HD-DVD - European launch date

[neilalford]

Haven't seen this posted anywhere but the European launch date for HD-DVD has been confirmed as the 15th of November when the Toshiba HD-E1 is launched. The price appears to be the expected £400.

More at the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5311728.stm)

[Wolfman]

Just been reading this on the BBC site. Can't say I'm too impressed with the price.

Might as just get a PS3 for £25 more and get HD films and a good game console.....

Shame if it was priced about £250-300 I would have bought one....

[thescrounger]

Shame if it was priced about £250-300 I would have bought one....

What makes you think the prices won't be lower? Those are just the RRPs.

[zantarous]

The first DVD players cost a lot more then £400.

[Spectre07]

£400 is surprisingly low.

[Bubble]

£400 is frighteningly low considering it is more powerful than most standard home PCs! I'm going to be in the US on the UK launch date, so unless I can get a cheap unit in the US and sneak it past customs, then I think i'll wait till I get back and buy one here. Still not sure if they are doing a region specific disc for the UK as of yet, hope not!

[fattyboombatty]

what is the Toshiba HD-E1 equivalent to in the US, the HD-A1? actually, that kinda answers itself :doh:

if they're gonna release another player a few months later, surely it would make sense to wait as that should be the EX1 equivalent.

what's the difference between the two US tosh's anyhow? :?:

[greath]

It's also not worth comparing the price with the US one as a) the US prices don't have VAT and b) it is a different player as reports I've read say that it's more a consumer player based around an ASIC that a PC and as such will have faster load times.

[S1515]

what is the Toshiba HD-E1 equivalent to in the US, the HD-A1? actually, that kinda answers itself :doh:

if they're gonna release another player a few months later, surely it would make sense to wait as that should be the EX1 equivalent.

what's the difference between the two US tosh's anyhow? :?:


The HD-E1 is lower spec than the english HD-A1 - no 5.1 analogue outputs for Tru-HD for starters.

The difference between the two US models is purely cosmetic - a flip down front and a back lit remote on the expensive version.


Edit - got the players the wrong way round - the US HD-A1 is better spec'd than the euro equivalent!!

[neilalford]

The first DVD players cost a lot more then £400.

Nope, first DVD player was the Panasonic A100, priced at £399, my first player, though I only payed £330 for mine.

[thescrounger]

I suppose he meant the first good ones. I imported mine and it was more that £400

[KRW]

I think the panasonic was out in the UK even before the format launched over here, if i recall correctly. It was ignored by many, and didnt take off until it was discovered how easy it was to hack it for R1 shenanigans.

It was a 'good' one? Certainly as good, of not better than, my pioneer thing, i ended up paying £550 for.

[neilalford]

I think the panasonic was out in the UK even before the format launched over here, if i recall correctly. It was ignored by many, and didnt take off until it was discovered how easy it was to hack it for R1 shenanigans.

It was a 'good' one? Certainly as good, of not better than, my pioneer thing, i ended up paying £550 for.

Yep, I had mine for several months before UK discs starting appearing and it had been out for a while before that, and yep, the infamous "Pin snip" region mod was one of my main reasons for buying it, though unfortunately they fairly quickly tightened up the region coding on discs to prevent that working, so I had to get it chipped properly.

[Spectre07]

Nope, first DVD player was the Panasonic A100, priced at £399, my first player, though I only payed £330 for mine.That's the one I started off with, I got mine for £389 chipped (although at the time I didn't know the significance of that) the chap in the shop told me it was better as I could import discs from the US. I spent the first 2 months just playing CD's on it until DVD started to appear. A few months later I sold it to a collegue at work for £450 and bought a Sony DVSP 715 for £499 chipped only to find the DVSP 725 released a few weeks later. Luckily I managed to sell the 715 for what I paid for it and bought a DVSP 725 for £425 chipped! So within a year I'd owned 3 different DVD players. I've had the 725 ever since, although I decided to replace it with a Denon 3910 this June. The Sony player's still going strong but it's been relegated to the back room.

[Grandmaster]

My 725 lasted about 18 months before I started to get the infamous C:13:00 errors, particularly in playing back DVD-R. Which is not good when you're running a DVD Studio :|

[Spectre07]

I had that problem playing DVD-r as well but I eventually bought a multi-format burner. It was still problematic when playing some DVD+r and but no problems when playing any DVD RW discs.

[R-T-C]

Hmmm... is there any more recent confirmation of this release date. I was in Currys earlier looking at the big TVs and they mentioned that the HD-DVD players might not come out until March 2007, although that might have been BR players?

[Boink!]

I've had the 725 ever since, although I decided to replace it with a Denon 3910 this June. The Sony player's still going strong but it's been relegated to the back room.
A mate of mine has the Sony 725 and he still uses it, though his projector is now linked up to a Samsung 950.

