did some diggin and found that BHPhoto sends the Toshiba next generation DVD player, HD A2 (second generation) to Malaysia (KL/Selangor) for a total price of $623.25 (RM2243.7) including courier charge. After that, get someone from US or Canada (Alamaklor ) to get the three free HD DVD movies from HD DVD promotional group .. ... anyone can lari cukai .. tips please

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller...rch&Q=&ci=12836

http://thelookandsoundofperfect.com/_pdf/p...ffer_advert.pdf

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ADDED update : 11th March 2007
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and every purchase will also entitle purchasers to get 5 FREE HD DVDs


just wanna point out that HD DVD has reached the street price point of $2**.

yupe .. HD DVD's cost affective advantage is showing.



http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-HD-D1-DVD-Pl...3576403&sr=1-10

and the gen2 A2 player is $33* after Amazon Visa discount ... that is like $31 away from the $2** price point. And this is a model that is currently in production

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000IJV4B...3576403&sr=1-10

This post has been edited by g5sim: Mar 11 2007, 09:40 AM

They might only take in 110V power.

hmm get a power regulator - or what is its name ..

That's called a stepdown adaptor if you're using 110V in Malaysia. The HD-DVD player is even cheaper than Denon 2930 dvd player. Just can't wait for Toshiba to officially launch it here.

yes .. the people at AVS are also crying foul.

I dont think we will see HD DVD here in malaysia. not next year. Do we have the facilities to author and duplicate HD DVD disks in Malaysia? Or are we going to send everything back to the US after censorship by FINAS?

you can try to get the XA1. Its actually cheaper than the 2nd generation A2 now. Sadly, the A1 are sold out, it was like $349 a while ago after Toshiba launched the second generation players

doesnt the xbox 360 support the hd-dvd too?

Well, it's not a problem, I import my HD-DVDs from Lasersedge, USA. I have a few with me, I bought the whole collection for Fast And Furious, Van Helsing, etc. King Kong came free with XBOX 360 HD-DVD add on. I know it's not a proper way to watch HD-DVDs but that's better than nothing I guess, hopefully I can get my hands on Cyberlink's HD-DVD software so that I can give the XBOX 360 HD-DVD add on a test drive since it's supported by the software.

Don't worry about Finas, they can't do anything to censor movies imported from the US because it's impossible but as long as you're not ordering Basic Instinct 2 Blu-Ray, you're safe.

hahaha .. i mean if we to launch HD DVD officially, we must some how officially have the contents available right. Dont tell me Speedy, Tower are going to import all the titles from USA. What about Pontianak Sundal Harum Malam or Mat Rempit or Cicak Man in HD DVD?

Cicak Man? That crap movie, it will be an insult if it's released on DVD IMHO. All HD-DVD titles will be from Hollywood and even Hong Kong movies are not available in HD-DVD yet, it will take time but there's nothing wrong to watch hollywood movies on HD-DVD, isn't it?

FYI, Speedy can order HD-DVD titles for you but they're selling RM199.90 or more so if you're smart enough to do the calculations, it's cheaper to order them from the US, I only paid RM110 to RM130 per title including DHL or FedEx shipping to Malaysia. No taxes so far, I ordered 2-4 movies per order.

It will be many years later when you finally get locally produced HD-DVD titles because the authoring equipment is costly, but not as costly as producing Blu-Ray discs. When there are no players available locally, who would wanna produce HD-DVD titles locally, right?

they will be release simultanously, no one without the other

how do I get 3 free hd dvd? I want! does the ps3 play hd dvd?

oh btw, hd dvd decrypted...anybody want me to send back some copies? DL DVD'+R is only RM4 a piece *HEY HEY NO NAUGHTY TALK!!!*

This post has been edited by AlamakLor: Dec 29 2006, 04:27 AM

Actually you get can FIVE free HD DVDs with that price!

