HD DVD players become DVD upscalers in format war fallout
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Feb 21st 2008 8:02AM
posted Feb 21st 2008 8:02AM
Update: Looks like Circuit City's jumped on the bandwagon as well -- the HD-A3 is now listed as an "Upconversion DVD/HD-DVD Player."
[Via TechRadar, thanks David]
Read - Old listing (via Google Cache)
Read - Current listing
Read - Circuit City HD-A3 listing (old listing)
booooo.. why would someone buy one now
Um... No lie here, it does upscale DVDs (rolls eyes)
From the image, it looks like 3 people did buy it, and left reviews.
Wonder how many players are still left on shelves.
But will it blend?
The Toshiba players do a fine job of upscaling DVDs. Why wouldn't you pick one up at a bargain price?
As for Blu-Ray, I'll buy one when it hits $99 for a standalone player or when I can afford to buy a PS3.
How (quickly) the mighty have fallen.
18 - 1
Haha!
Pwned!
HAHAHAHAHA! Good one Arno! Patriots SUCK!!!!
ahhh i'm a pats fan, but that was mighty goood.
that's the funniest thing I've seen all week!!
That comment is all the more appropriate with your avatar.
meh, get an Oppo. better picture and much faster.
that would have to be the slowest upscaler ever. sigh. I'm sad HD DVD lost, I genuinely believed that the better format would win, but it did not. Blu Ray is awesome, to be sure, and I love my PS3, but HD DVD was better for the consumer and better for smaller studios.
oh well. trudge on.
".... I genuinely believed that the better format would win, but it did not.."
I seem to remember BETAmax being the "better" format and look how that went, the general public does not know what the better format is, the know what ads and salesmen tell them
that just means that in future we should expect the inferior technology to win.
call is muddyh2o's law: when two, revolutionary technologies compete in the open market, the inferior one will always win in the end.
consumers (educated and uneducated alike) get screwed again.
I don't see how HD-DVD was better, Blu-Ray is in 1080p HD-DVD is not, Blu-Ray has more storage space than HD-DVD, big plus for PC storage, the only thing HD-DVD had that was better was interactive features which Blu-Ray now has, granted it's late to the dance but at least they brought it. Cost isn't really a factor, as the cost would fall eventually no matter who won.
@Seanross
You're an idiot.
I think Engadget runs a story on HD-DVD losing roughly five times a day.
They're going to expand the blog family to include Engadget, Engadget Mobile, Engadget HD, and Engadget We-Told-You-So
It beats another unnamed gizmo blog that whines 20 times a day that Blu-ray is the winner and why they think that HD-DVD and themselves are superior... What a bunch of sore losers over there...
And iEngadget.
and crapgadget.com
John,
Well played, sir. I actually laughed out loud.
If you can get an upscaling DVD player + HD-DVD for, say, under $100, it wouldn't be all bad, since many upscaling players with HDMI are $60ish.
creative. technically true. and a good price, not good enough to consider a dvd upscaller that supports a dead format over, say, a low end ps3.
It costs 3 times less than a PS3
I know that is not being sold in America, but around here you can get a brand new PS3 for about 330.
@steve:
my point is, $150 for this, $400 for a ps3, or $150 + whatever down the road when you want to start buying blu-ray movies, cause hd-dvd is no more.
This isn't surprising. Towards the end, Toshiba's advertising was shifting towards an "Add HD to your DVD" theme, including pushing the player as a regular upscaling player "with HD capability".
You can always buy a HD-DVD player for really cheap and then by a bunch iof movies on clearance for cheap.
Yeah, and what's your point? They work as upscallers so as long as they are within the price range of an upscalling DVD player they should have no problems clearing out their stock.
You might wanna consider changing your profile picture pretty soon..
Wait... People are still buying physical media?
HA! SUCKERS!
If you're satisfied with overcompressed 720p with standard DD 5.1 sound, chosen from a severely limited catalog of titles, then go ahead and enjoy your VuDu or AppleTV. Optical media is where the quality is.
TrentD, try bitTorrent. That's where the action is.
Hmm... Lets think here.
Watching an optical-media movie:
1. Select the title from hundreds of movies on your movie rack.
2. Put it into the optical-media player.
3. Select Input2 on TV. Power on Decoder for surround sound system.
4. Power on optical-media player.
5. Wait through previews you cannot fast forward through.
6. Enjoy your movie. Hope there is no scratches on the disc.
Watching a movie off of my LinuxMCE machine:
1. Turn on TV.
2. Navigate to movie folder, and select title from the thousands on all computers on the network.
3. Press play. Enjoy the movie.
LinuxMCE turns on my decoder, dims the lights, and sets the sound for 'theater' mode and the movie never skips. Ever. All I have to do is hit play.
