Okay, since you think this is normal. What if your new TV took 1 minute and 15 seconds before you could see an image? What if your iPod took 1 minute and 15 seconds to power on and play the first song? What if your car took 1 minute and 15 seconds before you could drive?

CD players and DVD players have a history of taking just a couple seconds to power on and allow the CD or movie to play, so it's not outrageous for people to expect that a HD-DVD player to startup in a few seconds (let alone 1 minute and 15 seconds).

While we're on the topic of loadtimes, I picked up a 360 HD DVD player tonight and ran into a small snag. I was playing a disc, stopped playing it, removed it, and popped in a different disc. The player sat there on the main 360 dashboard, stating it was reading the disc, for what seemed to be over 2 minutes, and never actually loading the disc. I rebooted the 360 with the disc still in the HD DVD drive, and the same thing happened. However, after taking out the disc, shutting off the 360, restarting it, and reinserting the disc, it took around 15 seconds for the player to read and start the disc.

Now my question is, is there a proper way to always remove a disc/turn off this player? Or am I dealing with a problem here? Or maybe I'm just paranoid.

Hi all, having a hard time trying to get the firmware update on my A3. Ethernet is not recognized after following the configuration, and the CD route (burning it) says the disc is unplayable. Any advice or help I could get?

Did you burn the file as an image, or did you just burn it onto the disc as a standard data file? It has to be the former for the player to recognize it.

My new TV (Sony SXRD A2020 rear projection) does take time for the bulb to warm up and get to full brightness. My LCD rear projection does this as well. Why would you think that was unusual? My computer takes time to boot up. I sometimes warm up my car by starting it and then doing other things. I just don't see the big deal.

my projector takes about a minute to warm up and get to full brightness. it's not that uncommon for some consumer electronic devices to take more than a few seconds to get to a fully functioning state.

i have never seen any DVD player power on and play a DVD in 2 seconds. i think you're exaggerating the truth there to try and make a point. DVD players certainly load faster than HD DVD and Blu-ray players, but they also have far less to do than the hi-def players. a more complex system is likely to take longer to load.

It just doesn't bother me like it obviously does you. I am more bothered by forced trailers or PSAs that I cannot skip thru but even those don't prevent me from buying a dvd player or a certain movie. Does it for you?

It's just a product that takes time to warm up. I don't refuse to buy a toaster because it doesn't heat things instantly like my microwave nor do I whine about it.

I guess in this day and age everyone has to bitch about something. The small things don't bother me and I feel sorry for the people who are bothered by such things.

Read what's going on in the world and then come cry that an HD-dvd player takes a minute to warm up. Boo-hoo.

It's interesting that people here don't think that the boot time is an area that Toshiba should (or even can) improve.

I never said they can't or should improve on it, but it doesn't bother me as much as things like disc compatibility or improved features (1080p/24 on all players, etc.). It's all about prioritizing, and disc load time is close to the bottom of the list since it really isn't an issue to me.

I never said that. I definitely think they could and should improve this. I just don't let it bother me or consider it a breaking point to keep me away from HD-dvd as some do.

Frankly I would rather them fix not being able to stop playback and return to where you were in the movie when you stopped it. Now that is a pain in the ass. Does BR do this as well?

I'm a supporter of HD-DVD but I as well can point out the faults and acknowledge them. The loading time is inconveniant and Blu-Ray certainly has a point over HD-DVD on that. But yeah, it doesn't make or break a deal for me anyways. There's usually an old disc in there I need to swap out and I always put discs away before putting in the new one so, that gives me the time to go grab and open the case for the disc I need to put away. Then wallah, tray opens.

And yeah, my one true complaint is no continued playback from where you left off at, after you shut the power off.

I can't get playback where I left off even if I never turned off the power.

If I hit the stop button and then hit the play button, it starts the disc right back to the beginning (and I mean the copyright screen). Am I doing something wrong?

No, you're correct, does the same thing for me too. Should have worded that better. I'm at work so I wasn't really paying too much attention, heh. But yeah, that's fairly obnoxious.

from the research i've done, standalone blu-ray players also take a similar amount of time to boot up and load a disc. the only hi-def player that starts up and loads fast is the PS3, as far as i can tell. in that sense, the PS3 has a point over all other players, but Blu-ray in general does not necessarily have a point over HD DVD.

What's weird is that one of my systems (forget if it's the PS3 or the A1) will do this with DVDs, but not BDs/HD DVDs.

It's not the PS3. My PS3 will pick back up where it left off a BD. Likewise, my A2 will bookmark a Standard DVD (but obviously not an HD-DVD).

re: ps3, it only does that if you havent turned off the system.

The A1, and other HD DVD players I presume, will resume playing a SD DVD at the point where it was stopped even if the machine is turned off. Just hit the "play" button, as opposed to "on", and the player will start up and resume the DVD where it was stopped. Very handy for TV on DVD episodes.

Like many others here, my pet peeve is that one can't do this with HD DVDs. Even if they aren't authored that way, surely Toshiba could adjust the firmware to allow this regardless of flags on the discs. Perhaps someday there will be a hack to allow this function. What were they thinking when they came up with this fancy new format and didn't implement this basic function?

Well, I will tell you that doesn't work for me. I use a Harmony remote so I say watch HD DVD, and it turns on all my components at the same time..I guess I could fiddle with the settings a bit, but its annoying.

http://www.hddvd-blog.com/wal-mart198.jpg

Each Wal-Mart will be getting 18-30 and be available for purchase at all stores around November 3rd. BF deals are rumored from several Wal-Mart employees with a unique SKU.

Edit: A lot of AVSers are reporting seeing these arrive in huge quantity's.

8)

That's a lot of players! If they're that cheap here in Canada, I may get one for my brother!

Has there been any word to whether it will output 1080p?

Seeing as how the current 360 outputs 1080p, why wouldn't any future models also do so?

I thought there was some issue with the current HD-DVD add-on only outputting 1080i.

If the new 360 is 1080p capable and the price is reasonable then I'll probably buy.

Apparently you don't own the Sony BDP-300, which takes a good 15-20 seconds longer to boot up and load a disc than my A2 does. And that's not even including Blu-ray discs that have Java, which seem to take up to three minutes sometimes.