Tosh EP30

[Oldenbroke]

I have been reading posts in this forum for a while, trying to understand the ins and outs of HD-DVD and

Blue-Ray, and have decided to get a Toshiba EP30, both for a few HD discs and for the upscaling to see

just how good it is for myself. I must thank regular contributors for advice offered and would like to

let people know that Play.com are now selling this player for under £50. Hence my decision to buy

now and join the forum properly.

 

[Anonymous]

Seen this too, great upscaler of DVDs as well.

 

[Clare Newsome]

I had to go and check it out to confirm that price - and here it is: £49.99 for the Toshiba EP30 HD DVD player, including two discs.

Blimey, that's a DVD upscaling bargain, but ouch that's gonna hurt if you paid @£200 for one just before Xmas....

 

[Anonymous]

It does bloody hurt,I paid £279 for mine,off now to cry in the corner,humbug.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the play.com reference - my EP30 came today, after ordering it on Amazon 2 days ago for £77.99 - I thought that was good, and couldn't resist - serves me right for reading the whathifi HD review at £150 saying it was a bargain!

But something else here - I have the Tosh 37X3030 (I think, can't get it off the wall easy to see the part no, but its 1080Full ) and I have to say I wasn't that impressed - first of all, in a widescreen format, you lose maybe a 100 pixels off top and bottom, so you're only really seeing around 720 (which noone seems to point out in any forums or magazines) - the two DVD's supplied don't scream out at you that anything is particularly amazing - and the upscaling doesn't seem to give anything over a decent dvd player either - whats going on - is my tele that bad that HD is wasted? what are other peoples genuine experiences of the player in the home?

 

[Anonymous]

I have the same player as well as a Sharp blu-ray player,currently used on my Sony bravia HD ready lcd,it`s only a 26 inch and have to say the films I`ve seen so far in HD look amazing,so you should really be blown away as your tv is better and bigger.Are you sure you have it all set up ok?

 

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

I received my EP30 from Amazon today having paid £77! My friend reckons Amazon do a deal whereby they refund you the difference if they reduce an item with 30 days of your purchase. I haven't seen this anywhere but going to contact them and ask.

I'm really looking forward to hooking it up tonight. Looking to get Onkyo 605 and Jamo A102 speakers this week to complete the package.

Is everyone else happy with their EP30?

Alex

 

[John Duncan]

[quote user="ASMA"]My friend reckons Amazon do a deal whereby they refund you the difference if they reduce an item with 30 days of your purchase. I haven't seen this anywhere but going to contact them and ask.[/quote]

They do, and I *think* you don't even have to ask, they contact you..........

 

[Anonymous]

I paid £120 and got the 7 free disks, would still pay £120 today if needed as the player is great. £50 is a steal; getting one for me mum for her birthday now!

 

[Anonymous]

Just out if interest what's the best deal on the Ep35 so far? I've got the Ep10 with all the firmware updates, is it worth changing to the 35 if the prices come down or am i better sticking with the ep10 gievn the imminent demise of HD DVD? I'm kinda ignoring the ep30 as the bitstream hd audio output of the 35 is a real seller for me.

 

[Oldenbroke]

Play have the EP35 at <£120 with free delivery.

I have just been told that my EP30 is coming with

300 and Bourne Supremacy, so even more

chuffed with the deal!

 

[Anonymous]

I rang Amazon this morning, and tried to organise a price match with play.com, but they weren't interested - so I'm returning it to them and losing the postage. I have to say, I did some tests before making that call, and I'm beginning to wonder what the deal is here - BBC HD on Freesat is excellent on my TV - it fills the screen, so using the 1080 pixel count, and is obviously far superior to SD - but DVD, wether its 1080 being downscaled to fit the widescreen i2.35:1 nto the frame, or 576 being upscaled to exactly the same size, don't seem to be much different in the real world. And as far as the two free HD DVD's were concerned, 300 was grainy as hell, apparently intended, but not exactly a demo disc, and Bourne wasn't much better.

I decided that even at £77, this whole HighDef thing is totally over hyped when applied to DVDs.

So what is the true story - WhatHifi say its brilliant, and yet still show pictures of teles in their reviews with full screen video, which never happens in real life - no one ever mentions the fact that you lose nearly a quarter of the pixels to a black top and bottom in widescreen, and can it really be right that the DVD player upscales, to then have the TV downscale, or upscale again - to fit in its version of a screen? and then finally, those 2 DVDs were supposedly 1080p - so when I put the TV into exact scan mode, and there were still the black bits top and bottom, it would seem to indicate that the actual film bit of the DVD is only 740'ish pixels high anyway, so why say its 1080 - the whole thing to me is one huge bunch of confusion and marketing hype - please someone lay the truth on the table and explain the whole thing so as I can understand it - please!