AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

NYC has them in stock!!!

Ugh. Do i rush down now and snatch one up? They have about 2!

Which one, digitalfreak, the Chelsea store?

i'm not telling you. they all have 2 or 1...depending.

Yeah, go get one.

4 movies. Desperation is a terrible thing.

saw the players at Sears yesterday. They didn't have any of the movies though, oddly enough.

Thanks for the tip, freak. But don't bother going to the store to try to buy one.

After reading your post, I run down to the Chelsea Best Buy and track down a blueshirt in the home theater department. I ask him if he's got any Toshiba HD players in stock.

"No, we're sold out," he says.

"No you're not," I say. "I just spoke to a guy on the phone 5 minutes ago who says you have two in stock."

The sales clerk looks doubtful, but he begrudgingly checks the computer and, to his surprise, discovers there are, in fact, two players in stock.

"They're in the warehouse in the back - they just got here today - so let me go get one for you. I'll be right back."

Off he goes to fetch my player. I amble over to the HD display they've got set up - it's my first time checking out the demo, and am amazed by how good it looks - and I'm so excited, I forget all about the format war and potential obsolence and slow load times. Inside, I'm dancing a little jig.

While I'm waiting for the clerk to return (he seems to be taking an awfully long time) I peruse their scant HD-DVD selection and settle on "Serenity." I'm clutching the DVD in my hot little hands as the clerk returns - empty-handed.

"You're not gonna like this...." he begins. Cue the Debbie Downer wah-wah.

Turns out they do, in fact, have two players in stock. But they are not allowed to sell them until Sunday, because that is the day their weekly circular comes out, and they are advertising the Toshiba players in it for the first time, and the store has orders from corporate HQ to hang onto their players until then.

The guy is very apologetic, but he says this came directly from the manager and there's nothing he can do. Instead, he recommends that I show up early Sunday morning ("I'd come over at around 7 a.m. and wait by the door," he says) so I can buy the player then.

I argue that since the guy who I spoke to on the phone confirmed they had the players in stock, I should be allowed to buy one, but I can tell it's a lost cause. Dejected, I return the "Serenity" disc to the rack and walk out of the store, HD-DVD-less.

I will not, however, set foot inside a Best Buy ever again.

It is utterly ridiculous that stores keep pulling that kind of crap. It happened over and over again with the XBOX 360 and the weekly "relaunching" of product that they have in stock well before.

The store in Sterling, VA put theirs out ahead of the circular. I grabbed one this morning, FYI for those in the NoVA area.

This Sunday won't be the first time they have advertised the Toshiba in their weekly circular.

Rusty...thats awful!!!!!!If you realy want a HDA1 then be at Wal-Mart Sunday night!!!!!!I have spoken with the managers of 3 different stores and each told me that they had to have the floor diplay finished by Tuesday night...they are starting to set up the display at around 9:00pm Sunday night....I was told by the managers that they already have about 20 HDD1 each in the stock area that will be availible Sunday night..p.s this setup of the display is happening for all Wal-Marts......I thought I would let you know!

Dude...

I JUST got back from two different BB's. You were probably there when I was. Or you just left.

So I get there and the guy says, "I don't think we have them, let me check." I told him I just called and was told they had 2. He asks the guy who is unloading the trucks and he says very nastily "NO. We don't have them." And then my rep asks "are you sure?" And he yells "NO. None. We haven't gotten any in." And my rep said "Nope. we don't have any."
I said "uhhh...yeah you do. Your computer says otherwise." And he tells me..."well, there's nothing I can do." I said..."well how about you check your other stores for me." And he sighs HEAVILY and says "they're not going to have any either." And I said "well, your computer system says they do AND you do!"
After a lot of hassle, he gives me other people's phone #'s and tells me to call myself.

I went to the manager, who was very nice and apologized profusely. I told her that it was utter bullshit that I rushed there from Queens and called specifically to find out if they had them before I came. She went to the back to find out the story. Sure enough, same thing. They're going to have them in Sunday's circular and they are in route. They don't have them yet (which is a different story than you got).

Regardless, someone in best buy needs to be shot. Why the hell would they do that? I went to the one in Noho and they told me that corporate does it to build up demand. They want people to come into the store and find out that, nope, they don't have any.

I hate best buy.

Oh and one more thing...I'm not sure what to do at this point. I'm debating about holding off.

I brought 3 DL discs with me. Only ONE played on it. The two Verbatim's both gave me a "no disc found" but the Ritek played fine.

