Seems like the A30 is popular here.

Why no A35?

The A35 is around $100 more expensive and most of us don't have the necessary equipment to take advantage of the extra features

Arj, .. if u got any hd dvd movies for sale, please let me know 1st .. okie

If I were to describe the A30 in one word, it would have to be "slow". The startup time, loading time and the skip to the next takes ages compared to the Xbox 360 add-on HD DVD player. As for the picture and audio quality, with my limited time spent on the A30, I really can't tell the difference between the two. Will try to do a more thorough comparison over the weekend

While I was researching for a player, I read about people raving about the SD DVD upconversion capability of the A30 so I decided to give my LOTR: ROTK EE a go. From the moment the movie started, I quickly noticed a huge improvement in the picture quality compared to playing it on my PC or even my top-of-the-line Pioneer upconverting DVD that cost even more than the A30! The picture looks sharper, color looks more vivid and not as washed out like on the Pioner. Guess I'll be holding on to my DVD collection a while longer

So based from your feedback, seems like the XBOX 360 HD-DVD add on is a much better buy but I believe the PQ on your A30 is much better since it is using Anchor Bay's video processing DSPs to handle the deinterlacing part whereas the XBOX 360 relies on software to do the deinterlacing part. A properly authored HD-DVD movie will play fine on the XBOX 360 since it is flag based, if not, those ugly jaggies will be an annoying sight. Of course, most HD-DVD movies are properly authored except for a couple of old movies like Full Metal Jacket, etc or the Toshiba HD-DVD demo disc (not properly authored)

Just got these from J&R, sinfully cheap for a brand-name HiDef player:-





The Onkyo DV-HD805, which is , in a nutshell, a HD-XA2 tweaked to the max. Load time? 12 seconds. Picture Quality (PQ)? Silicon Optix Reon-VX. Audio Quality? Bitstream passage of DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby True HD, decoded to PCM to your receiver. The guys at AVSForums are clamoring for this.

Specs:-

GENERAL
Product Type
HD DVD player

Form Factor
Tabletop Width17.1 in Depth13.6 in Height2.9 in Weight9.5 lbs

DVD Media Type
CD, DVD, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, HD DVDMedia

Format
NTSC Video
D/A Converter12bit / 297MHzAudio D/A Converter24bit / 192kHz

Built-in Audio Decoders
DTS decoder, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital, DTS-HD decoder, Dolby Digital Plus

Media Load Type
Tray

Upscaling
Yes

Output Resolution
720p, 1080i, 1080p

AUDIO SYSTEM
Digital Audio Format
DTS digital output, Dolby Digital output

Sound Output Mode
Stereo

Response Bandwidth
4 - 44000 Hz

DVD FEATURES
Additional Features
Upgradeable software, 3:2 pulldown compensation

REMOTE CONTROL

Type
Universal remote control

Technology
Infrared

Features
Multi-brand compatibility

CONNECTIONS
Connector Type1 x Composite video output ( RCA phono ) - Rear, 1 x S-Video output ( 4 pin mini-DIN ) - Rear, 1 x Component video output ( RCA phono x 3 ) - Rear, 1 x Audio line-out ( RCA phono x 2 ) - Rear, 1 x HDMI ( 19 pin HDMI Type A ) - Rear, 1 x 5.1 channel audio line-out ( RCA phono x 6 ) - Rear, 1 x Digital audio output (optical) ( TOS Link ) - Rear, 1 x Digital audio output (coaxial) ( RCA phono ) - Rear, 1 x Network ( RJ-45 ) - Rear, 1 x Serial ( 9 pin D-Sub ) - Rear

MISCELLANEOUS
Cables Included
A/V cable

POWER
Power Device
Power supply
Power Consumption
Operational
47 Watt

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Considered the 3rd Gen. HD-A35, but the SD upscaling quality of the ABT chip inside the A35 ,compared to the Silicon Optix Reon VX on the XA2 or this HD805, is generic.Scenes like in Star Wars Insurrection with the long pan and scan shot of the Enterprise, the shrinking plane on the horizon on The Incredibles, as well as the snow scene in Transformers DVD, are the defining test material to see if your player does deinterlacing properly, and according to the guys in the AVSForums, the A35 and its lower speced siblings, only does it average.Hell, there's a writeup on one of the thread explaining the merits and capabilities of the ABT chip compared to the Silicon Optix Reon VX chip, and the ABT chip lack proper deinterlacing for SD materials. HD-DVDs are virtually the same between these two chip solutions, but those who crave near-HD deliciousness of SD-upscaling, would look towards the XA2 or this. Those wanting Blu-ray solutions should go for the Panasonic 30K model instead.

A35 and its lower-speced siblings are good no doubt, but at USD150 extra top up to A35's price, this is a steal! USD650 , baby yeah!

Testing this unit on the crappy hotel's TV, cant wait to get back home!

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Added on December 21, 2007, 3:53 amAnd oh, my HD-E1 HD-DVD player will be replaced by this unit, therefore going on sale. Cheap cheap!

