HOME CINEMA ESSENTIALS

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Hi, What hi-fi team. Did you know the Toshiba HD EP35 is available for £270 with 7FREE Hddvd films from Amazon UK.Is this why you removed the £199 Denon 1940 from your midrange Home cinema essentials list. It does make sense you know because what your getting is a class leading dvd player,according to your Dec 07' review, you said:The Toshiba especially,is a truly capable Dvd player-every bit as accomplished as our £250 Denon 1940 product of the year. If its true then you can look at it like this: 7 Hddvd's for £10 each,a class leading dvd player for £199 and a class leading Hddvd player for FREE or Tosh's HD-EX1 £440 with 7 free Hddvd films from Amazon UK,again in your review May 07' you said:The Toshiba also scores highly with standard Dvds,which it upscales to 1080p its more or less equal of £650 Denon 2930.So purchasing a Toshiba HD-EX1 makes even more sense because your getting a Denon 2390 picture quality for £440 plus 7 free hddvd films and a fully spec(7.1 sound and 24fps due to the recent firmware updates) Hddvd for FREE!! Readers my point is even if you decide to buy a Hddvd player now,your not risking anything because you would still have an excellent Dvd player and as for Bluray i would if i had to, id go for something like the £1000 Pioneer LX1 (cheaper online around £850) but at this price, i don't think its wise to spend more then £500 on any hddvd/bluray players.Also the reason i don't mention Ps3 is because i didn't get good Dvd picture results on my Sony 40W2000,so i use my Panasonic EX75 recorder its got sharper pictures,better black levels and more solid motion, it's just more cinematic!

 

[Anonymous]

Is anyone still looking to buy any of the Denon's?

 

[Anonymous]

You only get 5 hd dvds with the HD-XE1

 

[Alsone]

You'd be lucky to find HD DVD's at £10 each. Cheapest I've seen them is £18 and many top titles are £30.. That said, often with freebies you get B movies or copycat films so the value I guess lies in what they are prepared to offer in the package.!

On a seperate note, is high def a case of manufacturers cutting off their noses to spite their faces?

They want to sell these players but apart from the fact that the mass market won't stand high prices seemingly on something that is an extension of existing technology, they have to continue to make buyers feel uneasy with a continuing format war and then to top it all, they price the films far above what most buyers will now pay for DVD discs. Sure its a new product but the days when consumers would pay £30 for a DVD when compared to a video tape are gone. The advantage just isn't there comparing high def and DVD as DVD is a very good format in itself and whilst high def is better, Joe Average appears satisfied with his DVD so the only way to tempt people in the mass market to change over is to price it so close to the DVD market that there are no advantages in not changing. The days of high launch prices succedding are definately something from the 1980's it would seem. Maybe they should enlist Harry Enfield to see if he can convince the public they have loadsa money!

 

[Anonymous]

Spot on Alsone , as with dvds hd dvds and blu ray discs need to lower their prices maybe offer some kinda 3 for £30 deals jus to begin with, one film for £20-£30 is down right rip off. Films such as transformers on dvd show that video transfer is still capable of being brilliant, so is there a need for the mass public to change to the new gen discs just yet???

 

[Andy TW]

There are some deals (3 for 2) available on selected Blu Ray discs but most of the films are the ones now appearing on Sky HD.
In my opinion if you already pay for the Sky package which includes the film channels then upgrading to Sky HD is better value than buying a HD-DVD or Blu Ray player and paying around £20 for each film.

 

[Anonymous]

I never said hddvd's are £10 each,all i was trying to say is,as a package it's really good value.
As for the rest of your comment,well i have to agree with you Alsone.
But the whole point of my post was that if anyone was out there looking to buy a dvd player worth £250/650 (mainly Denon's),
then considering that the Tosh's dvd picture quality as been as good as those from the Denon's,according to WHFSAV,if it's really true then choosing one of these hddvd players now,even if they (hddvd/bluray) don't takeoff you'd still be left-with some excellent dvd player.As for the selection of the free hddvd's,you get 300,Bourne ultimatum and another 5 extra. Check Tosh website.

ps; not exactly B movies. [quote user="Alsone"]
You'd be lucky to find HD DVD's at £10 each. Cheapest I've seen them is £18 and many top titles are £30.. That said, often with freebies you get B movies or copycat films so the value I guess lies in what they are prepared to offer in the package.!

On a seperate note, is high def a case of manufacturers cutting off their noses to spite their faces?

They want to sell these players but apart from the fact that the mass market won't stand high prices seemingly on something that is an extension of existing technology, they have to continue to make buyers feel uneasy with a continuing format war and then to top it all, they price the films far above what most buyers will now pay for DVD discs. Sure its a new product but the days when consumers would pay £30 for a DVD when compared to a video tape are gone. The advantage just isn't there comparing high def and DVD as DVD is a very good format in itself and whilst high def is better, Joe Average appears satisfied with his DVD so the only way to tempt people in the mass market to change over is to price it so close to the DVD market that there are no advantages in not changing. The days of high launch prices succedding are definately something from the 1980's it would seem. Maybe they should enlist Harry Enfield to see if he can convince the public they have loadsa money!
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