Soooo... did anyone get a Toshiba HD-DVD player?, Just wondering...

I picked up a couple at Best Buy today (one for me and one for my biz partner Jerry), but I haven't even had a chance to break it open yet (just got the $499 model). Actually, I got the only two my local Best Buy even had!

I also picked up the HD-DVDs of SERENITY, THE LAST SAMURAI and (because it was the only thing else there) THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Evidently, MILLION DOLLAR BABY didn't show up like it was supposed to.

I'll give my thoughts once I've had a chance to hook it up.

You're a brave man; even now I think there's about a 50% chance you just bought a betamax. With Sony driving the other standard though your odds may not be that bad...I'm holding off until the dust settles.

That said I'm interested in hearing your thoughts about the discs, cases, the players, and the in-your-face drm (so I can make a more informed decision when the time comes). Once blu-ray starts penetrating the market (too apt a metaphor considering what both sides and the mega-corps wish to do to their customers) we'll actually be able to start forming real opions about the media and the players.

We're not brave... we just had to get them for our business. I mean, we are DVD producers and all that... they are a write off and, since we have been mastering in HD, we better hope that at least ONE of the formats (either HD-DVD or BLU-RAY) takes off, or we've wasted our money all these years! LOL!

Just hooked it up and threw on SERENITY and, well... my first impression is indeed WOW! The picture quality is MILES ahead of the standard def DVD of the same, and the sound is bolder, stronger and I can hear much more separation in the DTS channels than in it's standard def release. It had an almost 3D quality visually... The standard def DVD had some grain in the darker scenes... not so here. The colors popped off my set and I literally gasped at the quality. The picture quality is damn near the quality of an original D5 master tape, which is hard to describe to anyone outside of this industry.

My first complaint, though, is that it's sloooooooooooooooow. Took a bit longer than I'd like to "boot" up and the menus, because they are Java™ based, were a bit on the slow to respond side (SERENTITY is all designed with "drop down" type menus). Scrolling through the chapters was pretty sluggish. It is kind cool though that the menus pop up "over" the video while it's playing, if you want to access special features while watching the movie.

Second complaint (and this could very well be just me not having a setting proper in the setup) is that, when you hit the AUDIO button to switch through the different language tracks, commentary, etc., there is NO on-screen display to tell you exactly what audio stream you are listening to. You can hit a DISPLAY button and get some cool info, like what video codec was used for the HD compression (SERENITY used VC1), but I like to hit the AUDIO button and see what the audio is listed as on screen when I do it.

Rumor has it that Toshiba will be releasing some firmware upgrades to, potentially, fix any issues that are in these first-gen players. I'm hoping that the sluggishness of the menus is updated, but that "could" just be SERENITY... haven't checked the other releases yet.

I hate the cases... They have curved spines, which is pretty stupid. I like my case spines to be flat, like a book, so I can at least see them. The curvature of the spine on the cases (not to mention that they are a semi-transparent RED color), makes the titles on the spines hard to see. They are a bit smaller than a standard Amaray DVD case. I just don't like all the curvy edges on these new cases.

The DRM??? Well, I'm all for it, honestly. Synapse has had releases bootlegged constantly and, if they can actually make a DRM that actually WORKS this time, then I'll be happy. That standard definition DVD MacroVision and CSS stuff was "cracked" so fast that it was almost comical. But, that being said, I'm sure someone will figure out how to copy HD-DVD/BLU-RAY DVD in no time flat. They always do.

As far as BLU-RAY... well, I'll be there on launch day to get one of those, too. It just kinda comes with my job.

But, honestly, I think HD-DVD has a good chance of being the one that prevails. Why? Well, first thing... the studios aren't exactly happy with UMD sales right now and that's also a Sony "only" product. That's not going to help, since UMD is failing miserably.... the studios WILL remember this. With BLU-RAY, the studios MUST deal with Sony... with HD-DVD, any standard DVD replicator can convert to HD-DVD without having to deal with... yeah... SONY! That certainly makes a difference with us at Synapse.

Also, Sony doesn't like to deal with "adult" oriented product. Do you think there are going to be any hardcore/XXX rated BLU-RAY discs? I highly doubt it... that factor alone is going to have a HUGE impact on the format war. Adult movies really drive the home video industry and many claim that, because Sony hesitated to sign the deal for adult films back in the Betamax days (remember they pretty much all came out on VHS?) that that alone killed Sony's Beta format.

