Reasons to still buy a HD DVD Player

michael.seigal

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So I have been thinking that it is still a great idea to invest in the Toshiba HD-EP35. Yes I know that it looks like HD DVD is losing the war however this player is still far better than any comparable BR player and at a great price.

Here is a list of reasons why I feel people should still buy the Tosh HD EP35 player if they have the cash!
[*] Price £269 on play with 7 HD titles. [*] HD Audio bit stream, only player at that price which will do it period. [*] There are loads of quality HD Titles out and its region free www.playusa.com for all those imports! [*] Bargin HD DVDs if it loses the war [*] Its a quality DVD player
Discuss :)

Michael
 
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Anonymous

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I am puzzled! BR cannot get a decent player our for sensible money. The only 5* player is the Pioneer. HD-DVD are cheaper, with a more complete spec and with decent 5* players, costing peanuts, like the EP35. Was it the PS3 effect that made Warner decide? Or was it that they were offered more incentives by BR and knew that they (Warner) could influence the battle with their decision. I was just about to buy a EP35 when this bomb dropped. Now I cannot decide what BR player to get, if any. Something stubborn in me says to get the EP35 anyway and use is as an excellent DVD upscaler, although I am totally convinced by the merits of HD.

If Toshiba kept ramping up their player sales and with it disk sales - who knows what could happen. Warner had an agreement with the HDDVD camp and they broke it. I wonder what would happen if consumers voted with their feet and bought the cheaper players.

I am also puzzled why most HT manufacturers went BR instead of HD-DVD! Where is the Onkyo player???

Gorge.
 

michael.seigal

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[quote user="nokz"]hd/dvd is finished[/quote]

You miss the point, I never said it wasnt. What I am saying is that the Tosh EP35 is still a great player and there are loads of decent HD Titles around. Whats wrong with building a library out of all the best current HD releases and then buying a Blue Ray player in a year cause lets face it theres nothing worth buying now!

I am still going to buy the tosh and then will invest in a decent BR player when such a thing exsists for sensible money and is not going to be made obsolete!

Mike
 

nads

Well-known member
[quote user="michael.seigal"]
[quote user="nokz"]hd/dvd is finished[/quote]

You miss the point, I never said it wasnt. What I am saying is that the Tosh EP35 is still a great player and there are loads of decent HD Titles around. Whats wrong with building a library out of all the best current HD releases and then buying a Blue Ray player in a year cause lets face it theres nothing worth buying now!

I am still going to buy the tosh and then will invest in a decent BR player when such a thing exsists for sensible money and is not going to be made obsolete!

Mike
[/quote]
sounds like what i am ish thinking. But i may never buy a BR player maybe just a BR drive for the PC.....
 
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Anonymous

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Who's backing what?

Unless you've been completely unplugged from online news aggregation sites or the blogosphere, you've probably heard that Hollywood's biggest DVD seller, Warner Bros, announced last week that beginning in March it will pull its backing of Toshiba's HD DVD format and produce its movies exclusively on Sony's Blu-ray format. Warner Bros already accounts for about 70% of Blu-ray content, according to some published reports.

Blu-ray is now backed by Walt Disney, 20th Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and, of course, Warner Bros, among others. HD DVD is now only supported by Universal Studios and Paramount and its DreamWorks Studios. Things don't look good for HD DVD's longevity. And, in a way, that's too bad.
so why buy a good hd if its on the way out
 

michael.seigal

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[quote user="nokz"]Who's backing what? Unless you've been completely unplugged from online news aggregation sites or the blogosphere, you've probably heard that Hollywood's biggest DVD seller, Warner Bros, announced last week that beginning in March it will pull its backing of Toshiba's HD DVD format and produce its movies exclusively on Sony's Blu-ray format. Warner Bros already accounts for about 70% of Blu-ray content, according to some published reports. Blu-ray is now backed by Walt Disney, 20th Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and, of course, Warner Bros, among others. HD DVD is now only supported by Universal Studios and Paramount and its DreamWorks Studios. Things don't look good for HD DVD's longevity. And, in a way, that's too bad. so why buy a good hd if its on the way out[/quote]

ARGH your still missing the point lol! I KNOW ITS ON THE WAY OUT! I know warner droped it and paramount will probably follow however there is no Blue Ray player worth *** out there to buy! The only decent Pioneer player is £850 ish. There are loads of decent HD DVDs out now and its region free so you can buy them from the states or wherever and the Tosh HD-EP35 is a class player which will play all your DVDs upscaled well!
 

