Toshiba's HD-A1 HD-DVD player arrives in a few weeks
for those that pre-ordered
it and CNET is providing their early take on the $499 device. On the upside, it shouldn't matter what format the
first batch of HD-DVDs will use, since the HD-A1 provides support for MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and VC-1, which is actually a
superset of the Windows Media 9 codec. On the downside, this whole HD-DVD and Blu-Ray battle isn't quite over, so CNET
(and many of you) are holding off to see how it shakes out. At $500, the HD-A1 isn't a bad entry level player provided
you have an HDCP-capable HDTV, you're
willing to
deal with 1080i movies in lieu of true 1080p discs, and
there's enough content
for you.
Our take is that the studios are watching and waiting to see how well these first Toshiba
HD-DVD units actually sell. If the sales momentum builds, you can bet more studios will suddenly publish in the format.
posted Mar 2nd 2006 9:51AM
If the movies are mastered correctly, you shouldn't see any difference between 1080i and 1080p
Depend on content. If they release Lord of the Rings special edition or episodic television on single disc, you just might have a customer here.
NOTE
HD-DVD discs will be 1080p/24. The only limitation you have with first generation units is the output which is in fact 1080i on all the models. Thus when there are 1080p HD DVD players every disc from the first one you purchase will support fully the 1080p specification.
The reality is 1080i/p is so overblown. There are but a handful of very expensive monitors that are 1:1 1080p. This means each picture element or mirror corresponds to one displayed picture. What you guys are seeing hyped at 1080p is wobbulated screens which use one miror(In the case of DLP) oscillating quickly to handle two pixels. Let the buyer beware when you buy into the hype of numbers. Judge with your eyes over everything else and you'll be fine.
hmurchison-
I give you 2 releativele inexpensive true 1080p monitors -
The Westinghouse 37" and 42" LCDs (too lazy to look up the model #'s) about $1700 and $2800 respectively.
I have the 37" and it does 1:1 1080p res over DVI w/hdcp. The 42" does it over HDMI.
Personally I'm staying out of all next-gen optical stuff until there's HD-DVD 1080p over HDMI.
And then I'll still wait to see how it shakes out.
Pete
You bring up a point that I omitted for brevity. LCDs are a different beast because they have fixed pixels. The limitation today is the size of LCDs which is growing.
Rear projection TVS based on DLP and LCD uses the tricks to get to 1080p. Many 1080p screens will scale their digital inputs up to 1080p (The sony SXRDs do this even though their input is really only 1080i)
I've seen far too much hang wringling regarding 1080p versus 1080i. It's overblown really. Very few screens support 1080p/24 or 1080p/48 for direct input some some scaling is going to happen regardless.