I got a 6' HDMI to DVI cable from monoprice.com for just over $20 shipped and it works great.

Someone probably thought, "Hey, these things are going like hotcakes, let's raise the price!"

yup...

Yes, I got a six foot HDMI/DVI cable from Monoprice.com also: $18.69 shipped. The prices of such things in local stores were surprisingly high. They may not make much on consumer electronic equipment or DVDs, but they sure rake it in on accessories like cables...

In the interest of completion, and to give perhaps YOU something to read while sipping your coffee in the morning, I'd like to relay my first impressions of my Toshiba HD-A1.

HD-DVD:

Meh.

Yes I can see the difference, and I can appreciate that. But is it REALLY worth the new big TV, the new player, and buying our DVD collections all over again? I don't know. The jury is still out with just two days of deliberations.

I have spent time with "The Searchers", "Terminator III", and "Syriana", 3 transfers that make 'Tier 2' on the quality scale over at AVS. Maybe when I get my hands on a 'Tier 1' disc I'll shit my pants.

It looks good, don't get me wrong. But one wonders if the jump from Standard Def DVD to Hi-Def DVD can be equated with going from Windows 2000 to Windows Me....or....Windows 3.1 to Windows 95?

If we had waited out standard def just 4.5 years longer to 2010 would we have REALLY then had a leap in visual technology? I'm thinking, "Just maybe."


Standard Def DVD:

Holy crap!

I've been a happy Oppo owner for several months, enjoying what it did with my standard def DVDs on my 46" widescreen HDTV. When I first got the Oppo, I tweaked it thru the TV with a Video Essentials DVD, then with "Revenge of the Sith." More to the point, with the opening space battle. Darks, lights, oranges, blues, it was all there.

The Oppo seemed to really make the darks dark. I got it the best I could, but it seemed the darks were really dark. Case in point, the very first image in "Revenge of the Sith" after the crawl and the pan down on the star field is a large capitol ship hovering in front of the large globe of the planet Coruscant. The ship facing the planet was well lit and the image the Oppo gave me seemed fine.

The side of the ship away from the planet was not lit, and the Oppo displayed that as a pure black triangle with perhaps some white dots here and there. Try as I might, I could not get it to look right for I knew that must have not been the way it was supposed to look. If I turned up the brightness, then the brights on the screen bloomed big time. So I left it like it was. I wondered if I was experiencing 'black crush.' I still wonder, I don't know.

With the HD-A1, looking at the same scene, of the same movie, on the same DVD, the ship had detail! The side facing away from the planet had detail, and pipes, and pieces, and structure. I could see it!

It looked good. Really good.

I can't wait to do a SD vs. HD comparison with "Terminator III" and see just what I'm getting with HD-DVD.

I can say this, though. I will definitely enjoy my Standard Def DVD’s more with this player.

From all accounts, the SD upconverted and the HD of Terminator 3 aren't so far apart.

The Searchers is considered "Tier 2"? I was under the impression everyone thought it looked incredible, especially for a 50 year-old film. I had no complaints with the transfer.

Take a look at Batman Begins or Seabiscuit and then we'll see if you're still saying "meh".

The "tier" system at AVS is, in my opinion, fairly useless. The Searchers has one of the best HD transfers to date.

I would agree with this. I like the movie, but the visuals did not blow me away at all. I heard that was the case before I bought it, but I decide to buy films that I enjoy not just eye candy.

Absolutely 100% worth every penny I spent for HD-DVD and my HDTV. My Pioneer PDP5060 is simply stunning and I have never been so happy with a TV purchase before. As for my HD-DVD A1 player, same thing could be said. I have never been as satisfied with quality as I am right now. I am someone who is all about visual quality. I shun 35-mm photography and lug around huge 4x5 and 8x10 cameras so I can get the very best detail from my photography. My cameras cost around 5.000.00, my lenses cost around 3000.00k each & my digital back for my 4x5 was 29k. Quality costs money and the higher you go up in quality the more money it costs. For someone like me this upgrade was a no brainer and I absolutely am thrilled with the difference in quality.