FuzzyinLondon

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Michael, I take you point and I even agree with it to a certain extent. I have a Toshiba HD EP30 and I think it's a great machine. I will certainly be buying a few more HD-DVD title before it goes the way of the Dodo. With the 7 free titles I got and the handful of titles I've got from the US (where they are soooo much cheaper) I think it has worked out as good value. I will be keeping it and enjoying for sometime to come. However, there is no way that I would recommend a HD DVD player to anyone who is currently look to purchase a High-Def player now or in the near future. My brother is in that boat and I have just warned him off getting one because of what has happened this week. There does not seem to be a long term future for the format. My advice to anyone right now would be to buy a PS3 or wait for more Blu Ray profile 1.1 players to be released. The PS3 is an excellent all round piece of kit - games machine, built-in wifi, 40GB hard drive, infinite software upgradability (it's just been upgraded to profile 1.1 and now allows DivX playback), HD audio decoding and a very good Blu-Ray player all for less than £300. To me it's a no-brainer if you're looking for value.
 
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Anonymous

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i have a sony bdp300 and its great and seriously hand on heart music sounds awesome
 
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Anonymous

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[quote user="michael.seigal"]it is still a great idea to invest in the Toshiba HD-EP35.[/quote]

The only 'investment' would be not to unrap it. Keep it for 30 years then see what the market would pay you for it. I wonder what pristine Betamax machines go for now?

Seriously Michael, as has already been said, there would be no point in buying the EP35 or any other HD-dvd only player. The PS3 does everything the Tosh does and so much more for around the same price (if you ignore the freebies).

Blu-ray was always going to win long term because of its massive storage potential. It is no surprise to find that most PC manufacturers including Dell, the worlds largest, are intalling Blu-ray drives for Hi-Def read/write. I think I am correct in saying that the 10 layer discs will be capable of carrying over 500Gb of data - much more than most peoples hard drives.

The problem with Blu-ray was that it was born prematurely, and has spent the last year playing catch-up. Because of the Xbox360 and the need to get Blu-ray out, Sony released players including the PS3 too early. In the case of the PS3 it was originally going to have 6xUSB ports 3xEthernet and 2 hdmi slots as shown on the prototype in Sept 2005. Becauase of component costs the PS3 was going to have a world-wide launch Q2 or even Q3 2007. Not so crazy when you consider that Wii only overtook PS2 sales last October. However, Sony had to get in earlier, hence the need to cut costs/features. As it was, the PS3 was launched about £100 more than was expected.

However, Blu-ray is now getting up to speed, and by the time profile 2.0 has been adopted, HD-dvd will seem very ordinary by comparison.
 

axman

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I think Mike's got a point.

I've been shopping around for a denon 1940, but in the Dec2007 mag (page 9) , it says that the EP-35 is "a truly capable DVD player - every bit as accomplished as the Denon product of the year".

The price difference is less than £100 and with that you get 7 free HD-DVDs. I guess this is something to think about for people who are looking to upgrade to a better DVD player such as the Denon.
 
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Anonymous

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"Seriously Michael, as has already been said, there would be no point in buying the EP35 or any other HD-dvd only player. The PS3 does everything the Tosh does and so much more for around the same price (if you ignore the freebies)."

Can the ps3 play all the hi def audio formats? no so it cant do everything the ep-35 can
 
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Anonymous

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I have an ep35 and for the first few days after the Warner announcement I was keeping an eye on eBay and toying with the idea of selling it.

However for me it didn't make sense:

- I'd still need an upscaling dvd player - something like the Denon 1940 is only £100 less than the EP35 and probably about the same price as I'd get for it on eBay.

- I have 11 hd-dvds (7 free and 4 purchased inc. transformers) and they will not stop being the quality they are (+ date for transformers on BD - who knows?)

- I don't want a PS3 as a games console and there are no BD players impressive and cheap enough to buy at the moment.

The whole BD/HD-DVD battle has left me unconvinced that either format will win to be honest. I think the confusion around upscaling dvd players/HD-DVD/BD/Digital vs analogue signals/HD Ready/Full HD has completely turned off the majority of the public.

Beyond the confusion I'm unsure whether the advantages over SD are enough to tempt most people (i.e. those without 40"+ TVs/£1K surround speaker kits) to replace their collections. The advantages of DVD over VHS were many and obvious; the benefits of high def for the average bloke on the street are much less clear.

I'll stick with my EP35, buy mainly SD discs (the odd special one on HD-DVD) and look at the market again in a year.

Rob
 
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Anonymous

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hi fuzzy,i was thinking of buying r1 titles from the us,do they play ok on uk ep30,regards pompey2
 

Clare Newsome

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Yes, HD DVD players are region-free for HD discs - though not for DVDs, yet (a rumoured hack is supposed to be on its way).

