Toshiba third-gen HD DVD players at CEDIA, 2nd gen 1080p24 firmware update

The constant stream of Toshiba news continues to flow in, and this go 'round its focused on the firm's newest generation of HD DVD players. After Amazon revealed most of the deets on these units, Toshiba seemed pressured to release the official details sooner than they wanted to. As expected, Toshiba is showing all three new models at CEDIA, like the low-end A3 that only supports 1080i, and the latter two that handle 1080p24 and CE-Link, but all three will reportedly be "approximately 1/4-inch slimmer than second generation models," which Tosh isn't forgetting about, as the long-awaited 1080p24 firmware update for the HD-XA2 and HD-A20 models is also going live, and it should be rolled out in "mid-September."

[Jeebus @ Sep 6th 2007 12:19PM]

All that trouble for nothing.

[Adrian Williams @ Sep 6th 2007 1:14PM]

Not really HD-DVD forces Blu-Ray to come down in price, pack more features, and give away free disks even if Blu-ray wins the format war = good for the consumer

[TonyD @ Sep 6th 2007 12:27PM]

Does anyone know if 1080p24 is the same as 1080p?

[Mike Botros @ Sep 6th 2007 12:38PM]

the 24 just means 24fps... still 1080p, just at a film's natural framerate...

[TonyD @ Sep 6th 2007 2:44PM]

Thanks

[orimental @ Sep 6th 2007 12:31PM]

Don't forget that all 3rd Gen HD DVD players from Toshiba will come with 300 and The Bourne Identity packed in. Also, the selection of 15 movies from which you can choose 5 for free has changed. Starting in October, consumers who buy an HD DVD player can choose from Aeon Flux, Babel, Black Rain, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Darkman, Firewall, The Frighteners, Full Metal Jacket, Hulk, The Italian Job, Pitch Black, Syriana, The Thing, TMNT, and U2: Rattle & Roll.

[david @ Sep 6th 2007 1:28PM]

Ick, as with all the OEM movie packages, mostly bad movies.

[Dean Collins @ Sep 6th 2007 2:27PM]

Aeon Flux is a great movie - I dont know why it never got more coverage than it did.

Cheers,
Dean

[Jymbob @ Sep 6th 2007 3:10PM]

I'm tempted to report that comment for causing me a severe headache as my mind tried to connect 'Aeon Flux' with 'great movie'

[Nate the Prophet @ Sep 6th 2007 2:33PM]

I think the current "5 Free" movies are better than these proposed new ones. They should just offer 30 of them to choose from, that would look a lot better to the consumer.

[Mak @ Sep 6th 2007 3:02PM]

Have they sorted out the dire boot times that plague the previous models? I mean 2 minutes to boot up and start a movie playing sucks really badly. My PC starts quicker than that.

[Kumar @ Sep 6th 2007 5:50PM]

My HD-D2 (costco) takes ~1 min, I guess a min less than the first models. I figure it's got to load software or some crap for the overlaid on screen menues (think loading game software). I also imagine that this has been improved in the newer model as well.


About older models not supporting 24p, think how all of us early adopters with 720p/1080i sets feel with sony not even bothering to release a 'cheapo' non-1080p player...how much is THAT going to hurt in the end?

[dmw @ Sep 6th 2007 3:16PM]

Too bad so few TV's will support 24p. I'd venture to wager that no TV made prior to 2007 would properly support it. Anyone out there tested?

[Vanillacide @ Sep 7th 2007 5:01AM]

I've had a Pioneer Elite 1080p 50-inch plasma since June 2006 and that properly supports 1080p24 -- as do many other screens.

Go to avforums.com or avsforum.com and get wise. ;)

[tyboulder @ Sep 17th 2007 1:37AM]

It's funny how 1080p and 1080i are used as such big selling points. The only difference seems to lie in where the image is scaled to 1080p, the dvd player or the TV. If your TV sucks, then maybe you'd want a 1080p unit. But if your TV sucks, you probably won't notice the difference anyway. Purists would probably rather take the 1080i output from a top notch DVD player and scale it in their own separate dedicated scaler.