MrMcGoo Posted April 15, 2006 Share Posted April 15, 2006 I was bit by the early adoption bug---again. It is a particularly virulent form of upgraditis.[] I am watching HD DVDs via component video at 1080i. The motion picture studios will not use the ITC flag to force analog (component) down-conversion on early HD DVD releases. That was the hook that got me to buy. Also, most studios will release in both formats (HD DVD and Blu-Ray) till a winner is determined. Another reason for early adoption is the fact that LG Electronics plans a dual player, provided the two major camps do not prevent them doing so. The 1080i picture is excellent and takes on a three dimensional appearance. It is a step up on 480P, but just one step on my display. Early releases in HD DVD are Phantom of the Opera and The Last Samurai. Video compression is VC-1 and appears flawless to my tired eyes. (VC-1 is more efficient than the MPEG-2 to be used on Sony's Blu-ray. Microsoft is a major player in its development.) The high resolution audio is only available via HDMI, so the default audio via digital coax is DTS even when DD+ and DD True HD are all that is on the label. The Dolby Digital+, is only on HDMI and has to be down-converted to 24/48 PCM. No receiver or processor on the market currently can process DD+. DD+ is 3 Mbps (on HD DVD) and can go up to 7.1 discrete channels on future HD DVD machines. The current machine is limited to 5.1 channels due to he analog outputs. It was a pleasant surprise that DTS is the digital output to my receiver, but for some reason I have to pump up the volume control by +10 db to get my normal volume level. I checked Toslink and it is the same. I have not hooked up the 5.1 analog audio outputs yet. My legacy cables are too short. The 5.1 analog output has time alignment and bass management. I have no idea about the DACs used. Crossovers offered are 80, 100 and 120 Hz. Distance settings are in increments of three inches (a quarter of a foot.) The Toshiba HD A1 was made in Japan and is heavy. It takes too long to boot (just over 20 seconds) and the remote sucks. The nearly identical model above this one has a better remote, but costs another $300 with no known improvements in electronics. Audio processing is via 4 Analog Devices 32 bit Sharcs. The video is 216 MHz 11 bit. The machine can be updated for firmware via a high speed connection to the Internet or via disk. Toshiba includes a return postcard to tell them where to send the firmware updates. I suspect the machine will benefit from this feature.[6] Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdm56 Posted April 15, 2006 Share Posted April 15, 2006 Ah, brave soul, fearlessly going where mortals fear to tread... Sounds cool. Keep us updated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMcGoo Posted April 15, 2006 Author Share Posted April 15, 2006 Fools rush in..... The machine will be obsolete in a year when the second generation machines work out all the obvious bugs. The only benefit to early adoption is that the software can be acquired in HD with the new sound formats. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted April 15, 2006 Share Posted April 15, 2006 Bill, Congratulations on the new machine. I've resisted so far... but HD just looks so darn good I'm not sure how long I'll be able to hold out. Hopefully the rumored dual format LG machine makes it to market... and does so quickly. On the audio part of your review a couple of clarifications. "The high resolution audio is only available via HDMI, so the default audio via digital coax is DTS even when DD+ and DD True HD are all that is on the label." High resolution audio is only available via HDMI or via analog. The multi-channel analog outputs are used when the high resolution audio is decoded and converted to analog internally. "The Dolby Digital+, is only on HDMI and has to be down-converted to 24/48 PCM. No receiver or processor on the market currently can process DD+." The DD+ Audio on HDMI isn't really down-converted, it is simply uncompressed in the player back to PCM then spit out as multi-channel PCM over the HDMI connection. Quality isn't lost when connected in this manor. "DD+ is 3 Mbps (on HD DVD) and can go up to 7.1 discrete channels on future HD DVD machines. The current machine is limited to 5.1 channels due to he analog outputs. " It might be able to handle 7.1 discrete over HDMI. HDMI 1.1 can handle 8 channels of up to 96/24 audio. Also, one additional benefit. If a person is using the toslink/coax S/PDIF output and the player is playing a DD+ soundtrack it will be converted and output as a DD track. However... the data rate for the DD track can be higher (640kbps) then it is on regular DVDs. All DD decoders have always had the ability to handle 640kbps data rates... just there haven't been many sources that could support that. Till now D-VHS was one of the few sources. So, IOWs even with a typical toslink/coax connection to a receiver/pre-pro the soundtrack quality is likely improved compared to a regular DVD because of the higher data rates for DD. Have fun! Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damonrpayne Posted April 15, 2006 Share Posted April 15, 2006 Very cool. At this point I'm still waiting on BluRay but its nice to hear someone actually watching something on a high defintion recording. Is this player limited to 1080i ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry1 Posted April 16, 2006 Share Posted April 16, 2006 Well I won't be moving to HD or BlueRay until they make universal players or until one format wins out. I was a early DVD player buyer and I remember how quickly the players changed and improved. But kodo's for being brave and telling us all the juicy details concerning the Toshiba HD A1 HD-DVD player! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMcGoo Posted April 16, 2006 Author Share Posted April 16, 2006 Shawn et al, It was loose language to call conversion to 24/48 PCM "down" conversion. However, the high res DD+ is only available from a practical point of view via HDMI. First, entire channels potentially have to be given up (6.1 and 7.1.) Second, many of us will end up doing A/D then D/A conversion to get back Advanced MCACC and PLIIx, Neo6 etc. Any audible improvement will be lost in my experience based on conversions of MLP with DVD-As. The DD+ is not being converted to 640 Kbps DD on the first HD DVDs. A "magical" and mystereous transformation to DTS at 1508 Kbps is taking place. It appears that the bit budget for the first three movies had the required space for full rate DTS. The studio (Warner, which rarely uses DTS) must have wanted to provide the "best" sound available from coax and Toslink. There is quite a bit of consternation over at AVS over the DD+ to DTS "conversion." My take is that both 640 Kbps DD and 1508 DTS give great sound. The studio merely needs to mark the new HD DVDs with the right information. I suspect that this may have been an intentional effort to get folks talking about a new product with no harm done. The video is excellent on both HD DVDs and SD DVDs with this machine. As good as it is, I see a 50+ inch plasma in my future when HDMI 1.3 is out. Harry Potter IV is so good that I may pass on the HD version. My very first DVD player was a Toshiba for the same price as the new HD machine. Toshiba is giving these machines away at half the price of Blu-Ray in an effort to win the battle with Blu-Ray. The backward compatibility all the way to Cds and MP3s is also a plus. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ottscay Posted April 16, 2006 Share Posted April 16, 2006 Even though I want Blu-ray to win, I'm planning on picking one of these up as well; $500 is too good to pass up to see hi-def movies at home... By the way, where did you get yours? They are scarce on the net. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMcGoo Posted April 16, 2006 Author Share Posted April 16, 2006 I purchased my machine at BB. Each BB location was shipped 3 units. One will be setup as a display model, the other two are for sale. Many stores sold the first two very rapidly. Toshiba will send more. Some BBs were not willing to sell the HD DVDs till Tuesday. They sold me two without any problem. OneCall.com has hundreds on order from Toshiba with preorders in the very low double digits. They should start shipping on Tuesday, but as of Saturday had not received any product. Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enrico Posted April 18, 2006 Share Posted April 18, 2006 I just picked up this unit as well last night. Unfortunately, they would not sell me any movies at Best Buy so I cannot give any feedback. The only reason I picked it up is the analog signal through component. I want to enjoy the HD content while I can. 1080P doesn't matter because only recent televisions accept the signal. Once they force you to use a DVI or HDMI cable for piracy issues, I will be a very angry consumer who wishes they would pick one type on encoding and stick with it. It is so fustrating to spend hard earned cash on technology which will be obsolete in a few years. I understand I am taking a chance with HD DVD, but I did not think my HDTV would be obsolute in a few years when I first purchased it. In the meantime, I will be enjoying my HD picture with my Toshiba player. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ottscay Posted April 18, 2006 Share Posted April 18, 2006 Just ordered mine, and a couple of HD-DVDs. Should get them tomorrow. I really want Blu-ray to win, but at this price it's worth enjoying the "other" HD optical format for a few months. I imagine this is in fact Toshiba's strategy...but who am I to deny their clever ruse? [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.4knee Posted April 18, 2006 Share Posted April 18, 2006 I am still a little vague this HDCP requirement but this is enough for me not to acquire any interest in either HD DVD or BlueRay. http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/thread/720385.aspx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HTADDICT Posted April 18, 2006 Share Posted April 18, 2006 It's great to finally be reading about HD-dvd, versus speculating when & how. I'm more excited about the audio end of things. How does it SOUND? I'm sure the picture is great, but is it beyond say what a good dvd player & a dvdo vp30 can produce? I only ask this because it is such a new, 1st gen. player. But if it looks & sounds better than the end results of dvd which we currently have, then this is truly promising news for what to expect another player generation from now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMcGoo Posted April 19, 2006 Author Share Posted April 19, 2006 The only reason that I purchased an HD DVD machine was that