A hearty welcome to all those of you who recently joined the HD DVD and home theater world by way of the recent sales and promotions. Hopefully, your new player plugged right in, and everything worked smoothly, and you were able to enjoy high-definition movies on your HDTV right away. But there are likely to be some people who encountered a few problems.

I’ve had my cable box suddenly stop “speaking” to my HDTV a couple of times while I was switching between HD channels, and the only fix was to turn both my TV and cable box on and off to get them to “talk” to each other again. It’s all related to HDMI magic that I just barely understand. Thankfully, this issue doesn’t come up too frequently. So you see, it’s not just you. Everybody can have a problem now and then with their electronics.

The world of home theater can be complicated and confusing. There are numerous models of HDTVs, each with their own quirks about how you hook things up to them, what kinds of resolutions they support, and even how they handle audio. On top of that, some home theater setups also include A/V receivers which can be equally finicky about the audio coming in or going out of them.

Adding a new component to the mix, can introduce new reasons for things to stop working, or work differently than you’ve been accustomed to.

It’s beyond the scope of this website to field all the numerous issues or questions that might come up with HD DVD installations, but there are a few places where you can get help from some very helpful and knowledgeable people. I’m referring to the forums where home theater and HD DVD enthusiasts hang out. At the end is a list of places where you might get some help.

Before you ask your question, please check if your particular question or a similar one has already been asked and if the existing solutions work for you as well. It’s bad forum etiquette to barge in and repeat topics that have already been addressed in the past. Doing so might turn the normally helpful participants into being less friendly. Try the forums in this order:

1. AVS Forum HD DVD Players (Highly recommended!) Start here: New HD DVD Owners
2. Home Theater Forum – HD DVD area
3. HD DVD area at HighDefDigest.com

To keep this useful and focused, the only comments allowed on this posting are those that point to additional forums, websites, or other resources to add to the list above, or additional advice.

Early adopters and gadget geeks might pay any price for new technology, but these products become way more attractive to the ordinary consumer only when the pricing becomes more reasonable. The march to a $150 HD DVD player has begun, and it’s just the first part of the inevitable journey to a $99 machine around Christmas 2008.

Last week’s HD DVD player pricing news was that Walmart would start selling the HD-A2 for $198 on November 3. Pictures of some Walmart aisles prominently displaying the price and players came out, and just days later we found out that Circuit City had already started offering the same player for a penny less at $197.99. Next up, Amazon.com decided to join the fray and is now offering the HD-A2 at $197.99 too.

There are also reports that Costco is offering their equivalent HD DVD player (the warehouse stores get the same thing but with their own model number) for $199. This is a sweet deal because Costco’s version includes an HDMI cable, which might save you at least $20-$40, depending on how you buy your cables. I’m sure pictures and verification are forthcoming on that one. If you’re not a Costco member, then you’ll have to factor in the additional cost to join, so this deal might not work for everybody.

Some might point out that these prices are on the HD-A2 model, which has been replaced by the HD-A3 for the 2008 lineup. Though it has the same “5 free movies” deal as the other HD DVD players, it does not include 300 and The Bourne Identity like its replacement. One response is that at the price difference between an A2 for $200 and the A3, you can go ahead and buy those movies on your own.

That response was good enough until just a short while ago when a couple of sites started reporting on a leaked “Black Friday” advertisment book from Sears. If everything is accurate (click here to go to the site with the entire PDF), it appears that Sears will be offering the HD-A3 for $169.99 from 5AM to noon on the day after Thanksgiving.

That’s the $299 HD-A3 folks, at a $170 promotional price in just about a month from now. It’s not the new, regular price for that player, but it does show that we are headed into the next major phase of the HD DVD deployment strategy where the price difference starts to get exploited in a big way. If the A3 can be $170 for just half a day, then we can expect at least a few more promotions where the A2 might be about the same or less, and other astonishing deals from all the usual sources on the A3.