So you can buy (cheaper) HD DVD discs from the US and they'll play in your UK player - not something you can say for Blu-ray
emotion-6.gif
 
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Anonymous

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The second hand market is already full of HD-DVD player and software bargains with the recent Warner news, and the possible threats of Universal and Paramount to pull out (although both are going at great lengths to say something along the lines of 'we're still supporting it' - smacks like the dreaded 'vote of confidence' from a football club chairman regarding a manager's performance to me).

I've cashed in already - I've managed to pick up a total bargain : a first generation US player, the HD-XA1, for just £85. To me this is a phenomenal purchase, given it retailed at a humungous $1000 on initial release less than 2 years ago. The player is built like a tank, looks fantastic, will complement my Harman-Kardon AVR140 beautifully, and brings me kicking and screaming into the Hi-Def visual world.

There are arguments against supporting HD-DVD at such a time, but here's the reasons why I have supported this format by buying a first generation US player :
  • my TV (Philips 32PF5531) can only accept a 1080i picture, so I don't rightly care I'm not getting 1080p or 24fps
  • my Harman-Kardon amp can handle multi-channel in, but cannot handle HDMI - whilst the XA1 does not output true HD audio 5.1 via HDMI or SP/DIF, the player does the encoding on board - firmware upgrade 2.0 also added proper 5.1 on-board TrueHD decoding, meaning I'll get (nearly) the best surround sound option going
  • HD-DVD has no region encoding whatsoever, meaning I can import movie titles for as long as they are supported
  • Blu-Ray hardware remains ridiculously overpriced
  • Online DVD rental companies (eg Lovefilm) allow you to rent HD-DVD titles
  • There's a decent enough HD-DVD back catalogue
There are arguments the XA1 is a poor player eg slow software (I think I can handle the wait of a minute or so for the player to crank itself up and get going), inability to support multi-region standard definition DVD (I have plenty of R1 titles), etc etc

From where I'm sitting, I've grabbed a bargain - it's my intro to high def DVD, there's a considerable library of back catalogue titles to wade my way through, etc etc

If, as sadly seems likely, HD-DVD does become an obsolete format it'll take a while for it to completely disappear. During that time, I'll benefit from continually reducing software prices until such a time as Blu-Ray properly gets its act together and puts out a real budget player, along the lines of the £250 EP35 from Tosh.

So, do I care I'm supporting a potentially obsolete format ? Heck, no....
 

FuzzyinLondon

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[quote user="pompey2"]
hi fuzzy,i was thinking of buying r1 titles from the us,do they play ok on uk ep30,regards pompey2
[/quote]

Yes, as Clare said, HD-DVDs play fine as there's no region lock. Normal DVDs are still locked to Region 2 though.
 
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Anonymous

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[quote user="garethwd"]Can the ps3 play all the hi def audio formats? no so it cant do everything the ep-35 can[/quote]

It can play all of the most common ones (Dolby TrueHD, Linear PCM, and DTS HD HRA). The only one it can't deal with at present is DTS Master Audio - and I think it is only a matter of time before we'll see that introduced via a firmware update (though I appreciate this is still pure conjecture at this point). Considering that it is only Fox who appear to be actually putting Master Audio on discs, and their release schedule has been far from stunning, the lack of DTS MA support isn't actually all that significant; the vast majority of Blu-Ray discs have Linear PCM audio. Decoding TrueHD onboard rather than bitstreaming for a receiver to do it shouldn't really affect the audio anyway (at least not appreciably) - considering that it is essentially just "unzipping".

Ok so the EP-35 can bitstream all of the HD audio formats whereas the PS3 has to decode them onboard and PCM them to the receiver (and currently not DTS-MA), but conversely the PS3 has loads of other (useful) features that the EP-35 doesn't - and that's before you even consider the fact that it is a console too. Also there are far more receivers that support multi-channel PCM over HDMI than there are that can decode HD audio anyway - so in that respect the EP-35 is no better off (as it can't decode them all onboard either).

Oh and with respect to the region coding issue, it is worth remembering that around 60% of "Region A" Blu-ray titles are actually region-free anyway - so it's not like you are completely unable to save some money on imported discs. There are sites that give an excellent summary of which are region free or not (don't know if I'm allowed to link to them or not - just google for bluray and liesinc for one of them at least).
 

nads

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[quote user="simon_soton"]but conversely the PS3 has loads of other (useful) features that the EP-35 doesn't - and that's before you even consider the fact that it is a console too. [/quote]

So i cant play games and have a movie on in the back ground for the better half? So i would need two consoles! ;)
 

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