Re: What's inside your HD DVD player?

Most of the Blu-Ray players are using Broadcom. The Toshiba's use of the Anchor Bay stuff would explain the better images.

Does it seem strange that the A3 has a better chip than the A35? (12 bit vs. 10 bit). Does it upscale better?

My new 2.8 firmware update, that insures me that I will get the most out of my A2. Also a player that gives me everything that I expect from a format that looks and sounds amazing. It won't bug out on me, PIP and all the added features that comes along with every HD DVD movie. Did I say that it was 2.8 compatable now, which Blu Ray player does all that?

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Most of the Blu-Ray players are using Broadcom.

I think you mean most of the Samsung players (except the BD-P1400 which uses the Sigma SMP8634 RevC). But some new Broadcom chip sets offer good video processing, such as the BCM7440 used in the upcoming BD-UP5500 duel player.

Few single format SA Blu-ray players use the Broadcom chip apart from the Samsungs. The upcoming Marantz is going to have a UniPhier paired with a Realta. I don't think you can get anything on the market sweeter than that in even dedicated external processors.

Bruce Ames said -

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"Does it seem strange that the A3 has a better chip than the A35? (12 bit vs. 10 bit). Does it upscale better?"

But that's just the chip for the DVD upconversion, right? The HD-DVD performance is with another chip I believe. Widescreen Review magazine said the A35 has the BEST HD-DVD performance "bar none", even better than the XA2 (although it has better standard upconversion than the A35).

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)

Yeah Jimi, I just meant for the upconversion. As for HD DVD playback, the A35 and the XA2 are the best for 1080p/24 output. However, if you have a 1080p HDTV that does not deinterlace well, then the XA2 is the only player that outputs 1080p60 correctly. Hopefully future FW updates will fix this.

Below is a list of HDTVs and their deinterlacing (and other) performance. Note that either it deinterlaces correctly or it doesn't. There is no in between. Fortunately most do (about 2/3 of those sold last year).
http://www.hometheatermag.com/hookmeup/1107hook2/

"2001: A Space Odyssey" was in my HD DVD player this morning. I dropped it into the mailbox so I could get something new Monday but the web cutoff time was thirty minutes later than the actual cutoff, and of course I wait until the last minute.

My A2 updater disc arrived in the mail today, so I ran it just a while ago.

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Curious, who is missing HD-DVD so far?

Well, although it's no longer here (?) I haven't come to a point where my HD DVD experience is "over" yet...I just added thirteen HD DVDs to my collection, only two of which I've already seen, and I'm seriously considering getting a backup player with seven more free movies to add to the collection - you just can't beat the price!

What will be in my HD DVD player tonight? I just put in "Superman Returns".

Hey Bruce... this is another reason why I love my new Pioneer KURO plasma - it accurately deinterlaces 480i and 1080i content before scaling to the native resolution. So, I can choose to send it either interlaced, OR progressive signals (where the player deinterlaces), and it provides outstanding performance with either.

HDTVs that don't accurately deinterlace 1080i correctly (or bringing the two 540 fields together in progressive form before scaling to the set's native resolution), will instead take half of the signal, or 540 lines, and then 'upconvert' this half to the set's native resolution - IN ANOTHER WORDS, YOU ARE ONLY SEEING HALF OF THE ORIGINAL HD SIGNAL!

This is why it's important to only buy a TV display with accurate deinterlacing, unless you plan on sending only progressive signals to your TV (480p/720p/1080p) - otherwise you will see a softer, "half-full" HD picture. But most HD cable/satellite signals are 1080i, so progressive is not an option - so you should have a quality TV with accurate deinterlacing!

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)

[Post edited by Love Hendrix! on Feb 23, 2008]