All that remains now is for the cost of movies to come down by at least $5 or $10 across the board. I’ve already seen many movies at or near $20, but I’m sure they’d be flying off the shelves at $12 to $15. It’s up to the studios to decide this pricing, and they might be nudged to take up this kind of action once they realize their installed base is characterized by ordinary folks who only got in because the players were so cheap, instead of early adopters and fans who’d put up with high prices.

• Leaked Sears ad
• BlackFriday.info listing the Sears ad’s deals
• HD-A2 for $197.99 at Amazon.com
• HD-A2 for $197.99 at Circuit City

There are a lot of things to look forward to in the HD DVD world as we get into the heart of the fourth quarter of the year. Transformers is already on its way to boosting disc sales figures, and upcoming titles like Shrek the Third and The Bourne Ultimatum are likely to make Christmas even more special for HD DVD owners.

On the hardware side, Toshiba’s full lineup of third-generation players will be completed as the HD-A35 starts appearing on shelves and online retailers, and it will be joined by Onkyo’s high-end HD DVD player, the DV-HD805 shortly. Word from an Asian CNET site is that this premium player from Onkyo will be launched at the International Sound and Sight Exhibition in Singapore in mid-November. (more…)

As promised a couple of months ago, Toshiba has delivered the September 1080p/24 firmware update for second-generation HD DVD players (HD-XA2, HD-A20, HD-A2, HD-AW2, and HD-D2). This version 2.5 firmware’s newest features are support for 1080p/24 and more OSD (on-screen display) language options. The update information page also says this update has fixes for web connectivity and HDMI/DVI issues, but I’m not sure whether these are fixes for issues discovered since the previous version, or if they’re just the same fixes from previous updates (updates contain all fixes from previous updates).

This update is not going to magically add 1080p ability to your HD-A2, AW2, or D2, because those players are limited to 1080i by the chips and hardware in them. It will also not magically make your HDTV display in 1080p unless that feature is already present in your display.

What it will do for those of you with an XA2, or A20 is add a new option in your “Picture” menu settings for “Up to 1080p/24Hz.”

Films are shot at 24 frames per second (anything per second is called Hertz or Hz, thus the 24Hz), (more…)

Pre-orders are now being taken for Toshiba’s third-generation HD DVD players. They’ve been added to our “Shop for HD DVD Players” page, and you can pay good old Amazon a direct visit through any of these links:

• HD-A3 1080i HD DVD player. This is the new entry-level model from Toshiba and lists for $299.



• HD-A30 1080p HD DVD player, listing at $399.



• HD-A35 1080p HD DVD player. Toshiba’s top-of-the-line player lists for $499.

Amazon’s pages on these players are a little bare at the moment without even product pictures, but that should be fixed up any day now. My advice is (more…)

Like I said in the previous posting about IFA news, you can only get the good coverage from european sites. Toshiba’s latest HD DVD showing is an ultra-slim HD DVD drive. It comes in reader as well as burner variations. This is consistent with Toshiba’s earlier IFA comments about targeting computer users as a back-door for getting HD DVD out there.

I’m not sure that I’d be super interested in making 15GB backups when my total hard drive space approaches several hundreds of gigabytes, but being able to view my discs in a room other than the one where my HDTV is located is appealing. Having this kind of thing built-in to a laptop would be a more natural fit for watching HD DVD when you’re out and about. For example, many people spend enough time on the road as part of work/business that taking one of those seasonal TV episode compilations makes a lot of sense. And after you’ve been bitten by that HD bug, then standard definition DVDs just don’t cut it any more.

• Toshiba unveils slim HD DVD-Writer for the man-purse

For many months now, analysts have been saying that HD DVD will get a big boost when Chinese manufacturers unleash a $199 or cheaper HD DVD player. There were rumblings that Wal-Mart was seeking out just such a unit, but those rumours were quickly squelched, and then we had only silence on this matter.