Hollywood has agreed that component cables will be allowed to carry the signal. The socalled ITC token is NOT being used on current HD DVDs. If piracy becomes a problem, then copy protection will be used via the ITC flag which will eliminate the use of component cables for 1080i. When copy protection takes over, I will stop buying HD DVDs instead of buying another $5,000 TV. Since any copy protection will be broken quickly, then there will be no benefit to Hollywood. Copy protection will decrease sales as near as I can tell. The picture quality on HD DVD can be superb. On a good 1080i picture I can spot zero flaws. Older movies will not look so good IMO due to degradation of the master negative. Since no receiver or processor has DD+ processing, it is too early to say what the sound quality is like. I don't have an HDMI setup, so the 5.1 PCM signal is not available to me either. The 3Mbps DD+ sound track is down-converted to full bit rate DTS (1508 kbps.) The DTS sound track is excellent. The DD+ sound via 5.1 analog inputs does not sound any better IMO. (My system converts the 5.1 analog inputs to digital with 192/24 ADCs, then does the processing for PL IIx and reconverts to analog.) Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunt Posted April 19, 2006 Share Posted April 19, 2006 Bill, Thanks for keeping us informed on the HD-DVD front. Much to my surprise, I saw the BB add this weekend, and wondered how they got their players to market without much "pre-hype" that ususally accompanies such a rollout. You are a brave purchasing soul - I remember feeling a bit that way when I purchased my DVD-A player last year. Oh the excitement - oh the disapointment to know that it is headed for the "quadrophonic" dinasour heep of AV equip. I am in the same boat as you (ie non-DVI, HDMI) and don't plan on changing anytime soon. As tempting as your puchase sounds, I will be fence-sitting for a while, but certainly like riding your wave of new excitement. Please continue to keep us updated with your helpful/knowledgeable reviews! Regards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damonrpayne Posted April 19, 2006 Share Posted April 19, 2006 I have not yeard heard of any of the Brands many of us know and love: B&K, Lexicon, Dennon, HK, Marantz, Bryston, announcing any nice equipment that does HDMI switching, nor have I heard of a Dennon HD-DVD or BluRay player, etc. I wonder if the format war folks thought hard about how much equipment most consumers will have to replace (TV, Transport, Cables, Preprocessors/Receivers) to get the full effect of the new formats... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Born2RockU Posted April 19, 2006 Share Posted April 19, 2006 This review scares me. I guess I'm gonna have to really wait to see what happens, as the wars continue w/ the formats. I expected a better review on this machine.[] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
picky Posted April 19, 2006 Share Posted April 19, 2006 Bill: Congratulations on your purchase and thanks for a very useful and detailed review. As you probably know, you and I have very similar systems, except that you've gone to the Pioneer Elite 59 TXi while I continue to use the 49 TXi. I found the comment you made about the volume needing to be "goosed" by +10 db extremely disappointing. On my 49 TXi, my average reference volume setting for well-mixed movies is -10 db for realistic listening to movies. I think I recall you stating the same setting back when you used your 49. Is that correct? If I were to add +10 db to that, my new setting would be 0 db! There goes all of my headroom. I would never run it on that high a setting. Given the new 59 TXi, what is you current reference volume setting for standard DVDs and also the new DVD-HDs with the +10 db bump? Thanks in advance, Bill. -Glenn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted April 19, 2006 Share Posted April 19, 2006 Glenn, "If I were to add +10 db to that, my new setting would be 0 db! There goes all of my headroom." 0dB does not mean you are out of power on the Pioneer. 0dB on the volume control of a THX Certified product (that has been calibrated properly) is simply the reference setting for THX Reference Level of output. IOW, the level the movie was mixed at and the level it was supposed to be played back at in the theater. 0dB on a properly calibrated system means each speakers peaks would be 105dB at the listening position with the LFE channel being able to hit 115dB. If you listen at -10dB on the volume control that means the peaks would be 95dB per speaker with the LFE able to hit 105dB. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted April 19, 2006 Share Posted April 19, 2006 Bill, "The 3Mbps DD+ sound track is down-converted to full bit rate DTS (1508 kbps.) " Is it possible to force the player to convert the DD+ soundtrack to DD for the digital outputs? Seems to me going from uncompressing a lossy compressed format (DD+) then recompressing it in another lossy format (DTS) is just asking for lower sound quality then moving from DD+ straight to DD. The conversion from DD+ to DD is much easier as DD+ is built with a core of DD with additional extension data to make it DD+. I believe to go from DD+ to DD basically is just ignoring the extension data. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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