Off Topic - Who owns a HD DVD Player?

[onlooker]

A few weeks back I bought the Toshiba A-30. Well after a few weeks I took the thing back. Why?

Well right off the start it takes forever to boot up to the HD DVD menu. If your going to watch a movie, you better pop it in then go make some popcorn or something. So it is ready by the time you get to the couch.

Then while watching Transformers (main reason I bought the player, because it was not out on Blu-Ray, and that is another story for another thread) at certain points it would skip and the audio would be out of sync with the video. Well I did upgrade the firmware to the current one, and it still did it.

Why should I pay 400 bucks to beta test Toshiba's hardware? They should have the kinks all ironed out before releasing the units.

I will just stick to Blu-Ray (PS3) for now, until there is a good dual unit, that plays both at a reasonable price. I basically bought the HD DVD player for the one movie anyway, Transformers. It looks like Paramount and Dreamworks is exclusively with HD DVD's now. Something like 150 million dollars had to do with that.

Anyone else had problems with a HD DVD player?

[SBR Lou]

I have one, but I haven't even tested it out yet. It came with my home theater system. I need to pick up another HDMI wire and some DVDs.

[pico]

hd-dvd is an inferior format, but vhs is also inferior to beta max.

[4FUN.AND$$]

Onlooker,

I have tried two Toshibas and I am also sticking wiht my PS3. Blue Ray is in sync and teh quality is excellent. The HD DVD solution sucked and I also sent it back.

[VegasDave]

Just wait for Samsung to make a combo HD-DVD / Blu Ray player. Then wait til it is affordable. Until then I HIGHLY recommend an upconverting DVD player. Can get a solid one for around $100 and it looks great.

[tacomax]

I always wait until new technology has been around a good few years before I upgrade to whatever will be the dominant platform. Heck, DVDs haven't been around that long, I'm happy with them. There's no way I'm going to get a HD DVD player at the moment.

[louisvillekid]

i haven't bought one or tried one. i think your right about the studio affiliation thing, i seem to remember reading about who was and who wasn't going with each format. i think i'm like alot of people, i wait for kinks to get sorted out, cause you know manufacturers rush shit to market, and wait for price drops, thats why i still haven't got a PS3. also you could have just got a bad HD DVD. i've had to return brand new DVD's a lot, cause they skip and mess-up, but i've also rented DVD's that look like someone played frisby with it on a gravel road, yet it would play fine.

[onlooker]

I forgot to mention that before the firmware update that the movie would start to skip and then the screen would go blank and a error code 408bc504 would pop up. After the firmware update, it just skipped and sound was out of sync for a few minutes before it caught up. So I guess the firmware update just removed the error code screen.

Lousivillekid. I did a search when I got the error code 408bc504 to see what was up, and it seems to be a on going problem on a variety of movies. So it seems like a hardware problem, then just a bad HD DVD.