When we met with Sony to discuss titles and told them about THRILLER and THE IMAGE and that we wanted to do BLU-RAY discs of those two titles, they pretty much told us they WOULDN'T do them because of their extreme adult content! They were like "umm... well... we don't know if we can do that sort of thing." That attitude may just outright kill the BLU-RAY format. People want adult films... it's a hundreds of millions of dollars a year business... and HD-DVD will have them. It's funny how, when I bring this up (about the adult films), that people say that "they didn't think of that" when discussing which format will prevail.

BLU-RAY has Sony and, it seems, anyway, more studio support right now. Also the Playstation 3.

HD-DVD has some studio support and Microsoft behind them. Microsoft might be what they need to bring this format to the top.

So, right now, I'm pretty happy with my HD-DVD player. Admittedly, I've only played with it for about a half hour, but so far so good.

This post has been edited by Don May Jr on Apr 17 2006, 07:08 PM

I tried doing that here once and Matt Allison almost ripped my head off

Vincent

Sounds pretty good so far. You must have all the right parts so there's no forced image down conversion (at least in these early discs, you know, the first taste is free) and I guess you'll be able to afford a region 2 player and region 3 player for foreign hd discs (if you're into importing).

I've read similar complaints about the cases at a couple other places. I guess they're thinking they want it to look different from a dvd and they probably have the copyright for the cases; enough people complain and the cases will likely be changed, eventually (Warner Bros still uses those crappy cheap cardboard snapper cases though...).

Yep, the adult film industry was an early adopter of both vhs and dvd, giving them a good kick in the pants toward success.

This from a company that happily infected millions, maybe hundreds of millions, of computers with malware, to protect their interests.

So far the good bits and bad bits seem to be balanced producing a net result of
meh, unless the picture really is good enough to compensate. Part of the fun of being an early adopter is enjoying the bumpy ride at the start.

This post has been edited by Terry Barhorst, Jr. on Apr 17 2006, 08:54 PM

I have the player hooked up via HDMI to my Sony 60" LCD Model (60XS955). It accepts a 1080 signal, but the native resolution is 720p.

I do believe, though, it does say in the manual that the only way to get the 720p or 1080i signal is to use the HDMI output (or an HDMI to DVI connector). If you use the component outs on the unit, it only outputs a 480p signal... so, unless you have a newer set, you are stuck with 480p... at least with this first Toshiba model player.

I'm going to dive into the instruction manual right now (good bedtime reading to get the eyes a little sleepy, I'm sure), just to read up more on its capabilities.

Not entirely, the SD downconversion of your HD master of THE LONG WEEKEND is a thing of beauty. Would an SD master have produced an SD disc with the same image quality as the HD one (that's not a rhetorical question, I'm actually wondering)?

Any info on the HD version of THE IMAGE? Any involvement from Metzger? Any DTS or 5.1 remixes as a commercial concession to those for whom buying an HD-DVD player is no more of an expense than buying an HDTV (the subtle stereo remix on the first release was a nice touch)?

Well, it IS a computer - literally. A mobile Pentium 4 2.5ghz, 512 MB of RAM, with an Intel motherboard and running Linux, I believe - unless the cheaper unit is totally different from the big brother.

It has to boot up just like your PC

(and since it's basically a Linux-based PC, you know SOMEONE'S going to try and figure out how to hack it - for good purposes and for bad...)

This post has been edited by Kenneth Warner on Apr 18 2006, 02:39 AM

Right... the HD master makes a big difference in quality for the SD downconversion... but... my bean-counters (ie. shareholders) are concerned about why we are doing HD masters of films that just aren't selling all that well on regular DVD.

I want to do LONG WEEKEND and LEMORA on HD-DVD right now, but they want me to concentrate on other movies like THRILLER and THE IMAGE first. Their logic is... they didn't sell all that well on regular DVD, so why bother spending more money putting out HD version of those right now? Nobody bought them the first time... nobody will buy them on HD-DVD either. And, it's true folks... while there are plenty of fans out there who like both these films and supported us, these two movies just didn't make us any money. Period.

So, unless their is some sort of fan exodus to the online mail order sites to buy these two (Best Buy had both of these, but the returns were unreal and, as far as I know, they are no longer on the shelves there) and help our bottom line, you may not be seeing them on HD-DVD anytime soon, even though we are totally ready to do them.

For THE IMAGE, we just did an all-new transfer in HD that blows away the old one. We are cleaning it up right now. We have so many more digital tools at our disposal for clean-up that we were actually able to remove the vertical scratch during the outdoor patio scene! This one WILL hit HD-DVD in the future, so better start saving your pennies for a player! Hehe! We are thinking of doing a 5.1 remix... just not sure right now. Radley still doesn't want to do a commentary. It's a personal thing... he just won't do it for THE IMAGE, or any other film he's done for that matter.

