Hmm, I'm not sure about that but who knows. Heres what the senior director at Cinram had to say about this in June. If it only took them five minutes to set lines up before launch why would they build new ones at higher cost ???

"Dominick Dalla Verde, senior director of pre-production at Cinram, a Toronto-based DVD replication company, said his company has produced 1 million HD-DVD discs, including five playable discs that were unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January.

He said standard DVD replication lines can be switched to produce HD-DVD discs in “five minutes,” with cycle times needed to transfer content to a 30GB disc in less than four seconds." --- Home Media Retailing

Hey dave, what is your firmware, and how do you have it connected to the projector? I would highly recommend download firmware 2.0.

HDMI hookup, no idea what my firmware is. How do I know and how do I upgrade?

go into maintenance and then "update." it's the first two numbers (probably 1.4).

I'll do that. And this is without a doubt the most worthless remote control I have ever owned. I have a flashlight next to it so I can see what the buttons are.

Have 1.4 and am updating now. How long does that generally take?

I believe he was refering to an DVD/HD DVD hybrid line which was purchased from Toshiba. It can indeed be switched from one type of production to the other in just minutes. The re-tooling which was speculated to cost around $150,000 per line never happened to my knowledge. It's all new lines.

VUP ERROR 121



Cannot find out server.

when you go into the ethernet section, make sure you confirm all of your addressses and there are no zeros in there. Otherwise, ya ain't gonna be able to connect.

I have not read this stuff at all, anywhere. There was an interview just the other day with a Tosh media engineer, and he said that lines require little alteration and can be switched back and forth.

I think it is just so funny that some people defend BD to the death even when no one is saying anything bad about it.

My point in talking about BD production runs has nothing at all to do with final MSRPs, or the line's productivity. It is a fact that right now, a BD costs more per unit to produce than an HD-DVD. Now as more BD lines come on, and as those existing lines churn out more product, that larger cost diminishes.

So for the short term, if Sony wants the other studios to us BD, even in a world where both formats are dead equal, they have much more to lose from dual format catching on as the defacto standard like DVD+-R did. They need to get to that point BD's lifecycle where there is not a huge difference in production investment.

Even if we talk new HD lines vs. new BD lines, HD STILL comes out cheaper, AND can be reverse converted to a standard, profitable DVD line if HD-DVD is a lemon in the marketplace. Every BD line is a lost investment if BD goes bust.

While I agree with some of what you've writen, I'm certain I read that lines were not being re-tooled in practice. I'm sorry that you've not read this as well, it was posted many times and discussed extensively in one of AVS's great HiDef News threads. Alex would be the guy to go to on this, but unfortunately he's taking a backseat these days. The comments from the Tosh engineer with regard to DVD forum votes don't inspire confidence in his overall accuracy.

Is it really so difficult to accept the possibility that the HD DVD discs are cheaper to produce right now, but have only been made on new (hybrid) lines? That doesn't alter the fact they're currently cheaper to produce, it just means the lines haven't been re-tooled in the way they were speculated to be.

If this is true, I'm sure it has little to do with the cost or difficulty of retooling their lines. More likely, the studios simply don't want to slow down current DVD production. HD DVDs are seen as a new line of business, and rather than make sacrifices to the old business (which is still going strong) it's in their best interest to simply build a new facility.

IMDB's Top 250 Per Format

If you put any weight into IMDB's Top 250 being a list of great movies, you might wonder how that breaks into formats. I decided to look into it: 75% of the titles are or may be available on Blu-Ray, 44% are or may be available on HD-DVD.

I also weighted the information. For example, if Buddy Cop Picture 3 is in the Top 250 with a score of 8.0 and 100,000 votes and Obscure Finnish Drama has a score of 9.0 with 10,000 votes, the scores are weighted like this:

Weighted Ranking = # of Votes × Score ÷ 1000

This gives huge movies like Buddy Cop Picture 3 a huge advantage over Obscure Finnish Film. Hence, DVDs share is much lower in this next-gen battle, as most big studios (and big movies) have picked sides.

Thanks Bus. Thats a great chart. It does make me more confident in my decision to hold off a few months before buyiong into a format.

Damn, Obscure Finnish Drama is my favorite movie.

Eh, I thought the middle of the movie dragged out too much. The payoff was great at the end, but I was sooo bored in the middle.

Okay, I need to do this. Now for the question from a guy much less a nerd that he thought. How/where do I find all the addresses? Also, so that I can do this in one shot, could you walk me through this in terms of what needs to be selected etc?

Thanks much. I believe I will be doing Pitch Black tonight. Maybe Unforgiven, though, as it has lots of light scenes that I think will show off the HD quite well.

edit - Why don't they have a download that you can burn to a disc? They make you wait for them to send you one....that seems retarded and spendy on their end.

I just got my A1 yesterday as well. I set output to 720p since that's my projector's native resolution and couldn't beleive how bad it looked. Set it to 1080i and it looks great -- looks like the Panny AE900 is a better scaler than the A1!

Is there supposed to be a pic quality improvement w/ the firmware upgrade?

Yes.

I also had a problem with Serenity being too dark on the A1. Turned out that the port I was using (DVI) needed different calibration from the one I was using with my DVD player (component). I used VE (no, I don't have DVE or Avia yet) to calibrate my display and the problem was solved (needed a higher brightness setting, which is the black level). I would suggest calibrating your projector, if you haven't already done so.

You probably know this but I'll mention it anyway: even though you are using a 720p projector, you need to use 1080i output from the A1, if you have firmware 1.4 or earlier. The 720p scaling bug wasn't fixed until firmware 2.0 from what I have read. Since you are in the process of installing 2.0, the problem should be moot for you.

Cool. We're on the same page then. I also agree with Josh that if there are new lines rather than converted lines it is because they don't want to sacrifice profitable DVD fabrication for a relatively unproven format.

Also, that pie chart is noce, but it really means nothing in the here and now. It means a lot in the "potential" world where most die hard BDers make their home. Right now, there is a greater variety of films available on HD-DVD, and if the sales continue to surpass BD, then those studios not embracing HD will. What you'll then have is huge chart with a small piece for pro HD/anti BD, a small piece for pro BD/anti HD, and a huge chunk format agnostic.

It is quite possible I am set to 720p. I don't know what the factory setting was, and I don't remember changing it.

Anyway, what are the DNS settings, etc. and how do I find my address for the updates?

I had a huge problem with this a while ago.

Make sure your cable modem (I'm assuming that's what you're using) is completely unplugged when you connect the Toshie to it. Once you do that, turn the power on for the modem. Then turn the Toshie's power on. When you go to the Ethernet option in setup, you should see #'s in each of the address fields. It should automatically pick up your addresses. Hit confirm twice and they should stay there. If not, you have a problem.

Once that's done, just go to maintenance and update. Then click setup to start downloading the new firmware. Then click "ok." And it should start.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Thanks much.

Did it work?