Tag: High Definition Optical Discs (Blu-ray and HD DVD)

Home Theater Blog has a few minutes with the latest HD-DVD Player from Toshiba, and thankfully agree with the improvements made from the first version. First off the new player loads much faster than the HD-A1 or HD-XA1, I’ve read reports that clocked load times at or under 30 seconds (roughly half the time of the A1) but my own […]

Are you curious how Microsoft's HD DVD Add-on performs in a series of standard industry benchmarks? Well you are in luck, Secrets took it through its paces. Overall it performed well, but it was not on par with the big names such as Genum and Faroudja. From the article:   The performance of the add-on is very similar to the […]

One huge problem with the format wars has been vendors rushing their players out without the complete set of features. Every HD DVD and Blu-ray player has suffered from that so far. This even includes Sony's first player that was recently release. While they do get a few things right like native 1080p/24f, they forget to add HDMI 1.3 and […]

I just had to post this as I'm still laughing about the title. Can't say I'm gonna go & get this over the Xbox 360 HD-DVD Player, but good to hear they're actually trying to fix some things. Toshiba's 2nd generation HD DVD players are available now. Why should you care? Because the first gen players had a Beyonce-level buttload […]

As always, I caution you about not taking "Internet research" too too seriously. Sure they took a big sampling but do the really represent the majority of people who are going to buy this in the long run? My hunch is that Joe Consumer isn;t following too many tech blogs and forums. Saying that, the article does make some pretty […]

So I had to do the math, but 38,850 Yen comes to around $340. Not too shabby…but still more expensive than the Microsoft HD-DVD player, which can probably work on your PC as well as your 360. And you gotta install it in your case, and blah blah. But still, good to see some of these finally coming out. Not […]

And there was much rejoicing! Sony, the main driver behind the Blu-ray standard, has finally started to ship their player. The specs in this article are a little week. I am not sure how it is going to handle the next gen HD audio formats and 1080p/24f. If you stumble across the specs, please post them in the comments of […]

I guess its better to show up to the party better late then never! Sony had best hurry or their format is going to turn into a pumpkin twice in the last 30 years. The early reports, mainly from AVS, is that you can get them at BB. That is if you can afford it. The PS3 is looking better […]

More about the format wars? Yah, I guess I am a sucker for punishment. My opinion of how the companies have handled this launch are obvious but I am just as passionate about getting the best possible picture on my TV. Its a catch 22, love the technology… hate the companies. With that, Ultimate AV had the chance to take […]