The HD DVD north america is offering 3 free HD DVD movies with every purchase of any HD DVD players. Applicable to Canada and USA (limited time offer). Many retailers are offering an additional 2 free HD DVD movies with the purchase. Plus FREE shipping and FREE extended warranty, the total cost of the player would be like $350 making it one of the MOST affordable early adopter toys around.

and NO, the PS3 doesnt play HD DVD movies. You are lucky they even play CD (as the Pioneer Elite and Sony Blu-ray players cant play CD)

3 FREE HD DVD offer form. Just choose your three titles and mail the form to Toshiba.

http://thelookandsoundofperfect.com/_pdf/p...ffer_advert.pdf

This post has been edited by g5sim: Dec 29 2006, 07:19 AM

Hah? Why so stupid to make it not backward compatible?

This post has been edited by kelvinyam: Dec 29 2006, 07:31 AM

i also dunno lah .. but the PS3, Samsung, Philips and Panasonic Blu-ray players do play CDs. Only Sony and Pioneer (both made by Pioneer) cant do CDs

Oh so there was a catch...I thought you could get 3, literally, free HD DVD. Basically they are giving u CAD150-180 discount (price for 3 good hd dvd title over here) if you get the player.

Yeah I thought so. I didnt think $ony would make the drive compatible with HD DVD, that'd jeorpadize their BD sales kau kau. After all, the BD price is similar to the HD dvd, only thing different are the titles.

I think I did something very smart this christmas I bought a 250gb external hdd and I plan to store all those h.264 1080p movies I downloaded from usenet into it, and have the PS3 play it back. The PS3 could detect external HDD via its usb, and renaming .ts to .mpeg would allow the PS3 to playback the files. Apparently the PS3 has much more processing power than my 3800 X 2...I can playback mpeg2 1080p on my pc no problem, but h.264 1080p pwns my pc kau kau. The usenet cost me 15USD a month, unlimited download at full ISP rated speed.

So here's an analysis:
-Dedicated HD DVDp = $600+ + $30/disc
-PS3 - $500 - $600 + external hdd $100+ + Usenet $15/mo + DL time
-Digital cable/satellite service + HD channel = PVR Box $200 - $500 + Service fee $25 - 50/mo

Can't say which is the best option....I think only option 1 and 2 are available in Msia. Does Astro now broadcast HD content?

I think you terbalik liao lah, the Pioneer dvd spots the same components as the Sony player, it's made by Sony, not by Pioneer but finishing by Pioneer of course. Pioneer is using Sony's Blu-Ray transport but if it can play CDs originally, it will be the same as the Pioneer player. I guess Pioneer is not too keen to have their own plant to manufacture Blu-Ray drives yet, if this format flops, Pioneer will stand to loose billions. I'm placing my bets on HD-DVD, it seems to be a better format in terms of picture quality and price. I know Blu-Ray could do dual layer and has more storage space but then, most titles are still on single layer, maybe it's due to cost concerns.

It has been confirmed that that Pioneer is designing and manufacturing the Sony Blu-ray Disk player. I am not saying that that all HD DVD titles are better is PQ but they are more consistent as compared to BD. There are people saying that some BD look great on Sony and Pioneer via 1080p24. However, HD DVD's is surely a killer. Blu-ray Disk players just couldnt justify the x2 price tag. Double layer BD movies are already out. Mission Impossible Ultimate Collection 4-disk set for example.



Sony WILL only produce anything HD DVD if Blu-ray Disk is dead and burried.

The only time sony admitted defeat and publicly announced that was when they decide to start supporting mp3 format for their DAPs, but their ATRAC aint dead though. Same for the BD, it wont be dead unless the PS3 is dead, they might admit defeat and start taking in HD DVD, but as long as the ps3 survives, BD stuff will still be produced. BD is a pretty good technology, the disc can hold up to 8 layers double sided, 400gb and the prices and cost will drop slowly...it's a common thing in business anyway, high prices at the beginning to recover their R&D, production cost is actually very low. I think the reason why HD dvd may be more successful is because it is not really a new technology, it's just an upsized DVD. Like CD -> XRCD. SACD and BD are distinctly different technology.

