. How exactly do "bargain hunters" buy on release day (aka bleeding edge) of a brand new format?

The first model Toshiba was around 400. I picked up an open box from Best Buy on 9/9/97 for like 325. The only Pioneer one I recall was a laser disc combo for $1000.

I have to agree that neither of these would stop me from buying an HD-DVD player and I definitely would pick the $500 low end player over the $1000 low end player from the competition and go home with the extra 14 movies instead. I don't have a 1080p television or the idea of even owning one in the next 2-3 years. I also don't have a 7.1 surround setup and have zero interest in owning one as a 5.1 setup works perfectly for me. I don't have a clue where I would even put a rear center channel. So there is definitely a market for the A1.

I will admit to being unimpressed with the playback of HD-DVD while viewing the demo they had in store at Bjorns, but will return to see the full demo Saturday the 1st before I pass judgement on that. The demo unit of the XA1 is really a tank and seems like a high quality build. If the A1 is that well constructed I consider it well worth $500 despite the 1080i and 5.1 limitations. Limitations that won't effect me probably for years.

The guy I talked with said the biggest concern is DVD playback. The Toshiba rep was very sketchy on how good DVDs are going to look when played back and really skirted the issue. They are worried that the DVD playback may be an afterthought and may end up looking like it does on low end Toshiba machines but again they are testing it at the demo when they have a finalized machine to test it on. That could be a knock for people looking for an all in one machine, especially if the A1 ends up having compatibility problems with certain DVD discs.

I notice you ignored the price consious part of my comment. A 1st gen HD player PLUS 13-14 discs at around $30 each = a 1st gen BR player.

All I'm saying is that if I am shopping, and have $1k to burn, I want the most bang for my buck. I could get a player and no software, or a player with lots of software. Which do I cose if I am not sucking on the Sony tailpipe? Of all the things BR is doing well, and all the ways HD is screwing the pooch, why can't the Sony zealots comprehend that a 100% difference in price is HUGE. Enourmous.

Also, if we are talking about early adopters, Josh, then 90+% of them don't have a 1080p set. 1080p will be more mainstream a few years from now, just as progressive scan took a few years to catch on with DVD. As long as the software can do it, even if it is on a later model player (even though you conveniently ignore that this will be a firmware upgrade) who cares?

Toshiba is using Penetration pricing. Nothing more.

You just contradicted yourself. By definition, something that is mainstream is not something an early adopter would be attacked to. By the time its mainstream, its no longer new.

Early adopters already have 1080p TVs. They exist and are being purchased by people who only want the best technology for their home theater. What makes you think that these same people are going to cry about $500 if it means having 1080p from day one? They just dropped $10,000 on a Ruby, now they want a movie format that is going to use that.

Well, it depends on how you're using the phrase "early adopters".

Early adopters in the sense of people who bought into HDTV early don't have 1080p sets because they didn't exist (and there are so few 1080p displays available now that actually accept 1080p input that they're not even a blip on the radar).

You have early adopters of 1080p, but that's a negligible percentage of the early adopters who are going to be buying into these formats on day one.

I agree with Qui Gon Jim -- 1080p-capable software is more important to me out of the gate than 1080p-capable hardware. Few people will be able to take advantage at this stage, and if 1080i-max keeps costs down, that's fine with me. Whatever player I buy now won't be the player I'm using 3 years from now anyway.

Absolutely. This is just like progressive scan DVD players. It was years before that became a big deal and the fact early players didn't support it was a non factor. The software supports 1080p and so will the hardware when both the sets and players are at reasonable prices for most consumers to want.

The success of either of these formats is going to be with winning over the biggest chunk of HDTV owners possible. Winning over the 1080p crowd at this point is going to have a very minor impact. Its basically like saying Beta was guaranteed to be the winner because it appealed to the people with the best quality TVs. For the majority of HDTV owners everything HD-DVD hardware offers is going to work perfectly so that $499 price point could be a big factor.

I think Sony's best chance at winning will be with their marketing campaign. If they can market the advantages of Blu-Ray correctly it may sway a majority of people that might not even realize those advantages don't really matter to them.

Ok. You keep going back and forth between worrying about now and worrying about 2 years from now. I always buy for the future when it is technology like this, since by the time you get something home from the store it's halfway to obsolete. I assume that I will keep a good player for several years, so I want it to match everything I intend to buy in that time. Plus, I already have 7.1 audio and have for years. That is where I am coming from. It just isn't a good buy, and neither are any of the announced BD players. The PS3 is the only thing that sounds like a halfway decent purchase of what has been announced so far, and that is mostly because it is a game machine.

If you have $1000 to burn, and want lots of software compatibility for your expenditure, I suggest following darkside and pick up a Denon 2910 and 13-14 SACD/DVD-A discs. It will almost certainly play all your DVDs better than whatever you have now, and make them look almost as good as HD. If you have a 720p TV or anything under 60", I doubt the difference will really matter to you. Ever. And it will give you far better audio than the HD-DVD player can. (because of software availability) Move up to BD/HD-DVD in a couple years, next time you have $1000 to burn, after the market has taken a direction and prices have come down.

Since people seem to know more about this than I do.

I have a HDTV that I bought fairly early so component inputs only and 1080i is the max resolution.

The Sony BD player will output 1080i thru the component from what I am reading.

Does the Toshiba HD player also do this? If not what is the max thru the component output?

Yes, but for both Blu-ray and HD-DVD, there's a flag on each title ('image constraint token') that can limit the output to standard definition from the component outputs. I don't know what companies, if any, are planning on using this feature at the moment.

I don't see how the HD-dvd players are far less crippled, yet. We have reports of normal 1st Gen bugs with drives from both camps. Bugs that have even surfaced regarding the drives to be used in the PS3. The BDP-1 won't have an internet connection, nor CD support.

As far as Audio goes we really don't know what is going on with the Sony player. I can't seem to find anything but conflicting reports about it. The answer for both formats seems to be, "buy a new HDMI 1.3 receiver when they come out".

Now MPEG2, high-rez audio and special features squeezed on one 25 GB disc makes me care about shelling out 1K for a Blu-Ray player now. Might as well wait until they switch to 50GB discs with a new codec. I assume this is going to happen in time anyway, as I still think either BR will win outright or the formats will do a dvd-/+ r merge in time.

Sony and Pioneer first-gen Blu-Ray players will not support Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD at all. They won't transmit these audio formats digitally, because the HDMI 1.3 spec won't be finalized when these players are being released, and neither Sony nor Pioneer will be including internal TrueHD or DTS-HD decoders for output over multi-channel analog connections. You'll have to wait until second-gen Blu-Ray players before there will be any compatibility with these new audio formats.

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-7UKKuH5...display=XL#Tab

Thanks for clearing that up. On that note, Samsung's BR player has been delayed until the end of June.

That's a sweet looking PS2. Wait?

Source?