Venturer Electronics of Canada comes through to herald the long-awaited moment by announcing the $199 (or lower) SHD7000 HD DVD player for North America. It essentially sounds like Toshiba’s base HD-A2 player, and features all the mandatory HD DVD specs such as ethernet, internal storage, Dolby True HD, etc. Like the HD-A2, this puppy only does 1080i, but that doesn’t matter one iota to the tons of people with 720p and 1080i HDTV sets, and is to be expected in a low-end unit.

I’m sure there will be lots more to say about this machine, and this important day in the week ahead. For now, go straight to the company’s site and read for yourself: Venturer Electronics

UPDATE: (10/1) The Venturer is now available at Target online, at a list price of $249.99.

There’s been a lot of focus on lower-priced HD DVD players, and how important it is to get affordable players out the door to ensure success for the HD DVD format. Onkyo bucks that trend with the announcement of their high-end DV-HD805 HD DVD player. Compared to Blu-ray players, Onkyo’s $899 price is pretty average, but in the HD DVD playing field, the DV-HD805 is a few hundred dollars more than even Toshiba’s upcoming top-of-the-line HD-A35.

What do you get for the money? Many of the features sound similar to the HD-A35:

• HDMI 1.3a goodness including “Deep Color”
• 24p playback (coming in a September firmware upgrade for all second-genToshiba players)
• High bit-rate audio
• All of the HD DVD mandated features such as an Ethernet port for internet access, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio (The Onkyo supports DTS-HD MA, but it’s not an HD DVD requirement)

The Onkyo also features an HQV Reon-VX video processing chip which dices, blends, removes stains, brightens your teeth, and walks your dog. Ok, it doesn’t all of those things, but it’s the same chip inside Toshiba’s current HD-XA2 (it might also be in the HD-A35), and it handles duties involved with image quality enhancement including de-interlacing, noise reduction, detail enhancement, and up-scaling (especially important for viewing regular DVDs). HQV processors come from a military technology that was eventually adapted for use in $60K professional video boxes, and now fits on a chip. It’s the equivalent of buying a more expensive video card for your computer.

The HQV bumps up the price on every device that uses it, including Toshiba’s XA2. Whether or not you need one in your home theater depends on what kinds of picture quality defects you’re bothered by in the HD equipment you currently have. If you’re not noticing much difference between HD DVDs and cable/satellite HD or DVDs that you regularly watch on your HDTV, then it’s unlikely that you need to seek out something with this level of performance. It’s not about being stupid or ignorant – it’s about whether you care or not about these kinds of features. In other words, if you’re satisfied and happy with what you already have, then your money may be better spent on upgraded audio instead

One thing you have to keep in mind about high-end equipment like this is that most of the important components are typically better than the stuff you get on a typical discounted unit, and you usually get a better warranty and servicing options. It’s like comparing a luxury sedan to a high-mpg econobox. A lot of people are perfectly fine with a less than ultimate gadget, while many others have been holding off for their “chosen one” to arrive.

The DV-HD805 is due in the fall, and we’ll find out then how it stacks up against other HD DVD players, and whether anybody’s “chosen one” has finally arrived.

Version 2.2 of the firmware for Toshiba’s second-generation HD DVD players (all the ones with a 2 or 20 in their model number) has just been released at Toshiba’s support site. You can download it from here or download it straight to your HD DVD player if it’s already connected to the internet. You can also call Toshiba at (800) 319-6684 for more help on updating your player if you’re having trouble with updating.

The list of issues fixed in this update looks a lot like the same list from the last two updates. If you have not updated in a while (and skipped the 2.1 update from last week), then you might want to consider upgrading to 2.2. If you haven’t been having any problems with your player, then you need not be in any particular hurry to get this latest version.

If you’re planning on getting 300 and had not upgraded to 2.1 either, then you should probably get this update because it will definitely improve some of the interactivity features on that disc.