ScooterDe,
I don't steal the property of others, so I don't get my movies from BitTorrent. I realize there are legit uses for Torrents, but illicit movie sharing is not one I'm interested in partaking in.
It's apparent that the only sucker here is you and the rest of the morons that think that HD Downloads will overtake physical media anytime soon.
@Alexander:
Watching an optical-media movie:
0. Buy/Rent Movie
1. Select the title from hundreds of movies on your movie rack.
2. Put it into the optical-media player.
3. Select Input2 on TV. Power on Decoder for surround sound system.
4. Power on optical-media player.
5. Wait through previews you cannot fast forward through.
6. Enjoy your movie. Hope there is no scratches on the disc.
Watching a movie off of my LinuxMCE machine:
0. Select, Queue, Download, Download, Download, and Verify Movie
1. Turn on TV.
2. Turn on Computer.
3. Wait for OS to load.
4. Wait for Media Program to load.
5. Check that you have the proper Codec.
6. Validate your DRM License
7. Press Play
8. Wait for movie to buffer.
9. Enjoy your movie. Hope there is no corruption in the file.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
:-D Fixed!
@Alexander:
Watching an optical-media movie:
0. Buy/Rent Movie
1. Select the title from hundreds of movies on your movie rack.
2. Put it into the optical-media player.
3. Select Input2 on TV. Power on Decoder for surround sound system.
4. Power on optical-media player.
5. Wait through previews you cannot fast forward through.
6. Enjoy your movie. Hope there is no scratches on the disc.
Watching a movie off of my LinuxMCE machine:
0. Select, Queue, Download, Download, Download, and Verify Movie
1. Turn on TV.
2. Turn on Computer.
3. Wait for OS to load.
4. Wait for Media Program to load.
5. Check that you have the proper Codec.
6. Validate your DRM License
7. Press Play
8. Wait for movie to buffer.
9. Enjoy your movie. Hope there is no corruption in the file.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
:-D Fixed!
Just to note: All of my media has been ripped from various media I own. DVD, HDDVD, and Blu-Ray. It's just in one physical location (my hard drives) rather than in the optical-media that I keep in my basement storage.
I also don't need three players, or hundreds of remotes.
@alexander,
but instead, you wait roughly 45mins to rip each disk to the harddrive?
Woah, nice backtrack there. Two seconds ago you were laughing at people that bought physical media. Now you are saying all your digital media is ripped from the physical media you bought. Nice work.
I was on play yesterday and noticed that. They still work out more expensive than an upscaler, but if you don't want real HD for some reason they are a reasonable price.
Except they CAN deliver real HD...
Can we put a block on any person posting...
"Physical media is old, Digital Distribution is the future"
Also I only have DD 5.1, is there really much difference between that and TrueHD 7.1?
Most 5.1 soundtracks are so crap that they rarely use anything but the left and right speakers, often not even using the centre speaker for dialogue. You get the occassional films, usually Sony that know how to use 5.1 and they sound brilliant, but the rest especially Universal make a complete Hash of it.
I often wonder why I spent so much of my Theatre rig if the films aren't made to use it properly.
And before you say it, Yes my rig is set-up properly.
No. Physical distribution IS old. Sorry. And digital distribution is here.
I'm still goin' strong with the good old red and white stereo speakers over here :D
Who needs hundred-dollar 7.1 HD speaker systems when you've got your trusty red and white cables? ;)
Wait a minute, that was someone else's idea. I wonder if they used electrical tape to black out the "HD" part of the "HD-DVD" logo too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH51u_-Kabw
I dont see the problem in buying one of these player if you get it for cheap. I bought a A3 yesterday for less then $70.00 it came with 2 HD-DVD. The format maybe dead but doesn't mean you still cant use the machine for up-convert DVD player. That and if you can find the HD-DVD for $10 and you love that movie why not buy it? Sure down the road if the player dies..... Your laughing at this but I think its a smart buy if you can get it cheaper then a regular up-convert DVD player.
want to direct me to where u bought it for less than 70 please?
If I turned Adblock off on Firefox, all I'd see would be Blu-ray ads.
It's completely true... even if there's no longer a compelling reason to want the ability to play HD-DVDs, plenty of people are still just buying plain ol DVDs, and wouldn't mind an upscaling player.
