Hd-a2 $98.87

[Sxotty]

Well it is below $100.00 we shall see what actually happens if anything.
http://holiday.ri-walmart.com/?sect...=wmall&utm_medium=all&utm_campaign=holidaygif

Supposedly BB had it for <100 as well.

At those kind of prices I am finally getting tempted to jump into the maelstrom. Heck even just for upscaling DVDs it would be nice.

 

[Geo]

Yeah, but saw another report on a local forum that our Walmart close to us is not one of those "not all stores". And the Best Buy internet site did show that price, but also Out of Stock.

Very nice price, but also only 720p/1080i.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Black Friday is still three weeks away, but Wal-Mart has decided to bring the hammer down on its HD DVD player prices a bit early. Last week, we covered the company's plans to begin selling Toshiba HD-A2 players at $198, which prompted similar price cuts from Circuit City and Best Buy. Five days later, Wal-Mart has announced plans to offer a limited number of HD-A2 HD DVD players for $98 on Friday morning. The move may be an attempt to clear inventory—rumor has it that Sears will begin selling Toshiba's current HD-A3 for $169 on Black Friday, and there's little doubt that Wal-Mart will want to match or beat that price.

From the Ars article, which me buddy Jack Deth posted about here.

Looks like they're clearing stock for the A3 player which will be $169, still a good price.

 

[Skrying]

720P/1080i is far from a major issue at this price, if you have a 1080P set then you have enough to pay for a higher end player. This is much more attractive to those who buy the 1366x768 panels at Wal-Mart and such.

 

[Geo]

Looks like they're clearing stock for the A3 player which will be $169, still a good price.

The A3 is 720p/1080i as well. Does anyone know what improvements over the A2 it's bringing to the party to earn that gaudy +1 model upgrade?

720P/1080i is far from a major issue at this price

I was being selfish, as it would be a consideration for me personally, even tho we only own 720p TVs (2) so far. Tho if I didn't have to work too hard to find it (which the fact that I was forum hunting on local avail would suggest they had my interest) I still might possibly consider it at that price. It is a fabulous price after all.

 

[AlphaWolf]

The A3 is 720p/1080i as well. Does anyone know what improvements over the A2 it's bringing to the party to earn that gaudy +1 model upgrade?

Looking at the specs on toshibas site it seems like it has different decoder 12bit 148Khz from the a2s 11bit/216Khz.

Twin Disc is now listed as a playable format.

There also seems to be firmware upgrade via internet listed, for a3 but not a2 but I think A2 had that anyway.

The a3 unit is also slightly smaller. (probably not enough to be immediately noticeable, its 1/4" less h, and 2/3" less depth).

 

[Ty]

If you do a search on AVS forums for the difference, you'll see that the A3 isn't much of an improvement if at all. It's considered a downgrade in terms of audio. One user who claims to have both, says his A3 takes longer to boot but I don't know which firmware he was using.

 

[Sxotty]

I am not going to buy one, I still have a SD TV...I just saw this and was like arg... and a 50" Plasma <$1000 as well even though it is 720p...

Must restrain spending... Must get 1080p display...

Just thought some other soul might not have the restraint and might want to jump in

I thought some Toshiba player was supposed to have a superb upscaler, but I guess this one isn't it.

 

[RobertR1]

Yeah, but saw another report on a local forum that our Walmart close to us is not one of those "not all stores". And the Best Buy internet site did show that price, but also Out of Stock.

Very nice price, but also only 720p/1080i.

The source is 1080p, thus the 1080i frames will be handed to your TV from which it'll reproduce the proper 1080P image. If your TV can't do that function properly, ouch....

Example. Hooking up a HD-A2 at 1080i to a 1080p set and hooking up a HD-A20 to a 1080p set will produce the same exact image. Static and in motion.

 

[Ty]

Must restrain spending... Must get 1080p display...

Will it make that much of a difference to you, 1080p vs. 720p? What's your viewing distance going to be?

I thought some Toshiba player was supposed to have a superb upscaler, but I guess this one isn't it.

Yep but I dunno if those chips ([SIZE=-1]Reon-VX ) [/SIZE]are still used in their higher end models.