Now with that being said you have to understand just what films are going to show the greatest improvement with this technology and not expect too much from certain transfers. This has been a serious problem with some of the initial reviews for some of the HD-DVD's released. The reviewers just didn't understand the background details on the film being transfered thus they didn't have the knowledge to accurately predict and thus accurately review the said transfer.

Take the Sleepy Hollow and Pitch Black transfers. You can find multiple reviews that are thrown way off base simply because of the fact that the reviewers simply didn't realize that these films were cross processed thus giving very wacked out colors, super saturated blacks and grain. Sleepy Hollow is one of the best transfers to date over the standard definition version yet you will find a lot of reviews that are harsh on it because the image is soft and it doesn't look like the Aeon Flux or Sahara transfer, as if every transfer should look like those. Absolutely ridiculous, The film is supposed to have a soft feel to it and it was done on purpose by the director. HD-DVD should not change the directors vision of the look of a film period and to do so would be changing the film in ways that a player is just not meant to. Do a side by side comparison of Sleepy Hollow and you will see a huge difference in the soft rendition of the film. Sharpness is not the only thing improved by HD-DVD.

Anyways I have posted about this topic before and will continue to bring it up where applicable. People need to have a realistic understanding of how films will be effected by an HD upgrade and that changes on a film by film basis. Not every film is supposed to be super razor sharp. Not every film is supposed to have vivid colors, not every film is supposed to have great contrast ratio. The sooner people realize this and the sooner they educate themselves on a particular film before judging it, the better off the HD formats will be as we will really start to get solid reviews of HD transfer from a bunch of different sources. As is there are only a small percentage that actually show they know what they are talking about in a review and not just recycling words from the previous 100 reviews they have given.

Your HD-DVD player was 350.00, I paid 800 for my first DVD player. HD-DVD movie prices are slightly more expensive than standard DVD but a very nominal difference. If 350 bucks for a player plus a couple bucks extra per movie isn't worth the difference between these 2 formats then by all means stop what your doing and list it on eBay. You wont have to rebuy anything in your DVD collection and you will be able to continue buying SD DVD for many many many years to come. Sometimes people act like they are forced to buy into something when they are clearly not. SD DVD will be around for a very long time and if anyone in this forum is unhappy with this upgrade then just stop, its that simple. Again as for me, its worth every penny and I will be replacing every single disc I own, if possible, without even the slightest bit of contempt. I love high quality images and if I can spend over 25k on my camera hookup, I can certainly pay a couple grand for my home entertainment system.

PS...

Agreed. And I enjoyed the IME on T3 as well. If you like the movie, the disc is worth it just for the dream sequence of the future that John Connor has.

Yup,

That was a great scene. I bielve they mention the possibility of a T4 in the IME. I hope they make it.

I would love to see a Terminator 4. It is one of the few hollywood projects that I firmly belive still has a lot of story potential left in it. Just goes to show how great the original story line was. As for the transfer, I was completly happy with it. A 16:9 Super 35 is not going to have the super visuals that alot of other titles have. I still found it to be a substantial improvment over the SD disc.

As for the terminator series, I really think we need a full movie dedicated to the future realm that we have been so tantalized with by small segments in the first 3 movies. An expensive proposition, but if done properly one that would without a doubt make back the money spent. We can certainly hope.

PS..

Oh yeah I was never a T3 basher. I thought it was great. Bring on the T4.

One thing I had in mind when deciding to go HD-DVD was focusing on the new films, as I would guess they would "look better" as HD than their catalog counterparts.

The only DVD's that I would really want to replace (rebuy) are the giant tentpole films (Star Wars, Matrix, Indian Jones, Superman, etc) and personal favorites, if they ever got released (Dark City, Always, Garden State, Moulin Rouge, Bound, Boxing Helena, etc). Maybe at most 50-60 rebuys.

The majority of HD-DVD's I plan to purchase/rent/watch are new films from 2006 on.

I am however wrapped up in trying to get the 5.1 analog to drive my subwoofer. I have seen plenty of discussion about that problem here and elsewhere, and have tried a few things and nothing will get the sub to work, except for plugging the sub directly into the player, but that's not correct or safe I would guess.

Check out Grand Prix. That one should surprise you.