This post has been edited by AlamakLor: Dec 30 2006, 02:49 AM

There's a shop in Cineleisure Mutiara Damansara that is selling HD DVD starting from RM139 for the US$20 amzon titles and around RM170 for the US$25-28 ones. I just received a package from amazon a few days ago with 7 HD DVDs and 2 CDs. No tax

Hopefully can avoid taxes for the 360 add-on player when I get it tomorrow

**EDIT**

Any particular reason why you ordered from lasersedge? The prices there are more expensive compared to amazon.....

This post has been edited by arj: Dec 30 2006, 03:04 AM

over RM500 then u sure kenak taxed. so count the value is RM before pressing the 'submit' button.

It was way above RM500 for the 9 items. My player is on the delivery vehicle already and FedEx didn't call me so I presume there's no tax for it. It's my lucky day I guess But yeah, just to be safe, keep the value of the package under RM500 and it should go through safely

Did you declare it for personal use? I ordered an amplifier from the UK once, I declared it as Christmas gift and it reached me without being taxed but the declared value was around RM800 (not the actual value of course).

Nope, no special declaration or instructions to amazon or fedex. Two other guys from the xbox section who ordered got taxed though

Sounds like you're the lucky guy. Any family members working for the customs department? Hahaha. Just joking.

It depends on luck anyway b'coz if the customs officer wanna tax it, you can't do anything about it either. I had been in such a situation before, I told him that it wasn't taxed previously, he told me that officer didn't tax it was his business but I wanna tax it. Argghhh ..... I felt like smacking him on the face. Luckily it was for my personal use, if it was imported for business purposes, these taxes will have an impact on my profit margins.

whoa damn! I just tried tossing a part of iRobot 1080p h.264 file to my 512mb CF card and tried playing it back with PS3...it really freaking works and it's smooth like hell!!! man can't wait for my external hdd to get here on Tuesday...I wonder if the PS3 would detect my PC as mass storage if I hook them up with a USB cable. Looks like I wont even be buying BD

How does it compare when you stack it up with a Blu-Ray movie running in 1080P?

Is there a player that plays both HD & Blue-ray DVD?

Not at the moment, maybe around next year, NEC has developed the chip for that so it will be soon. We'll definitely see one but lets start saving now.

LG Electronics has just announced one. THey will showcase the player next week from 7 January in the Consume Electronic Show at Las Vegas.



anyhow .. BHPhoto has just reduced the price of the A2 HD DVD player to $ 429.95 .. its getting cheaper by month

I guess it's best to wait than to buy one now, normally if you're the last to buy, you'll get a better price, deal and possibly the player will come with better specs too and of course, faster loading of blu-ray and hd-dvd movies. The current players take forever to start and play these movies.

I remembered paying RM2300 for a Toshiba dvd player last time, it was bare bones, nothing special, just a normal first gen dvd player but look at now, we're getting progressive scan, it plays SACD / DVD-Audio titles and now, it upscales to HDTV resolution via HDMI, it just gets better and better plus cheaper too so sometimes, it's best to wait, you don't really gain to be the first one to own it IMHO.

Don't buy DVD player now! Wait for next generation player.
I bought my 1st DVD player model SONY NS300 back in 2001 costs me RM 899. After that, cheaper model with more functionality.

its now $399.95 = (RM1440)

oh dear .. early adopter product never been this 'affordable'

I prefer to see more brands and choices for HD-DVD players. At least for the Blu-Ray camp, they have players from Samsung, LG, Sony, Pioneer, Panasonic, etc to start with.

I thought that all electrical goods requires AP before they can be brought into the country. Does that condition still applies or is Custom relaxing the ruling?

When HD DVDp reaches around 200 bucks average price, that'd be about the time DVD becomes VHS.

you do notice that that their players are from MSRP $999-$1499, and many cant play CD .. how many optical players in the market cant play CD, even the RM89.99 VCD players can play CD ... sorry cant help it ..

multiple brand HD DVD players would be good. LG already has a HD DVD player out. Sony wont do HD DVD player until HD DVD is totally dead and buried. I would say we would see Samsung, Philips and Pioner HD DVD players before the rest .. but then Pioneer is still doing Plasma only ...



yupe and the price of the HD DVD disk too. If it reaches the DVD range then there is no reason not to go hidef.

anyhow - when HD DVD combo reaches maturity and capable of doing 30GB/9GB on one side, studios such as Universal would stop the releasing DVD all together making the transition of hidef much more smoother

AP? Not that I know of if you're importing it for your own personal use. Sometimes if the voltage is different, like 110V, they'll require you to get an approval from JBE. Just extra paperwork & $$$ to process the necessary documents.


