Looks like the main difference is the more expensive switch has a built-in equalizer and it comes with a remote. The EQ is used mainly for a sound system, providing different preset sound options. I didn't know a switchbox even had these in them.

It's now 3:00 pm eastern time and I'm patiently waiting at home for my player. They have until 4:30 to deliver it. I feel like I'm 5 years old waiting on Santa to bring Christmas presents.

My Infinity speakers are certainly not the best out there and my Onkyo is 5-6 years old so I mention that ahead of time. However, I have to agree with this. I really could not tell the difference between the 6-channel analog input and the DTS re-encoded audio. I switched it back and forth over the same segment of Phantom a few times and simply could not hear much difference other than the bass sounding lower through the analog input.. I know the audio through the analog should sound better and have better fidelity, but either my ears couldn't pick it up or my equipment isn't good enough to bring it out. I'm sticking with the ease of the digital hook up for now.

I'm going to pick up the 4X1 rotary switcher if they get them in stock. That way I can use my Denon, Toshiba and Samsung OTA HD receiver all through HDMI without messing with cables and have a slot open in case I pick up Blu-ray somewhere down the road. I don't know when I will upgrade my receiver so $60 for a switcher seems the best bet for now.

OneCall.com is showing the Toshiba HD-XA1 in stock for $799. I guess it's not delayed afterall. They are now out of stock on the HDA1.

The volume is much lower than most DVDs, and even after boosting your volume to compensate there is a lack of bass.

So much for counting on my player. For whatever reason, the fucking thing is at the local facility. I called and talked to the FedEx bitch rep from hell. She said she is showing that it is just now getting sorted and won't be available for delivery until Monday. fuuuuuuuck.

Sorry to hear that. We know how you feel. I think we've all had that happen where the tracking says it's out for delivery and it gets taken back to the facility. I swear it's because the driver took a 2 hour lunch.

After a few calls, I was able to get authorization from the shipper to allow me to pick up the player. I've had it up and running for about 20 minutes.

Quick thoughts....this is one big, heavy, clunky machine. You can tell this is the entry level player. It does take a bit to load, but that wasn't a major concern of mine. Once the movie is put in, it takes roughly 45 seconds to display any picture. When I loaded Last Samurai, the screen flickered a bit, as if it was "coughing". But it did display correctly. Before the menu appeard, there was a HD promo that looked absolutely incredible. It showed clips of the upcoming versions of Batman Begins and Dukes of Hazzard.

I like that the menu and other options are on the fly. If you select menu while the movie is playing, the standard selections rise from the bottom of the screen. From there, you can choose the features you want, change the sound, or pick another selection. Very interactive.

This "In-Movie Experience" that Warner has cooked up looks pretty neat. While the film plays, you can watch any feature you want. They had clips showing each feature heading with each featurette pertaining to that heading up on screen while Batman was fighting in the background. Then there was a small window showing Christian Bale talking about a certain scene that was playing in the background. I think they're headed in the right direction as far as HD features go.

Now to the movie. I've watch the first 25 minutes or so. I can definitely notice a difference from the standard 480i Last Samurai and the 1080i HD version on my Sony. I only have a 16:9 30", but I can notice enough of a difference that I feel I made a good purchase.

Obivously, those with 40" displays or higher will probably benefit a helluva lot more than me. I do plan on getting a new plasma by the end of the year, so I'm not concerned. The images are crystal clear and the colors are very vivid with lots of detail. The outdoor scenes looked simply gorgeous. The dark scenes lost a bit of detail, but in all the picture was solid.

The remote definitely has room for improvement. It's kind of hard to critique the unit itself because since dvd has been out for so long, we are accustomed to those players being thinner and with a faster response time. I'm sure in a year or so, they'll be making these things more compact and everything should start working easier.

I was unable to locate Serenity tonight. I wanted it so I could play a Universal disc. Last Samurai, along with the other 2 Warner titles, suffers from a bit of audio distortion. They have recognized this and will correct the problem with newer versions. I hope they offer replacements. The tracks default to DTS and the center speaker definitely sounds a bit muted. You have to crank up the volume alot more with these.

I have not tested out the upconversion of the player, but I'm not worried about that. I bought the unit to watch movies in high-definition, not upconversion.

I hope they'll offer some firmware upgrades for this unit. I suspect they will. I'll know better over a few days watching different discs how this unit performs, but just looking at it for a brief moment, I'm happy with the purchase. It does what it's supposed to do.

For me, I feel much better only investing $500 on a new technology as opposed to the $1000 that some will invest in for Blu-Ray.

Well after 6 days of having my HD-DVD player it will be going back. Too may problems when it comes to my SD DVDs. Few examples below:
1. Decoding is off most of the time. Even when I set the move to play in DTS or DD-ES. My home theater system is setup for 7.1 system.
2. HD-DVD were encoded too quite. This goes for all three that I purchased.
3. HDMI will not always pass the correct audio. I have to go and mess around with my receiver to make it change.
4. Never had this problem with the Pioneer Elite dv-59AVi.
5. Remote (as stated before) sucks some major ass. The lag is about .5 - .75 seconds, sometimes I push the button again thinking I missed the IR port and it skips ahead an additional chapter or whatever.
6. Several of my SD-dvds report errors after about 5-7 minutes of playing. Now I keep my disc in tip-top shape and can not understand this issue. Plays perfect in all my other dvds as i stated in another post.

I guess I will wait until version 2 comes out. I will hold on to my hd-dvds for the next one. I do plan on contacting Warner about the DVDs and try to get my money back due to the encoded being extreamly low.

