I was only able to update to 1.4. Since I don't have any TrueHD movies yet, I think I'd rather wait for the official version. I just hope there isn't something with the RCA thats creating a problem updating.

But you still ordered it.... :-)

Wow. It really was a $10 price drop. (Amazon sells it for $449).

As per the punctuation rules, that was not worth four exclamation points. If anything, there was already a Toshiba A1 price thread.

You got me all excited for nothing.

Which wal-mart? I can't find any locally that have any HD-DVDs.

Yeah...but it gave jigga another excuse to be bitchy...

and don't we all just love that?

Sorry if I got everyone excited. Robert obviously pulled a fast one on a lot of us.

If I remember correctly, Wal-Marts are testing the HD waters either store by store or district by district. One store near me (in De.) had full stock of RCA players, HD DVD movies, and Blu-Ray movies (more than any other retailer). Another near me (in Md.) had no clue what the hell I was talking about.

Sample actual real responses to, "Do you have any HD DVDs in stock?"

"All our DVDs are HD."
"That doesn't exist."
"You mean Blu Ray?"
"We'll stock them when the Playstation 3 comes out."

So... keep looking.

Anyway, so what are the other "major announcements" in store for us?

Our local WM sells returned items as "open box" but they're still in the original box and taped up. I believe you can only return them if defective if you've opened it up again.

Well, if you were going to buy it from the retailer in question, a 20% price drop and a free movie is a pretty decent drop. But there may be better places to buy it from, or better reasons to buy elsewhere.

No doubt. They also have a free warranty as well.

I just feel bad for starting this thread and getting people REALLY excited over something that's good...but not great.

One thing is for sure...this will be your last chance to get the player at this price. It's not going to be dropping and the next-gen at this price point won't have the analog out for TrueHD.

So, let's hear more about these new announcments that you mentioned a few pages back.

I don't know much at all. I've just been talking to someone who seems to know about some pretty big things that will be happening in the next couple of months...i guess.

I honestly think that Toshiba and MS have this under control at this point. and I do believe that the add-on will be, at most, $199. I think it might even be less because they seriously want to do battle in Q4. The 2 G2 machines are a definite, though.

The Avon Walmart has HD DVD's, but not many. They have the HD-D1 for MSRP. The East Washington store has some too. and they have the RCA for $325.

Is this confirmed? Why are they dropping the analog outs? I hope that doesn't impact the studio support for TrueHD tracks.

It better. When they start 'tiering' things that's when things go to s**t. What's next? $299 for a player, $369 for player/motor, $439 for player/motor/laser?

If the technology was built around HDDVD's (HDMI, TrueHD, 1080P) then all players should have it. I don't like payng extra for something the equipment should have anyway.

The UK players that were just announced are (apparently) the same that we're getting in November. The lower priced model drops the analog out. It can still be passed (I believe) through HDMI. The higher priced model will have 1080p plus HDMI 1.3 amongst other things.

I'm sorry, but this sounds really bad, like a used car salesman even. "Buy these babies now before they're gone from the lot forever!" We still don't know what G2 will do. From the European players, the cheaper version gets rid of the analog outs. However, no American G2 players have been formally announced nor would we know what they may or may not have. American G2 players may have HDMI 1.3 but no analog. Who knows.

And, as this thread can testify, we need to take AVS "announcements" with a grain of salt.

And it has analog out, still.

wanna take a bet on it?

This is like first gen dvd players. Didn't they all have DD 5.1 decoders and analog outs? Now it's near impossible to find a low/mid end player with 5.1 analog outs.

Don't forget, 50 bucks add-on fee for the combo disk drive/cupholder.

I agree, but it seems like a semantic difference--they will support TrueHD, but only over HDMI [based on the speculation I've seen].
The surprising thing is the price of the current unit, even regular price; usually first-gen hardware is more expensive, and might have features that are later dropped, as the price drops as well. here, it's sounding like the G2 will be no cheaper than the G1, while losing some features [though not losing functionality, technically].
It's like this model is a bridge for people who don't have newer tech--I would guess many 'older' recievers have analog channel-ins, and of course don't have HDMI at all, much less 1.3; people with newer tvs or recievers, with HDMI, should wait till G2 and get the newer HDMI spec, and probably don't need the analog channels.
It sounds like the higher priced model of G2 will have 1080p [more a marketing benefit, from what I've read], HDMI 1.3, and analog outs; the lower model will have 1080p and HDmi 1.3, but no analog outs, possibly for about the same price as the current model.

digitalfreaknyc; I'm not seeing the free warranty, it looks like it's an add'l 39.99 [still reasonable, of course].

Most major brands had both verisions one with the decoder and analog outs, and one without. This was mainly becuase at the time a lot of receivers didn't have 5.1 processing built into them. I used to love trying to explain to customers that the more expensive one (with the decoder) wasn't better if they already had the processor in their receiver. Most didn't believe me and bought it anyway even though they were also buying a new receiver and an optical cable. I don't miss retail one bit...

Robert had mentioned it in the thread on AVS. I'm just going off of that.

And that is as it should be. Entry/mid level DVD player models have no use for multichannel analog audio out and decoders. The intended consumer for such models will not own a receiver with multichannel analog inputs. Why make them pay for something they will never use?

"Multi-tiered" models are, and always have been, the nature of this and every other consumer product industry. I'm not quite sure why this is an issue for anyone.

They have to have one or the other. Otherwise they are useless for audio.