Honest Review of Toshiba A2 HD DVD Player

I started reading Tom Richmond's blog over at Tom's MAD Blog a couple of weeks ago and I have really enjoyed his posts. Tom is a very talented artist who does caricature drawings; he does a lot of work for MAD Magazine. Tom gives you the inside view of being a freelance artist and a lot of history on MAD all with a little bit of sarcasm and wit. (I recently picked up The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain to improve my drawing skills from stick figure to, well, more human. I should ask Tom if he has heard of this book and what he thinks about it.)

Anyway, Tom recently posted a review of the second generation A2 Toshiba HD DVD player on his blog that I thought was a very honest review. It also sounds like he has a nice home theater setup so I think he's also got some good metrics to go by. All in all, it seems like he likes it and even has nice things to say about the image quality:

Of course, all that is just an aside when in comes to the really important thing… picture quality. As far as picture quality goes, it’s difficult to describe the difference between an HD DVD picture and even an upconverted regular DVD other than to say it’s incredible. The bigger your screen, the more you’ll notice the difference. The picture on a 42 inch plasma screen at 720p resolution is obviously tighter and clearer with an HD DVD, but get into the 50 inch range and it’s like night and day.

I used to work in the consumer electronic field and could tell you some interesting stories about this player - let's just say that it's more of a computer than high def DVD player. But it's at a decent price now of less than 400 bucks and has good image quality so I think it's a good deal for your home theater setup.

Interview with The HT Guys from The HDTV Podcast

Are you confused on whether to buy an LCD or Plasma HDTV? Are you still trying to figure out all of this 'HDTV' stuff? Then you need to tune into to the HDTV Podcast by the HT Guys. Ara and Braden tell you what you need to know when it comes to HDTV and provide great news and reviews every week. This is one of my favorite podcasts because I learn something new every week and really enjoy the format of the show.

Read on below for my interview with Ara and Braden where we talk about the LCD vs Plasma debate, the convergence of Apple and Microsoft in the living room, and their best value picks for a new HDTV. And remember to subscribe to their podcast!



Why did you start the HDTV Podcast and what's it all about?

We used to work for the sound department of SONY Pictures so we were really into this kind of stuff. Then Ara discovered podcasting and before long was downloading podcasts about all his interests. Then one day at lunch, Ara mentioned, in passing, that we should record our conversations on HDTV and release them as a podcast. We figured if we could get 100 listeners we'd keep doing it. About a month later we added Home Theater to the title. Now almost two years have gone by we have about 35,000 listeners a month. Its grown bigger than we ever
imagined. It's still strange when we get emails from halfway around the world; but with the Internet, we have a global audience.

I know you guys get asked this all the time: Plasma or LCD? What should someone looking for a new HDTV really be concerned about?

Don't be too married to a single technology. The TV you buy should be what's right for you, your environment, and your budget. If you want to go big nothing is going to beat a rear projection TV. We're excluding projectors from this conversation because that is a different animal all together. (In fact we are working on a multi-part series on building a dedicated projector room that will come out in March.) It ultimately comes down to size and cost. If your room can
support a bigger TV, and we are not talking huge, you can save a lot of money buying an LCoS or DLP TV. They have pictures that are every bit as good as Plasma or LCD. Sixty five inch DLPs and LCoS TVs are only about 18 inches deep and weight about 110 pounds. Its a far cry from th first generation CRT based rear projection TVs which needed a team of people to move them into your room. They produce beautiful pictures and have great contrast and detail.

Now the battle between LCD and Plasma is different. Sizes less than 42 inches is owned by LCD. So if you need a TV for your bedroom or you have small living areas, that's the technology for you. Fifty inches and greater is Plasma's territory. Its the middle ground that the war is waging - 42 to 50 inches. Plasma has some inherit benefits that LCD lacks like deep, inky blacks, immediate response times, and vivid colors. LCD has made great inroads into this size but plasmas typically have better a picture so it comes down to cost and features. Prices on plasma screens have come down due to competition from LCD; the consumer can now buy a 42 inch plasma for just over $1,000. That's over $2,000 less than Braden's first Plasma TV.

LCD manufactures are not sitting on their laurels either. They want the LCD TVs they make to go toe to toe with their plasma counterparts in terms of overall picture quality. Towards the end of this year look for LCD TVs with 120hz refresh rates and LED back lights. These two features will increase detail in fast moving scenes, such as sports, and provide for brighter, more vivid colors. We don't know about pricing yet, but you can bet that the competition from plasma will keep prices in check.

Bottom line, there is no right answer. Consumers should choose the technology that they think is best for the price they can afford. Remember, when you get it home, it won't be sitting right next to a display that costs twice as much, and odds are, it will look stunning.

Here's another one: a Tivo or a HTPC for recording HD content?