Why not buy one of these if they work as upscalers, as long as they're similarly priced as regular upscaling players?
Heck in a month you'll be able to get these for $50 bucks. Hell of a lot better than $400-$800 for BlueRay. You people must have a lot more money that me.
I told them to do that. Glad they listened. J/K
It's all the way you phrase your product description...
I have bought a 2nd HDDVD player since the news of the drop has come. Come on you can get the 360 add on for $50 to 60 bucks and a new Toshiba player with 7 movies for $70.00. Your just a f_c_ing idiot if you need a new player or have many hddvds already and dont buy one at these prices. I still have my PS3 for BR and my HDA1 but one day that will die. Why not have both at these prices its less than the price of a game on the new systems.
I wish Engadget would stop with all the HD-DVD hate. I know you got advertisements for Blu-Ray players on your website but guess what? They are still too f-ckin high. And no I don't want a PS3 nor do I care that is does Blu-Ray movies and GAMES because I don't buy console to watch movies I buy them to play games.
I'll wait til Blu-Ray drops to sub $200 prices then I might bite. Guess I will be waiting for a long time.
The ignorant media has started reporting on "Better not buy that BluRay player yet". MSNBC has a story telling people that BluRay players are still $400-600 and that they all need to be upgraded to new players if you want to play movies coming out later. They site an analyst that was behind HD-DVD that is obviously mad about BluRay's victory.Then the article goes on to say that there is an alternative and that is upconverting DVD players and digital downloads.
The Microsoft sludge machine in full effect. Hey Microsoft if you are trying to hide your agenda you are doing a really bad job. I know you stole a page from Joe Kennedy's playbook on how to manipulate and influence the market, but this is just sad.
I mean wow. How fast everyone's abandoned HD-DVD...(insert faster than x celebrity going to rehab for x addiction joke).
It really is sad though...the celebrities.
Everyone who never has seen it would be surprised by how good your old DVDs are getting when you watch them from a HD-DVD-Player. Almost unbeliebavle. For this, 70 bucks is a hell of a deal.
its worse than that, he's dead jim
Michael, I dont think its people quickly abandoning hd-dvd, I think its hd-dvd people having nothing more to say..like its going to change anything.
AlexM, you're an idiot, HD-DVD does 1080p too.
Interesting concept even if that price still isn't great. Incidentally, Amazon just dropped the price of its HD DVD players to $99. And that's with 7 movies included:
http://www.techconsumer.com/2008/02/21/amazon-drops-price-of-hd-dvd-player-to-99-upconvert-dvd-w-free-movies/
I'm soo glad the format war has been decided with Blu-Ray the clear winner.
www.gaj-it.com
@ Riggs
Check these deals out!
Amazon has most of the systems selling below 100 new and 60 or so used. I read MS is planning on a $50.00 hddvd add on as soon as the buy a hddvd player get 5 movies thing ends in a few days.
What happens when a couple of million of these things sell?
What's the problem here? Previously you were able to buy:
1. An HD DVD player for £120; or
2. An upscaling DVD player for £60 (based on first in-stock play.com result for 'upscaling dvd').
Now you can buy:
1. An upscaling DVD player that happens to play a dead format, for £80
2. An upscaling DVD player for £60.
£20 / one third of the price seems a reasonable premium to be able to play a format that is around now but won't be around for much longer. You could probably save that by buying a few cut-price HD DVDs instead of their Blu-ray equivilents.
Has anyone here gotten an unlock code yet?
Buy an HD-DVD to use as an up convert DVD player? Why would you torture yourself waiting up to three minutes for power on, boot up, open, close, load, read, then menu on an HD-DVD player when a normal upconvert DVD player will have you watching in less than 30 seconds from power on to play to get the same end result?
I don't know if every model does the same but my Toshiba HD-DVD player won't upscale conventional DVDs on the analog outputs (YPbPr) if the disk is CSS encoded which most movie disks are. I don't really care because I have a professional 3 chip DLP projector that can resize things just fine but I would find it annoying if I needed upscaling to fill a flat screen that didn't have the necessary digital inputs.
Now the question is: If there are bargains to be had on HD-DVD disks do I take advantage and make existing player more useful or is that a foolish bet as someday it will fail and I won't be able to play them. Obv. I have to get a BD player at some point but I went with HD because BD was hugely overpriced at the time.
This unfortunately seems to be the standard these days. Stores get stuck with products so they down right LIE about the product to move it. This is a reflection of the state of the country in general if you ask me, but what do I know?
1) Open lipstick
2) Apply liberally to pig