Digital Playground has already announced plans to release adult titles on Blu-Ray:

http://www.xbiz.com/news_piece.php?id=12735

x-rated films have been available on UMD for a while now:

http://www.engadget.com/2005/06/17/porn-on...-comes-on-umds/

This post has been edited by Jay Gillespie on Apr 18 2006, 06:08 AM

The X-Rated UMDs are being done in Sony Japan, not Sony US. Different companies. I wonder if that's where the BLU-RAY porn will be done?

This post has been edited by Don May Jr on Apr 18 2006, 06:39 AM

But isn't there an argument to be made that since there are so few HD-DVD titles available right now, that early-adopters who buy HD-DVD players will buy just about anything released in that format to show it off? I mean, you yourself bought one title that by your own admission you weren't interested in, just because it was there

Vincent

This post has been edited by Vincent Pereira on Apr 18 2006, 09:29 AM

Hey, Don – are you using an HDMI-compatible receiver with your set-up? I was thinking of picking up one of the Toshiba players but my receiver does not support HDMI. Can the Toshiba send video only over the HDMI, while sending the audio stream over an optical cable? My cable box is supposed to be able to do this, but I haven’t tried it yet.

And I don't know if you've heard yet, but MS is supposed to have an external HD-DVD drive out for the Xbox 360 later this year. A smart man would save a few bucks and wait for this to come out, but I've rarely been accused of that. I just hope that whatever I get will wind up on top of my Laserdisc player instead of under it.

Interesting, up to the minute info, Don. Thanks for the reports!

Say, can you try hooking the player up via the component inputs and see if the downconversion is actually occurring?

Thnx!

My HD-A1 shipped today from Crutchfield, so I'm covered in terms of hardware. Software, not so much. I'm having a bear of a time tracking down a copy of Serenity; none of the Best Buys up here have it (they do have the two Warner titles, though), so I might have to get a friend/relative elsewhere to grab a copy for me so I'll have something to watch as soon as it arrives.

I'm really looking forward to Synapse releasing some movies on HD-DVD or Blu-ray, regardless which of your titles or which format you choose. Close your eyes and point at a title from your catalog at random, and it's almost certainly much more compelling than anything the studios have announced so far for either format.

Yup. You can even use the analog-out to pass already-decoded audio directly to your receiver.

That downconversion is a factor of each individual piece of software. I remember reading that Universal is not planning on using this 'image constraint token'. Warner was a big proponent of it, but I can't recall offhand if their first wave of titles uses it or not.

I have my video going directly into the back of my set via HDMI and my audio goes through an optical cable into my Yamaha receiver. I have a DTS/ES - DD5.1 compatible receiver and it sounds phenomenal.

As far as compontent is concerned, I don't really have anything component except for my video game systems (I even sprung extra cash for the Gamecube component cable that is mail-order only!). Pretty much everything else is hooked up via HDMI or DVI. I should take a photo of my setup so you can see that it would be incredibly frustrating to pull out some component cables to test that downconversion thing! LOL! I don't DARE even try it.

I did hear about the XBOX360 drive, but I couldn't wait either! LOL!

This post has been edited by Don May Jr on Apr 18 2006, 01:10 PM

I was (am?) what is commonly referred to as a "jerk".

Okay, this is a problem for me. I just spent $50 on a dozen big-box VHS tapes - some were even titles that are on DVD - because I love the way they look on my shelf, so these slim, curved spines are a major drawback in my book.

How will the Synapse titles be packaged, Don?

Well, right now, we don't have a choice... the HD-DVD cases are the industry standard right now, no matter how stupid and half-assed they are. The BLU-RAY cases are the same, except they are blue instead of red.

Some enterprising individual, with an itch for a patent, should go in and create a NEW case that is the same dimensions as the HD-DVD/BLU-RAY cases, but square off the corners and flatten the spine. Make them a solid red and a solid blue (instead of transparent).

This, my friends, would be the case we would use if it were available.

I absolutely LOATHE these new cases and, from the scuttlebutt I'm hearing on the replication side of things, so do a lot of the machine packing plants because they cannot be automated with the current DVD packaging machinery. Because they do not fit the current replication lines, all these cases need to be packed BY HAND!

Bleh!

<Just say NO to the new HD-DVD case design!>

I'm sure they'd search for as many hands as they can pay cheaply before being forced to redesign their machinery.