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Dec 21 2007, 03:53 AM

Reviews from HT forums indicates that the A30 and even the A3 produces better PQ compared to the 360 add-on. Personally I don't think I see any difference, may my eyes not sensitive enough. Maybe if I have two identical TVs next to each other, one for the A30 and the other for the add-on, I might see the difference

If the HD805 upscales much better than the A30 and the average viewer sit some distance away from the TV, they might not be able to distinguish between HD DVD and SD DVD

frankly, i wan the toshiba for the upscaling capabilities

Hahahaha arj you're gonna need to invest in a programmable remote soon hehehe.

I'll stick to consoles for now for my hi-def feed... don't have the proper infra in place yet to justify going standalone.

Recommended Arj to get Logitech Harmony XBOX 360.



Using it for about 1 year, so far so good and manage to replace 8 remote controls into 1
PA now selling at USD$69.90

You need to get the A30 or A35 then. The A3 that you've been eyeing have inferior upscaling capability

Another thing to take note, there's a region lock for SD DVDs on the A30 so only region 1 disc is playable


Yeah, currently eyeing one of those Logitech Harmony

@ arj - MK beat me to it. Was about to suggest it's time for u to invest in a universal remote like the Harmony 885/890. It's not perfect though, and the product could so with some improvements, but all in all still one of the best out there. Need to invest some time to program and sync everything into the remote, but worth the time invested. Works on all my rigs (even the air-con .. lol) except the PS3 since that's bluetooth.

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Added on December 21, 2007, 11:15 amrx, doesn't your PS3 do a good enough job at upscaling? Or is it becos u dont want the wear and tear on the PS3?

This post has been edited by terranova: Dec 21 2007, 11:15 AM

pm me your price!



This post has been edited by apisgogo: Dec 21 2007, 12:06 PM

holly molly

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Added on December 21, 2007, 2:01 pmWTF !!!



This post has been edited by g5sim: Dec 21 2007, 02:01 PM

Finally manage to get my hands on the Jack Ryan Collection

Manage to get it from ebay. Didn't get the chance to get it from amazon since it was recalled by Paramount a few days after its release due to some packaging issues

Wah .... onkyo 805 at US$799 .... it better well be performing its money's proportional worth.

You tell me how much. Im still in my Christmas mood.

XA2 in LA, HD805 in KL. Perfect upscaling every single time. E1 for sale, and for you, my long time HD-DVD advocate, im giving you an opportunity to get this dirt cheap.

It is not USD799, it is USD649.99. XA2 at J&R is USD559.99, so you basically add 90 bucks for this beauty.

The HD805 is going for its big-screen devirginising at Mediaplex on the 26th, but not before i molest it myself once i get home.

Reference titles like Nemo and Chronicles of Riddick on DVD looks near-HD once upscaled with the Reon VX chip. So much is the case, Chronicles of Riddick looks virtually like its HD-DVD counterpart. And to those who can get their hands on the XA2, you CAN make the drive REGION FREE, using Firmware 2.5. Im torn between keeping my XA2 at 2.5 and updating it to 2.7 to get the High Bitrate bitstreaming feature from the new update.

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Dec 21 2007, 09:06 PM

Well, I just found out that the XBOX 360 HD-DVD drive has a built in memory of 192mb to speed up access and loading times, and utilizing the multicore architecture that the XBOX 360 has to offer, it could be the reason why it is faster than a dedicated player. I'm not sure about the A30 though, I can't seem to find the technical specs for this model. The original Toshiba HD-A1 was actually a pc in disguise with a 2.5 GHz Pentium 4 CPU, 1GB of PC2700 DDR RAM plus 256mb of Nand memory, it could be the reason why it took forever to load a movie but my wild guess will be that the A30 could be using a much better hardware than the previous two generations to speed things up.

I'll be getting my XBOX 360 HD-DVD drive tomorrow so I'll probably plug it to my pc to give it some Intel C2D love and see how it performs. At this point of time, I shall limit myself to this add on, wouldn't want to buy a dedicated deck but might consider a combo player if the price is right. However, from what I know Samsung has a lot of playback problems with blu-ray movies even updated via firmware updates so their combo player might be a failure while for LG, their first combo player received very lukewarm response as the picture quality is not up to the mark plus it was pricey.

The blu-ray and hd-dvd debate is just like Aliens Vs Predator, whoever wins, we loose.


The PS3 has pretty good upscaling capabilities to be honest, it scored 120 out of 130 from the HQV test benchmarks. Not bad I must say but be careful of the lens, it's pretty sensitive as there are many cases of dead PS3 consoles as a result of playing standard dvds on it.

hmmm,duno ler feels weird playing SD on the dvd... maybe it doesnt look like a dvd player

Prices I got are from online stores ....

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/shop/12836/P...VD_Players.html

The A3 and A35 are selling at $250 and $350, while the HD805 is $799

Wow... the XA2 is more than the 3rd gens.