Do you not have a regular DVD player?

If you're using a digital output, it's passing the exact same bits from a DVD as a standard DVD player. If the disc is 6.1, your receiver will accept it as 6.1. There's nothing an HD-DVD player will do differently here.

This was an acknowledged problem with the initial Warner Bros. launch titles, not a player problem. Future discs from Warners will be corrected, and discs from Universal are fine. Unless those three discs are the only HD-DVDs you ever plan to own, I don't see how this merits returning the player.

That's a consequence of the new HD-DVD audio formats, which were designed after your receiver was built. Going forward, new receivers will be designed with the HD audio formats in mind.

You also could never play High Definition from that model.

Program the codes into a universal remote. Problem solved.

I can understand his complaint in that regard, i know i sure don't want to have to have a separate DVD player hooked up to be able to watch regular DVD's.

I will continue to have my Onkyo player hooked up with my HD-A1. The reason is I know it handles all the Universal dvd-18 discs. I haven't tested any of those out in the HD-A1.

I have had zero issues playing regular DVDs on my HD-A1. The only thing I have noticed is that I can now see the layer change when watching regular DVDs, but not Hd-DVDs. I also taught the remote controls into my Onkyo remote and have had zero problems with the remote since.

I programed my universal learning remote and put the Toshiba one away. That solved all the issues I have had with the Toshiba. However, the discs errors TheKobra is getting are not normal and that player is defective in some way. I played at least 50 different DVDs on the Toshiba without getting any playback errors.

My receiver handles the DTS sound through digital and the 5.1 analog out fine so I have no worries there. Someday I may get a new receiver for Dolby TrueHD, but that is a very low priority right now.

I can't give any guarantees, but I did try a few known problem Universal DVD-18s in the Toshiba and didn't notice any problems. However, my Denon is not getting replaced. I know it can handle Universal DVD-18s with no issues, it has a bit better picture, it rarely shows a layer change and I use it frequently for SACDs. As long as the Toshiba can handle HD DVD I won't ask much else from it.

I think this is another case of buyer's regret setting in. I understand how it can be hard to justify $500 just to play a handful of discs. Blaming it on the player (which was pretty much debunked above) is just an excuse.

Well, yes, except that it isn't like these are the only discs that will ever be released. A lot more are coming over the next couple of months. Some big titles too, like Kong and Batman Begins and Harry Potter 4.

I'm going to bite and order myself one and had a question beforehand. my reciever is completely out of digital inputs but I do have multichannel in that I can use. would that be fine to use or should I pick up a digital input switcher? will I even notice any difference by using either one? I'm currently using the Pioneer vsx-1014 if it matters.

another thing, who here bought the HD-XA1 unit? I'm actually thinking about getting that one instead and was wondering if anyone has any experience with it?

I thought about it as the XA1 looks nicer, but after playing with the A1 for a few days I'm glad I didn't spend the extra cash at this point in time. I'm going to see what happens with HD-dvd's future and if the technology improves, load times and whatnot, before buying a more expensive player.

No buyers regret on my side. I paid $1250.00 for my Pioneer Elite DV-59AVi back in September and it has been rock solid and provides a better picture for SD-DVD (no not HD-DVDs). This also goes for my Panasonic RP91K I paid over $799.99 over 4 years ago. So, $500.00 on a DVD player to me is not that much. OK, maybe I can't blame it on the player, maybe its the disk (that is the HD-DVDs). Maybe they are not flagged correctly for DD-ES and DTS. But there are so may issues I have had with SD-DVDs. I even tested the play on both of my receives and no change. The receivers I am using are: Sony DA5ES and Pioneer Elite VSX-74TXVi.

You're actually better off using the 6-channel analog outputs. The new Dolby Digital Plus audio format requires too much bandwidth to be transmitted over Toslink or coaxial. It can only be transmitted in full resolution using HDMI or the analog outputs.

You will still get audio from the Toslink and coax outputs, though. The HD-A1 and XA1 decode the bitstream and then re-encode it as 1509 kb/s DTS. So, even though the disc has a Dolby track, your receiver accepts it as DTS. You lose a little something in the process, but it should at least sound as good as full-rate DTS on DVD does (hardly something to complain about).

Your audio output options in order from best to worst are:

- HDMI
- 5.1 analog
- Toslink/coax

You realize that not every movie has an EX/ES audio track, right? In fact, the vast majority of movie soundtracks are straight 5.1. Are you sure these same titles are EX/ES on DVD?

I thought it was just the Warner discs, but I'm having the same audio distortion with Serenity as well. My receiver is a JVC RX7000, 5.1 DD/DTS. Serenity is defaulting to DTS just like the other 3 titles and the sound is horrible on it. You can't make out what they're saying. As I mentioned in another thread, the talking sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher. The entire audio sounds distorted. I have my receiver hooked up via a coaxial cable. I'm guessing this may be the problem.

I have played regular dvds and they sound fine, so I don't think it's the receiver. Never had problems. But I'm guessing since these new HD-DVDs are using the Dolby Digital plus tracks, that my receiver "can't handle" it? I switched my receiver to PCM and it sounds fine with 2.0, but my surround sound is just awful.

Do I need a new receiver or is there a setting I can change or a different way of hooking it up? Or should I hook it up using the analog red/white slots? any help would be appreciated.

Im VERY impressed with the upconverting of SD DVDs with this player. So far, I think it upconverts better than my Oppo. I just cant get DL +Rs to work yet! All of my single layers work fine....just not the DL ones. Maybe I need to create them slightly differently??