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$99 HD-DVD Player Coming Soon?
Frank writes "Rumors of the high definition holy grail persist. The latest is that Toshiba will be offering their basic HD-A2 player at $99 for one week only, beginning July 22. An added bonus is three free HD-DVD's."
but will there be enough units to give HD-DVD a good enough foot hold to claw back marketshare from bluray?
I'm gonna need a spec.
Who wouldn't pay to watch Divine eat dog shit? I mean, that just made the film!
Wow, a little hopeful are we? If all it took was a one week sale to kill Blu-Ray, they would have done it months ago. This sale isn't going to do jack other than get rid of the lingering inferior toshiba HDDVD player (compared to their other HD DVD Players, see an above post explaining why it sucks) so they can make room for the next revision of their hardware.
Yeah, and the R&D probably cost 'em $50, a couple pizzas, a case of beer, and a long weekend.
...for my PC. THAT'S what I'm waiting for. RO media is so passe.
So if you just have a 720p TV (like I do) and don't care about 'HDMI 1.3' (whatever benefit you might get from that) or gold-plated connectors (for *digital* signals??), it's actually at least a half-decent player?
It looks like the only information is an email from a listserve?
Umm.. I just got several emails promising to enlarge body parts, improve bodily functions, and sell me prescription drugs at unreal prices. An the fax I got the other day lets me in on an offere to go to Disney World for $69. So what?
So a slashdot article now has come down to some dude posting the cool spam they got?
The "early adopters" went HD in 2001. HD is mass-market in 2007: ilo 32" Widescreen LCD HDTV w/ Built-in Digital ATSC/NTSC Tuner $500
Resolution 1366 x 768
HDMI, S-Video, Component Video, DVI Inputs
I for one WON'T be buying till the machines include the following.
1.15 pin VGA connector
2.DVI connector
3.component RCA connectors
4.composite connector
5.RF 'F' connector
I recently looked at several HD-DVD machines, all of them have HDMI and component connectors, NO VGA, no DVI. Uh excuse me, that's NOT good enough. If Toshiba, Sony and others expect me to jump on the HD wagon they're just going to have to offer these connections at FULL RESOLUTION. I am not about to go out and buy another TV just for the HDMI connector. I don't care about the MPAA, I don't pirate their fucking shit anyway. I just want to be able to watch HD on ANY monitor I choose, period.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
Especialy since the cheap player does output 1080i (following the above link). Personally would not pay double to get the "p." There are hardly any 1080p movies out anyways, and I don't think the difference from 1080i would be noticeable. Paying double for a small degree of "future-proofing" is not a good value in my book.
Ummm... no
Resolution aside, you still get two things that a DVD player won't do: progressive scan, and widescreen. To be honest, the biggest visual difference *I* see between SD and HD is getting rid of interlaced video. NTSC resolution is actually pretty good at the distances you usually watch TV. But with the flicker that interlacing causes, NTSC is crap. SD -> ED is a much bigger jump in quality than ED -> HD. So, for me the difference between 720p and 1080p is a drop in the bucket.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
I thought the granparent poster had a point until I read this. Of course! How stupid of me to forget that while I'm watching movies, I like to see single frames at a time, so I can get FULL enjoyment out of it. It took me a MONTH to finish the first Star Wars movie, but I sure as heck liked it better than the rest of you losers.
Still IMing in the stone age?
That would be true if your TV has perfect 3:2 pulldown reversal... which doesn't exist.
Feeding hard telecined 24fps material guarantees artifacts.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
You've fallen into the Sony Blu-ray marketing trap and 1080p hype they're spinning. Toshiba has two players that put out 1080p: the HD-A20 and the HD-AX2. And, they will soon be getting firmware updates to output at 1080p/24.
Cheers.
Mark
First, it's not like $70 and $75, but rather $99 and $199. Second, the extra feature (1080p) won't do any good for now, and when you are able to use it, there will be $100 players which are better than the ones currently sold for $199.
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