That's a good one. Before the Series III Tivo you really had one choice for recording HD with a Tivo and that was to get DirecTV. Since then DirecTV and Dish Network have released there own DVRs that can do almost the same thing as a Tivo. So Tivo needed to do something. Enter the series III Tivo. It can record Over the Air (OTA) HD channels plus it supports the cable card. A cable card is a small device that you can plug into your Tivo (or TVs that support cable card) that will allow you to receive the encrypted digital cable channels without the need for a set top box. With the Tivo Series III you can have it all. You can record OTA and Cable HD, Schedule recordings via the Internet, share photos, listen to Internet radio and podcasts, and you can get weather and traffic information delivered right to your Tivo. It costs about $800 and $20 a month.

With HTPCs you can pretty much do the same thing, but until Microsoft Vista, you couldn't use a cable card. Since there still aren't many Vista HTPCs available, you're limited to recording OTA HD, and for this to work the PC must have an HD tuner built in. But an HTPC can do so much more. It can house all your music, photos, and store video files that can be streamed to any other PC in the house. Plus you can play DVDs on a HTPC. Tivos do not play DVDs. Of course being a PC means you can surf the Internet and get your email if you want. When Vista becomes more widely available, an HTPC will be far more capable than a Tivo. Pricing for a decent HTPC is a bit more than a Tivo series III. And you can pay more if you want more storage space or special software. But you can pay less, too. Its all a function of what kind of capability you want. Another plus is that there are no monthly fees.

So which one is right for you, If you don't want to worry about setting up the device and you want to record HD from your cable company now, get a Tivo Series III. But with that said you may want to look into your cable company's own DVR. Some cable systems are including a Tivo interface and only charging a few dollars more for the service. Even if they don't have the Tivo interface you can save a $800 by leasing a DVR from your cable company. If you are a bit more technology savvy and you can wait until for Vista for recording HD from cable, then go with the HTPC that has a HD tuner built in. It will have more functionality beyond the Tivo and won't have any monthly charges.

What do you guys think about the convergence of digital media devices like the X Box 360 and Apple TV in the living room?

We love it! Ara is building a network in his home that will allow him to stream audio and video to any room in the house. That includes HD content. We have been using an xBox 360 for a while now and are very pleased with its ability to play HD content. We like the quality of the videos that you can download from Microsoft. We only have two issues with it today. There are simply not enough titles available and you have to use points to buy and rent the content. If they have as many titles as the iTunes Music Store and display the fees in dollars and cents Microsoft would start eating into Apple's market share. Well that's if they open up the store to anyone with a PC - not everyone with an Xbox 360 is connected to the Internet.

Apple can run away with the market if they increase the video quality of their online content. Almost DVD quality is what they call their content. We call it sub DVD quality. AppleTV could b a big hit with the increased quality of the iTMS and if they opened it up to play more file formats. A Mac Mini with an HD Tuner costs twice as much as an AppleTV but it has much more capability.

So we are getting close to convergence. Technology Savvy people can get there today by putting a bunch of hardware and software pieces together or you can spend allot of money and have a custom installer put some very high end gear together for your. But that really isn't true convergence; it will be a bit longer before we see real plug-and-play convergence that's, as they say, Grandma proof. Ara feels Apple will get there first; Braden thinks it will take a group of CE companies working on an open, industry standard before it truly happens.

Dollar for dollar, what HDTV technology do you think has the best value?

We both like LCoS. JVC calls their LCoS TV HD-ILA and SONY calls theirs SXRD. JVC is the value brand and will produce a nice picture for about hundred dollars less than the SONY. SONY's SXRD is a bit sharper and has more detail. But you can only see that when they are side by side. You can get a 55 inch 1080p SXRD for just under $2000. That's half of what Ara paid for his first DLP three years ago. A 61 inch JVC 1080p HD-ILA goes for $2100.

Give me your top picks for an entry level HDTV for the average Joe

Braden's Pick Panasonic TH-42PX60U Plasma HDTV. Street Price $1300 US

Ara's Pick JVC HD56FN97 56" 1080p HD-ILA Rear Projection TV. Street Price $1850 US

HD-DVD/Blu Ray versus DVD upscalers: is it worth it?

We are pretty much on the fence in the next generation format wars. But last Christmas Ara did buy an HD-DVD add on for his xBox 360. At two hundred dollars there wasn't too much risk. But both of us are not about to get out and spend $1000 on a Blu-ray player. Maybe if the dual format LG player is released and it drops down to $600 we'll jump in.

Until the format war is settled out upscaling DVD players are a good option, but only if your TV does not have a good scaler built in. A cheap upconverting DVD player may do nothing to the picture that your good HDTV can do. But if it eliminates three RGB cables maybe it is worth it just for that. Also a bit of advice never spend more than $20 on a two meter HDMI cable. It will perform every bit as well as the $100 premium cable. We are very impressed with two upconverting DVD players. Those made by Oppo Digital and Neodigits. We have tested these players and seen an improvement over standard DVD players. They are not too expensive and can upconvert to 1080p. It will make it very easy to sit out the format war!