[PaulN]

Website is now up http://www.toshibahddvd.co.uk/

[Roberto]

A mate of mine has the Sony 725 and he still uses it, though his projector is now linked up to a Samsung 950.Heck, i've got the Sony 735 and it's still going strong! I still consider it having one of the best picture quailities i have ever seen. giving mordern players a run for it's money

[horseflesh]

Heck, i've got the Sony 735 and it's still going strong! I still consider it having one of the best picture quailities i have ever seen. giving mordern players a run for it's money

I've had a 725 since late 1998, LOL. Still going strong too. Excellent performance and very reliable. Sturdy as hell too, not like these lightweight players all the kids seem to have nowadays :nuts:

[maddogsuk]

The Toshiba is up for pre order at Play for £449.99 (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://playcom.at/thedvdforums?DURL=http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/GENCS/261/341/-/1147914/Toshiba_HD_E1_HD_DVD_Player/Product.html?searchtype=genre) I was hopping it would be a little cheaper than that.

[tee]

And that's the cheaper one as well :eek:

[thescrounger]

The Toshiba is up for pre order at Play for £449.99 (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://playcom.at/thedvdforums?DURL=http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/GENCS/261/341/-/1147914/Toshiba_HD_E1_HD_DVD_Player/Product.html?searchtype=genre) I was hopping it would be a little cheaper than that.

It's still less than half the price of the BD machine though.

[Harsin]

The Toshiba is up for pre order at Play for £449.99 (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://playcom.at/thedvdforums?DURL=http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/GENCS/261/341/-/1147914/Toshiba_HD_E1_HD_DVD_Player/Product.html?searchtype=genre) I was hopping it would be a little cheaper than that.

Ouch!

For that cash I'd probably go for the Xbox 360 combo instead.

[maddogsuk]

Thats what i've been thinking of doing, but I do prefer a dedicated player. I've been wieghing up the advantages \ disadvatages of the 360 over the dedicated player. I also wouldn't mind a possible upgrade on my Sanyo Z2 Projector. Possible to the Z4 or Panasonic AE series. Depends on how much I can shift the current gear for :D

[Spectre07]

The Toshiba is up for pre order at Play for £449.99 (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://playcom.at/thedvdforums?DURL=http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/GENCS/261/341/-/1147914/Toshiba_HD_E1_HD_DVD_Player/Product.html?searchtype=genre) I was hopping it would be a little cheaper than that.Looks abit retro, like a latter day video recorder

[fattyboombatty]

The Toshiba is up for pre order at Play for £449.99 (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://playcom.at/thedvdforums?DURL=http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/GENCS/261/341/-/1147914/Toshiba_HD_E1_HD_DVD_Player/Product.html?searchtype=genre) I was hopping it would be a little cheaper than that.

that looks like the US HD-A2. maybe we won't get the crappy first run stuff like the yanks did. or maybe they've just used the US model pic as a mistake and we will be getting crap machines that require new firmware upgrades every month or something...

[maddogsuk]

I spotted a note at the bottom of the specs that reads:1. HD DVD disks containing high definition content at a field rate of 50Hz or frame rate of 25Hz cannot be played on HD-XE1 \ HD-E1 without a firmware update. Firmware update is expected in the future. Should you have any questions about the frane rate of your disk, please contact the disk vendor I've never been to clued up on this sort of thing, can anybody elaborate?

[SimonI]

Is that because the US disks so far released have a 24 fps frame rate to match the source film? So far only Canal+ in France have confirmed they will be using 24 Hz transfers; apparently a lot of European HD material is at 25 or 50 Hz. So it sounds as if they are saying it will not play the latter - personally that wouldn't bother me much as I can't see the point of 25 Hz transfers when the hardware can play it at the right speed (not wishing to open up that old argument again...) ;)

[Dutchy]

There was a question about Regions. Now there are going to be 3 regions, but HD-DVD studios have decided to allow their discs to be played everywhere, Blu-Ray, especially Fox wants the region coding for the Hi-Def DVDs.

So for now it seems the HD-DVDs will be without region coding.

[MR.COATES]

So for now it seems the HD-DVDs will be without region coding.

Which for me was a key issue, mainly based on US disc prices. Every non-combo HD-DVD disc in Wal-Mart was $19.98 which should mean we're looking at less than £14.99 for US discs. Even Combo discs should be less than £20 delivered.

[Dutchy]

Most likely, I tend to look at dvdboxoffice.com for titles. They are slightly more expensive but shipping is included, and customs doesn't check because the shipping address is somewhere in Europe.

I still am not sure whether to buy a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray or combo, or wait it out a little further?