HD DVD 2.0 firmware soon; enables TrueHD 5.1
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted August 8th 2006 6:05PM
posted August 8th 2006 6:05PM
Man do we love our tipsters, who help bring some of the best content to HDBeat. Today one of them got their hands on the latest HD DVD firmware version 1.9 beta, which will be released as version 2.0. The new version has some cool features, no it won't enable Blu-ray disc playback, but it will enable the player to decode TrueHD 5.1, which can come in handy for those with discrete inputs on their AV receiver. Of course the good news is that the player is always getting better, but the bad news is that the updates come out more often than Windows updates.
Here are the updates in the past 4 months.
1.2 fixed player glitching and Blacker than Black and Whiter than White via HDMI
1.3 fixed RCA players that had the Toshiba boot up screen
1.4 fixed certain HDMI/DVI problems (Toshiba never specified)
better to have more updates and enchance features than be stuck with that pos bluray player which never gets updated. ;)
LOL, I Second the Above!
HELL YES. I prefer the 2.0 TrueHD over the 5.1 DD+.
Phantom of the Opera is going to rock my neighbors world as soon as I get this.
Hate to say it, but I agree with the sentiments above. While I would have loved to have seen the HD-A1 come out perfect, at least Toshiba isn't leaving us out in the cold. Or worse, making us buy a second-gen player to get these features!
Does this mean PCM 5.1 over hdmi?
Speaking of second gen.... I was very suprised in the podcast today when the question was raised about downloadable content/ pip only being supported in players mid next year nobody reasponded with the "then why would anybody consider one of these players" comment. From the way I heard it anybody stuck with one of the first gen players is going to be pissed come next year. Bluray right now is truely a early adopter product where atleast toshiba (if they keep improving things and adding featres can be molded into a second gen product) atleast to a point not to screw over the people getting hd-dvd now.
I'm excited for this as well, but how many titles support Dolby TrueHD? Also, from what I understand the titles that are currently out that do support it are only 2.0? Is that due to the current firmware limitation or are they encoded in 2.0?
Don't Windows updates come out once a month, on the second Tuesday? For example, like today? The one exception being unless a critical update required an expedited release outside of that planned schedule.
So in four months, you'd have a minimum of four Windows updates (actually compromised of multiple fixes), but it could always be more than just once a month.
Since Toshiba has released 3 firmware updates in four months, it would stand to reason their updates are occuring less frequently than Windows Updates.
Actually the movies that have the Dolby TrueHD tracks are mastered lossless. The limitation of 2.0 is with the player at this point. With this update though the power will be unleashed. Its awesome that they keep updating our player, this will be the best one yet.
Bad news? There's no bad news here - unless you're a pigheaded BD-worshipping fanboy, like Ben here. Dude, your editor should ban you from writing anything about either format.
Can you provide this firmware towards us ? :-)
i'm sure many people want this 1.9 right now...
was it supplied on a disc ?
#10, cut Ben some slack... He supports BD for logical reasons (Studio Support and CE support from companies he likes). Atleast he can say he bought an HD DVD player and was disappointed, while a fanboy would just sit back and claim the PS3 will be the end all, be all of Blu-ray.
Just pulled the trigger on this one after this post.
This is the perspective I have, and why the price point helps tremendiously: I have a boatload of SD DVD, and was looking for an upconverting DVD player (Either the new Helios from Neodigits, the old Oppo, or one of the denons). Many people were saying on the forums that the upconversion on the HD-A1 pretty much equals the oppo.
I figured what the hell. Spend a little more and get something that could recieve firmware updates via ethernet (which is always a plus, regardless of the device--wish my TV could do it, for channel logo updates alone), and play some HD-DVD as well if I want.
As for people talking about waiting for second gen: The HD-A1 is literally a Pentium 4, 1GB RAM and a 512MB flash drive, the HD-DVD drive is IDE and appearantly is of solid design. -- Point being its just a PC booting linux, firmware updates are an entirely new software image, the only thing gained by a true second gen hardware unit would be maybe spinning the disc up faster(new IDE drive), or less power consumption("core" chip over plain P4).
I really didn't even consider Blu-ray due to the price and MPEG-2. People will buy HD-DVD instead because:
Name has DVD in it
Price is much better
Sony is tied to Blu-ray and people don't forget Beta, MD, UMD, MemoryStick ATRAC!!! etc.
Or they won't buy any of it and it will go the way of SACD and DVDAudio.
Either way I'll have a player that upconverts my SD, that didn't cost me much more than the midrange upconversion only players.
Props out to Toshiba. The ethernet connection is a huge benefit over flashing the firmware from the optical drive. I wouldn't care if they push updates every week as long as it improves the player. I tend to lean towards Blu-ray, but this is a nice bit of news. I hope the other CE manufacturers take note.
@CCKrobinson - I really appreciate your fine comments on the benefits of HD DVD. Would be interested in why you still "lean towards blu-ray" but good luck on the samsung player (the one with the faulty chip right - http://w.hdbeat.com/2006/07/19/samsung-blames-bad-blu-ray-reviews-on-faulty-chip/ )and hopefully you can pick up the new sony - pushed back to october right? best of luck. Maybe you'll be one of the lucky ones to be able to actually get a ps3 when they're released.
Any news as to when 2.0 will be released. Hurry please!!!
Well this is certainly fantastic news! HD DVD is so far ahead of the game it's ridiculous! The Samsung can't even output Dolby Digital Plus, let alone Dolby TrueHD! That thing is such a joke. It's the laughing stock of the entire consumer electronics world.
Side with the winner, get a Toshiba. It's not even region coded so you can get HD DVDs from all over the world including ones that are Blu-ray only here in the states. No more regions, no more PAL, just sweet HD DVD goodness.
Well, 2.0 Firmware Update Version is now available @ Toshiba's website ...
...
http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/tacpassets-images/notices/hddvdfirmware.asp
...
Interestingly, the Official Version is the same IDENTICAL 2.0 FW Update found @ RapidShare (route I took) ...
2.0/1.0A/2.05
If your HT Setup is up to the task, listening to "The Phantom of the Opera" - Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless format is just jaw-dropping and glorious!!!
Phil