What's your favorite piece of home theater gear?

Ara: I play no favorites. I love all my equipment the same ;-)
Actually its a tie between my Mac Mini and my new Mitsubishi DLP TV

Braden: I couldn't imagine watching movies or HDTV without a good sub woofer. I love my Klipsch RSW-12. The picture is only half the experience, without good surround sound, you're not really experiencing all that high def has to offer. A good set of speakers is your best home theater investment.

Two Unique HDTV Antenna Designs

Terrestrial Digital has recently launched two digital HDTV antenna's that will change the way you think of indoor TV antennas.



The first, the Lacrosse, is a military grade digital HDTV tuner with a range up to 40 miles. It has been designed to look more like an aesthetically pleasing satellite dish than a clumsy antenna.




Their other antenna design is the Picture Frame Antenna that puts a digital HDTV antenna in a 8x10 cherry finish picture frame. This has a much smaller range of only up to 15 miles but will definitely blend into your home decor.

Vizionware HDMI Cables Look Impressive

Austin based Vizionware has some adaptive HDMI cables that look very promising in extending the video quality of your HDMI link. We all know that HDMI is a digital transmission technology making it better than the analog Component; but, it still uses analog cables that have an inherent loss and will degrade the signal.

The way digital technologies like HDMI are evaluated are using eye diagrams at the receiver to determine what the signal quality is. Once the analog cable degrades the HDMI signal enough, it will start to 'close' the eye and then the digital HDMI link will drop frames and you have no picture. Vizionware's HDMI cables use several technnology advancements like load balancing and adaptive equalization to keep a wider eye opening at the receiver. This allows you to run your HDMI cable for a longer length, in theory.



If you are trying to run long lengths of HDMI cable then these special cables might do the trick. But they are not cheap, coming in at $550 for a 10 meter length. Remember, the HDMI spec doesn't specify a certain cable length, rather they specify that any HDMI signal has to have a certain eye opening no matter the cable length.

Take the poll below and let me know what you think:

Calibrating Your HDTV for the Best Picture Quality

If you have a high definition TV and are most certainly enjoying the superb picture quality you might have also noticed how hard it is to manually adjust the picture settings. Make no mistake; these plasma and LCD high definition televisions are not your grandfathers old tube technology. Today's televisions are more like computers that have sophisticated electronics including microprocessors and video processors. There are a lot of settings available to get the right picture quality. Getting your HDTV calibrated is definitely worth the value to get an even better picture quality. Ask anyone that has had calibration done and they will tell you that it is a world of difference. (HDTV's are not alone in the calibration; most professional digital photographers have their LCD monitors calibrated to their printers to match up exactly the colors for the best images possible)

You will have to decide on whether you want to hire a professional to do the calibration which can cost anywhere from $100 to $300 dollars or buy software to do it yourself. You can learn more about HDTV calibration and find local certified technicians by visiting the Imaging Science Foundation website. The advantages of a professional are obvious: they know what they are doing, you don't have to figure out software settings on your own, they have the top of the line calibrating software and equipment, and a good calibrator won't leave you with worse picture quality. The do-it-yourself software has the advantages of you get to control all of the settings and in six months can re-do the calibration yourself.

Just because I like to do things myself and I know I would want to keep re-calibrating my home theater, I would go for the do-it-yourself software. There are two good options: CalMan and Spyder2Pro which cost in the range of $200 to $300. These are full blown calibration programs that give you the nitty gritty details of gamma level settings but also some easier wizard settings.

Stay tuned for my review of Spyder2Pro with my own home theater setup but in the meantime I would love to hear about your own do-it-yourself calibration experiences.

How to Wall Mount Your New Plasma or LCD HDTV

I found an older post over at the Home Theater Blog on how to wall mount your plasma or LCD high definition television and found it to be the best instructions I have seen yet. I have been thinking about putting an LCD TV on a wall in my next house and I don't think I (or you) need to pay Best Buy 200 bucks to do it. Here are the main things to consider:

• Choosing the right wall. Are you going to use an interior or exterior wall and can you run the cables where you want them
• Is Your New HDTV Wall Mountable. Not every HDTV can be mounted on the wall so make sure your HDTV has what you need
• Placing the Mount. Make sure you put the mount in the rigth place and make sure it's level

Just like any home improvement project make sure you do your research first to check that you can mount and install cables in the right wall and everything should go fine.

Set the Lighting Mood for Your Home Theater

Lutron makes some nice IR controlled (so you can use your home theater remote) light dimmers so you can really set the mood for your home theater experience. You can even adjust the time at which the lights fade to add that ‘theater feel’ of when the movie starts.