I'm not concerned about DL disc compatability, since I intend to keep my region-free Oppo. But after getting a look at what the HD-DVD image actually *looks* like, I REALLY want a player now. I just won't be getting it at Best Buy, dammit.

I just got back from best buy, i went to get a wireless router for my xbox 360, and as i was talking to the game section, they had the Toshiba HD-DVD player hooked up to a 1080p Westinghouse or whatever it is. Honestly, i was so unimpressed, i was shocked. It was playing a demo CD showing some landscapping with normal DVD and HD DVD side by side, and i swear VHS is better quality then what they used for normal DVD. Ontop of that, they had a bunch of movie demos and i saw some very grainy picture and nothing crisp and colorful. I was seriously disapointed. If i was a consumer looking at that, it would turn me off to it immediately.

Best Buy blows they always pull some stupid stunts with everything. I only go there because the store is only 2 minutes away from my house. Mostly I just buy stuff there I price match. and if i buy something from their stuff I just oder it online and pick it up in store. I was disapointed way too many times.

I wouldn't be shocked if they have their Blu-Ray setup the exact same way.

Hopefully by then a tv with 1080p input will be available, and a demo disc with nothing but amazing transfers will be sent out.

Of course, its most likely gonna suck lol

The westinghouse IS 1080p.

My best buy actually changed it when I saw it today. They had a new HD-DVD demo disc and it was set up for 1080i, which means someone must have found the remote.

Not me. This thing is going to be replacing my Malata. With a cable box, dvd recorder, receiver and laserdisc player already attached, I'm not keeping ANOTHER player there for no reason.

I was told this thing handled DL disc with no problems. Obviously that's not the case.

Rusty, just got this over at avsforum. Looks like we got screwed.

It upconverts to 1080p, it doesnt ACCEPT a 1080p signal (not like HD-DVD even has that), but theres a big difference from upconvert vs digital 100% stream.

I saw the demo for the first time today. You are right; some of the demos were grainy, b ut if you saw the King Kong trailer, or to a slightly lesser extent Corpse Bride or Batman, you'd be singing a different song.

I'm trying really really hard to wait till Blu-Ray hits in hopes that they bundle a couple movies with the players, but after today, it will be difficult.

Digitalfreak, I thought about hassling the manager at the Chelsea BB, but the demeanor of the salesguy I was dealing with made me feel like it would have been futile.

HOWEVER... late yesterday afternoon, I was walking by PC Richard in Union Square and vaguely remembered Toshiba had done their NYC demos last month in one of their stores. So I pop in on a whim and ask one of the salespeople if they had any of the players in stock.

He doesn't even know what I'm talking about (even retailers don't know about HD-DVD!) but he checks his computer and lo and behold....... they have an XA1 in stock.

After making sure the store has an open return/refund policy (I'm considering this more of a trial purchase than a final-sale kind of thing), I promptly snapped it up, walked over to CC next door and bought TLS and Apollo 13. Take that, Best Buy!

First impressions: I don't know if I was preconditioned to expect a nightmare after reading about all the troubles people have had with the player, but setting it up took me all of 15 minutes (the player's interface menu seemed incredibly simple and intuitive to me). Although the player DOES take a long time to power up, the actual loading time of a disc didn't seem all that excessive to me. Yes, it's slower than a regular player, but it's not THAT bad. And the remote works fine, no more or less sluggish than the cheapie remote on my Oppo (although I could see without backlighting, the A1 remote would be utterly useless in a darkened room).

The most important thing, though: The image on this thing is freaking *phenomenal.* The wow factor is tremendous. I used the HDMI connection on my 42" Sony plasma (oh, the irony!) and it is, without question, the sharpest, most beautifully detailed image I have ever seen on my set. No artifacts anywhere, zero aliasing, just a stunning, beautiful picture.

Have lots more tinkering/experimenting to do (including a full-on A/B comparison with my upscaling Oppo on regular DVDs) but my feeling right now is: This baby is never leaving my house.

Welcome to the HD DVD club Rusty ...What did you think about the audio?

Thanks, quickfire! I'm not the best person to evaluate audio right now, being an NYC apartment dweller with a VERY sensitive downstairs neighbor (this will change next month, after I move into a basement apartment with no one to bother below OR above me - smile-). But at my lowered listening volume with a 5.0 setup, the audio sounded terrific - rich and enveloping, with clear separations (I'm using a digital audio cable to connect to my receiver). During the thunderstorm sequence, my dog got spooked and scampered over to my side, so it certainly fooled her.