The source is 1080p, thus the 1080i frames will be handed to your TV from which it'll reproduce the proper 1080P image. If your TV can't do that function properly, ouch....

Example. Hooking up a HD-A2 at 1080i to a 1080p set and hooking up a HD-A20 to a 1080p set will produce the same exact image. Static and in motion.

Isn't that dependent on the interlacer of your TV? Certainly most TVs do a decent job but isn't it possible the Toshiba could be better?

 

[Zaphod]

Isn't that dependent on the interlacer of your TV? Certainly most TVs do a decent job but isn't it possible the Toshiba could be better?

For film content it would have to be a pretty braindead deinterlacer for it to matter. On a 1080i transport stream it's not exactly rocket science to reconstruct (reinterleaving aka. weave) the progressive frame from a progressive HD source. For older or badly authored SD content (from an interlaced source), the interlacing (reinterleaving) will be done after the deinterlacing, upscale and 3:2 pulldown in the player; and as such it doesn't matter anyway how good your TV deinterlacer is in this situation either.

Spoiler

Unless you have a really good TV or external deinterlacer/scaler, for which it would be best to hand it the source as unprocessed as possible for it to work its magic on the badly deinterlaced content on the disc (already stored progressive), in which case a 1080p transport doesn't matter either.

The only time a 1080p output in itself will matter is if the content is >30Hz, but I don't know of any.

Spoiler

Sports or other live events, perhaps, but then the 'hard' deinterlacing should be done at the time of mastering. We really should stop talking about deinterlacing as content on HD discs should always have this process performed already. What we're talking about is interleaving and weaving.

Now, if we're talking about a 1080p@24 transport it's a slightly different matter, but only if you have a display that can accept a 1080p@24 input and can display it at 48/72Hz (99.99% can't, and even some 24p capable display devices can't accept a 24p input but discards the 3:2 pulldown from the player's 30p/60i internally).

 

[Sxotty]

Will it make that much of a difference to you, 1080p vs. 720p? What's your viewing distance going to be?

I use a HTPC so I want 1080p for that purpose. It looks much nicer when displaying text etc...If I was just watching films I would not really care and 720p would be fine.

 

[Ty]

Got one this morning! Got in line around 7:35 and still managed to snag #13 of the 14 they had. Also picked up the cheap laptop just to fiddle with.

 

[mito]

Spoiler

if this trends continues soon HD-DVD will be declared the winner format

 

[Geo]

And that's a spoiler why? It's all about selling content not players. HD DVD needs to move the needle there, and one day sales is not going to do it all that much. If that was an everyday price, then it would. . . but it isn't.

 

[Geo]

Got one this morning! Got in line around 7:35 and still managed to snag #13 of the 14 they had.

Congrats. :smile:

 

[mito]

And that's a spoiler why? It's all about selling content not players. HD DVD needs to move the needle there, and one day sales is not going to do it all that much. If that was an everyday price, then it would. . . but it isn't.

I just like the spoiler feature...

 

[linthat22]

720P/1080i is far from a major issue at this price, if you have a 1080P set then you have enough to pay for a higher end player. This is much more attractive to those who buy the 1366x768 panels at Wal-Mart and such.

I have to disagree with this statement just for the fact that when the misses and I purchased our 42" 1080p LCD the only option was the Toshiba A-2 (blu-ray was too expensive). I've watched Planet Earth on my display in 1080P and I couldn't see a difference between that and 1080i.

 

[Sxotty]

I have to disagree with this statement just for the fact that when the misses and I purchased our 42" 1080p LCD the only option was the Toshiba A-2 (blu-ray was too expensive). I've watched Planet Earth on my display in 1080P and I couldn't see a difference between that and 1080i.

I don't think there is a difference for most people. It is the display I would rather have at 1080p than 1080i.

 

[Skrying]

I have to disagree with this statement just for the fact that when the misses and I purchased our 42" 1080p LCD the only option was the Toshiba A-2 (blu-ray was too expensive). I've watched Planet Earth on my display in 1080P and I couldn't see a difference between that and 1080i.

Of course, there are always exceptions. I'm just saying that this player is very attractive to who buy lower end HDTVs and therefore the non-inclusion of 1080P is even less of a factor, and even more so according to the above statements.