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Classic Video Players Reviews |
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Past HD DVD Hardware News |
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HD DVD Players
Tuesday, 01 January 2008
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Written by
Andrew Robinson
Introduction
Not since VHS vs. Beta has an AV format war been the source of so much turmoil for consumers. More so than SACD vs. DVD-Audio, HD DVD vs. Blu-ray has sparked numerous debates around the water cooler, caused much consumer confusion and even managed to shut down portions of one of the Internet’s largest consumer electronics forum because of – get this – death threats. That’s right, death threats. While consumers flock to stores in droves for HDTVs, it has only been in recent weeks, with radical price drops on players, that consumers are looking toward HD players to actually feed their new HDTVs with beaming, beautiful video content.
Consider this review round three. I recently reviewed the Toshiba HD-A20 and raved about it, proclaiming it to be the best HD DVD player on the market at the time. The review ...
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Wednesday, 01 August 2007
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Written by
Andrew Robinson
Introduction
HD
DVD vs. Blu-ray. It seems, once again, consumers are in the middle of
yet another format war. While round one has seemingly come and gone
with the introduction of both parties’ initial efforts a little over a
year ago, like all good fights, nothing is ever won in the first round
and consumers now find themselves entrenched in round two. You could
argue that round one had to go to Blu-ray (despite missing the opening
bell by months) with their true 1080p support trumping HD DVD’s
1080i-only resolution. However, the victory was a hollow one, for the
first batch of 1080p discs were less than stellar and often looked
worse then their HD DVD and sometimes even standard DVD counterparts.
Now, both sides have full 1080p support and, with the introduction of
the new Toshiba HD-A20 reviewed here, it seems HD DVD’s trump card is
now price. At $499 retail, the HD-A20 ...
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Tuesday, 01 May 2007
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Written by
Bryan Dailey
Introduction
The
HD DVD format has been out for just over a year now, and Toshiba is now
on to the second generation of their high-def disc players. HD DVD was
first to the market, beating Blu-ray by a few months. Despite a big
shot in the arm from Sony’s Playstation 3 and Microsoft’s $179 Xbox 360
add-on HD DVD player, high-def discs have yet to explode the way that
DVD did when that format was first launched. The initial reaction of
most consumers was that the players were slow and clunky; many of the
discs looked good, but some of the transfers were grainy and many felt
that the picture quality of HD DVD was a tad sharper than Blu-ray.
Hardware and firmware improvements in the first-generation Blu-ray
players, such as the Samsung BDP-1000, have closed the gap that existed
between the picture quality lead that HD DVD held over Blu-ray. Now,
very ...
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Thursday, 01 February 2007
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Written by
Bryan Dailey
Introduction
This
past holiday season, as people lined up in droves to try to get their
hands on a Blu-ray-equipped Sony Playstation 3 video gaming console,
little attention was paid to the fact that Microsoft was rolling out
their external HD DVD player drive for the already well-established
Xbox 360 system. With a base price of $399 for the 20-gig Xbox 360 and
$199 for the add-on external HD DVD drive, Microsoft was able to
essentially match Sony stride-for-stride in the high-definition format
war for just about the same price, as a 20-gig PS3 costs $499 and the
60-gig PS3 is priced at $599. Both systems’ HD disc players can be
operated with the game pads, but Microsoft has chosen to include a
full-featured infrared remote with their $199 HD DVD player. The Sony
PS3 Blu-ray drive controller will set you back another $25. You get a
little more hard drive space and a ...
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Saturday, 01 July 2006
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Written by
Bryan Dailey
Introduction
Cracking
open the box of my first HD DVD player, I can’t help but think back to
the days of the VHS vs. Betamax and DVD-Audio vs. SACD format wars.
With the pending release of Blu-ray, the competing high-definition disc
format, many consumers are taking a “wait and see” attitude about which
one will be the champion of the high-resolution disc. Blu-ray players
are going to be in the $1,000 to $1,500 range. However Toshiba is the
first to market with their HD-A1 and HD-XA1 players, $499 and $799,
respectively.
Those thirsty for more HD content have braved the
format war controversy and picked up these Toshiba units, which were
virtually impossible to find in their first few weeks of release.
However, this was partially due to a small inventory rollout from
Toshiba. The company tentatively dipped their feet in the water with
this player and the initial reports from consumers, AVRev.com staffers
and ...
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