Well, DVD won't be as bad as VHS lah, DVD has more titles than HD-DVDs or even Blu-Rays and it's still selling quite well, maybe we'll get cheaper original dvds in the future which is a good thing.


Some competition is good but many brands are reluctant to jump into the HD bandwagon yet and frankly, I don't think highly of Toshiba when it comes to HD-DVD players, if Marantz, Denon, Arcam, etc are also interested to make HD-DVD player I'm sure the picture and sound quality will blow Toshiba's own players away. For instance, Denon didn't create the dvd format but they have the best dvd players in the market or shall I say, audiophile quality.

Nah, movie studios can't just pull the plug on normal dvds, not everyone can afford HD-DVDs and Blu-Rays, this is Malaysia, we ain't staying in a foreign country, an original dvd in the UK is like the price of two plates for fish and chips, how about in Malaysia? If an original dvd here costs as much as two plates of fish and chips, then that's a different story. Frankly, original products are cheap overseas and they have those Christmas promotion like buying 5 titles and get 1 free. We don't have such luxury here. That's why dvds will still exist alongside with HD-DVDs and Blu-Rays for a long long time.

yes Universal, Paramount and Warner can. The so called HD DVD disks also play in regular dvd players you know ... it has both HD DVD and standard dvd contents ... that is actually a good way to trick consumers into hidef ... well that is one naughty idea anyway

Well, only a few titles are combo ones but I'll expect them to disappear pretty soon as you need to pay more for buying combo titles. It's doesn't come free to be honest.

i know .. that is why i said 'when HD DVD reaches maturity' meaning .. we see see 30GB/9GB Combo disk on one side, at the price range below HD DVD nearing to standard dvd. When that day comes, standard dvd's day is over. Basically consumers will see standard dvd looking disks at the standard dvd price that are also a hd dvd disk ... the 30GB/9GB one sided disk and proposed last year.

availability for the flipper 30GB/9GB disk is scheduled for Fall 2007. This means if they can get the price down, every single release on HD DVD will be in combo. Universal has said in their press release that 90% of their 2007 release will be in Combo.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/archive/ind...p/t-698978.html

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=697405

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Added on February 26, 2007, 9:34 amooh news has it, the MSRP price for A2 will officially be dropped to just $399 when A20 is available in the market (basically no one is going to get A2 with A20 with 1080p and high end Silicon Optic Reon video chip) $100 more. The of A2 is said to be going to be drop again to $299 in fall. Or maybe Toshiba will be releasing 3Gen players from $299 up in fall. Wow that is actually the price of XBox 360

This post has been edited by g5sim: Feb 26 2007, 09:34 AM

A20 will only be out in April right? So tempted to get the A2 now since HD-XA2 is a bit too much. probably i should wait and purchase this player after paying my income tax.

Well, it's true, once the price of HD formats slightly differ from the standard dvds, nobody will buy them, everyone will get these HD ones instead since they also play on normal tvs and they're of course, more value for money. We have to wait for a few generations before we get to buy affordable HD players, I believe in 2-3 years' time. The HK film industry is not supporting any of these formats yet, the same goes to the film industries of other countries too. The transition will take a few years before all movies are eventually in HD format and I of course, hoping to watch Star Wars and Jurassic Park in HD. I know these classics will on HD format one day but they're holding them back because they want the HD market to have a larger customer base first. Most special edition movies are still being released for the standard dvd format, you can't get the King Kong Special Edition version on HD-DVD as of now, maybe later when Toshiba manage to squeeze in more space for their formats, they have finally managed to squeeze about 51GB of space, that should do the trick, of course, 100GB will be better especially for movies like LOTR with tons of special features and deleted scenes.


Alamak ...... why worry about income tax I'm more worried about the availability of the softwares here. No point buying a player when there are no softwares available locally. Of course we can order online but it will be good if we have those cheaper imported Asian version movies. At least we have a choice like standard dvds, we have Region 1 and 3 to choose from.

oh .. good one .. not only the price of the player has been dropped. Toshiba just pump steroid to their the FREE HD DVD offers for every purchase of HD DVD player. Toshiba were offering 3 free hd dvds for every HD DVD purchase until 28th Feb 2007. Starting 1st March til July 31st 2007, they are offering a whopping 5 (Five) FREE HD DVDs for every HD DVD player purchase .. that is like another $125 off the player. so basically the price is like $399-$125= $274

http://thelookandsoundofperfect.com/_pdf/p...ffer_advert.pdf

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Added on March 2, 2007, 3:23 amthat is what they are saying. anyhow - if you are going to use it on a 42in display from 8 feet, the A2 would be sufficient ..

This post has been edited by g5sim: Mar 2 2007, 03:24 AM

DVDs are barely ok for me now. I'm very used the HDTV rips, and even so the quality is not really on par with true BD/HD DVD. I'm spoilt...dvix now looks like poo....

the offer is only valid for US resident only right? Is there anyway, for them to send it to Msia?

Tempting, I see the future as having both players.

I prefer a combo player instead for convenience sake but sadly, LG made a crappy combo player. Hopefully, there are other brands who are interested in making a combo player.

yes. but i bet it will be extended to Canada as well as the previous 3 free HD DVD offer. anyhow, just get just some to from the States to do it for you.

If Toshiba launches their player here, I wonder whether they will give us 5 HD-DVD titles or not? Maybe got lah, maybe movies like Cicakman, Sepet, Puteri Gunung Ledang, Scenario The Movie and Remp-It.

Sure heboh seluruh malaysia. its better to give us Bollywood movies .. HD DVD is launching in India very soon. when that happens, expect to see Bollywood movies in HD DVD .. Malaysians will be very happy about that. Imagine Amitabh Belacan in HD DVD !!! all the makcik makcik jumping around

Yeah, Bollywood movies in DTS-HD and it will sound better than Casino Royale.

more good news,

just wanna point out that HD DVD has reached the street price point of $2**.

yupe .. HD DVD's cost affective advantage is showing.

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-HD-D1-DVD-Pl...3576403&sr=1-10

and the gen2 A2 player is $33* after Amazon Visa discount ... that is like $31 away from the $2** price point. And this is a model that is currently in production

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000IJV4B...3576403&sr=1-10

Well, I do hope some to see more HD-DVD variants from other brands besides Toshiba b'coz currently, Toshiba is the only brand marketing HD-DVD players aggressively. From the price point, Toshiba offers the best bang for the buck with their players and the HD-DVD softwares are reasonably priced and offer better picture quality than Blu-Ray. Their MPEG 4 AVC coding for all HD-DVD titles have an added advantage against the Blu-Ray format whereby most Blu-Ray titles are still using MPEG-2 compression even though they're able to use MPEG 4 AVC coding for their movies. A very strange move by the Blu-Ray camp. Totally unexplained.

actually right now, only IP holders in Blu-ray and Toshiba are producing the standalone players. Sony/Pana/Pioneer for BD and Toshiba for HD DVD. The rest is just not interested in investing into something that is not certain that they have have no 'interest' in

I believe if other brands like Denon, Marantz, Cambridge Audio, Pioneer, etc are interested in making a HD-DVD player, we can expect even much better quality than Toshiba's current high end models in the market. Of course, the other companies are probably waiting to see which format is more feasible. I think chances of combo players appearing will be very unlikely since only LG is interested to do one, the rest are keeping mum on it.

hmm The XA2 is selling at $58* now ... hehehe

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Added on March 24, 2007, 11:56 ambhphoto is now selling the player at # $ 369.00

This post has been edited by g5sim: Mar 24 2007, 11:56 AM