Anyone had hd-dvd judder with Toshiba HD-A1

[ROBERTT]

Hi Guys,

I have a Toshiba HD-A1 connected to a Pioneer 434HDE using a Octava 5:1 HDMI switch.

The first disk I played was TLS and about an hour into the film it started to lock up. At this point the picture was frozen but the counter was still counting. It did this 4 times and ruined my enjoyment of the film

I have read on the AVS forums that it could either be a faulty player or that these players are extremely sensitive to specs of dust on the disks. This was a brand new disk on its first play.

Played my other disk (POTO) and this playes all the way through with one minor glitch (stutter for 1.5 seconds). MUCH better than TLS.....

Last night tried a normal DVD and this played with no issues at all. Upscaled pic (1080i) by the way is suberb, better than my Pioneer 868AVI

So the question is....Is my player faulty (I would have thought that if this was the case I would have obvious problems on all disks) or is there a fault with the disks / need to be spotlessly clean with NO specs of dust let alone fingerprints . Other titles are being shipped so I can try these and report back.

By the way my player has adeqaute ventilation and is level.....

Anyone else having similar problems???

Cheers

Rob

[Avi]

Originally Posted by ROBERTT

Hi Guys,

I have a Toshiba HD-A1 connected to a Pioneer 434HDE using a Octava 5:1 HDMI switch.

The first disk I played was TLS and about an hour into the film it started to lock up. At this point the picture was frozen but the counter was still counting. It did this 4 times and ruined my enjoyment of the film

I have read on the AVS forums that it could either be a faulty player or that these players are extremely sensitive to specs of dust on the disks. This was a brand new disk on its first play.

Played my other disk (POTO) and this playes all the way through with one minor glitch (stutter for 1.5 seconds). MUCH better than TLS.....

Last night tried a normal DVD and this played with no issues at all. Upscaled pic (1080i) by the way is suberb, better than my Pioneer 868AVI

So the question is....Is my player faulty (I would have thought that if this was the case I would have obvious problems on all disks) or is there a fault with the disks / need to be spotlessly clean with NO specs of dust let alone fingerprints . Other titles are being shipped so I can try these and report back.

By the way my player has adeqaute ventilation and is level.....

Anyone else having similar problems???

Cheers

Rob

I have the A1 and my display is a Fuji P50XHA40US. I've connected direct and through my Lumagen at different times. I'v had no issues with any disc so far including those you mention.

AVI

[klacey]

I had something like that happen, but once i gave the discs a wipe had no further problems, they appeared to be fine, but you can see on the cloth they had some dirt on them.

[ROBERTT]

OK.......

Tried another disk, Goodfellas (great film by the way). Unfortunately this too started to freeze and stutter an hour into the film The disk was straight out of the box and looked in pristine condition

What I dont understand is regular DVD's play fine......

I suppose im the first UK owner to get a duff player. Should I hope a firmware update will fix this or do I go the long laborious route of getting an exchange?

What do you guys think? Anyone want to buy my player at a knockdown price

Cheers

[klacey]

Originally Posted by ROBERTT

OK.......

Tried another disk, Goodfellas (great film by the way). Unfortunately this too started to freeze and stutter an hour into the film The disk was straight out of the box and looked in pristine condition

What I dont understand is regular DVD's play fine......

I suppose im the first UK owner to get a duff player. Should I hope a firmware update will fix this or do I go the long laborious route of getting an exchange?

What do you guys think? Anyone want to buy my player at a knockdown price

Cheers

I read toshiba are looking into a firmware update that will correct this. Some people are saying clean the discs before putting them into the player reguardless of how new they are, has helped a lot of the guys over at AVS, many have said the problem has gone away.

[Avi]

Originally Posted by ROBERTT

OK.......

Tried another disk, Goodfellas (great film by the way). Unfortunately this too started to freeze and stutter an hour into the film The disk was straight out of the box and looked in pristine condition

What I dont understand is regular DVD's play fine......

I suppose im the first UK owner to get a duff player. Should I hope a firmware update will fix this or do I go the long laborious route of getting an exchange?

What do you guys think? Anyone want to buy my player at a knockdown price

Cheers

M8 sorry to hear you're having problems. I've just plumbed an Octava switch in my setup and had the A1 for over two weeks now. It hasn't shown any of the problems you describe and I've watched 7 HD-DVD titles over and over plus loads of SD. Where did you buy it and when ?

AVI

[Jimbo71]

Originally Posted by ROBERTT

OK.......

Tried another disk, Goodfellas (great film by the way). Unfortunately this too started to freeze and stutter an hour into the film The disk was straight out of the box and looked in pristine condition

What I dont understand is regular DVD's play fine......

I suppose im the first UK owner to get a duff player. Should I hope a firmware update will fix this or do I go the long laborious route of getting an exchange?

What do you guys think? Anyone want to buy my player at a knockdown price

Cheers

Hi Robert,

sorry to hear of your problems. I read this over at the Digital Bits the other day - not sure if this helps:

We've got one other interesting piece of high-def information today, and it concerns those problems we've been having with our Toshiba HD-A1 HD-DVD player locking up on us during playback. Our industry sources are telling us that the problem is not so much with the player itself, as with its remote (so both the HD-A1 and the higher-priced HD-XA1 are affected by this issue, as they basically use the same remote - it's just back-lit on the XA1). It seems that the remote is very sensitive, so that sometimes when you press one of its buttons, it inadvertently sends more than one command to the player. This can cause the player, in effect, to become confused and stop responding. I'm told that if you have a universal remote that can learn commands, and you program it correctly with the Toshiba remote's basic navigation functions (and use it for this purpose), your player will respond normally without errors. This makes sense to us, because as reviewers we're typically pretty aggressive when it comes to skipping around discs, going in and out of the menus very quickly, etc. And nine times out of ten, that's when we have the most problems. Toshiba's engineers are apparently working on a solution (presumably a firmware upgrade to the players) to deal with this issue. We'll let you know when it's available. Meanwhile, now that you know what's causing most of the lock-ups, you should have an easier time avoiding them.


Regards
James

[ROBERTT]

Hi guys.....

Cheers for the advice........

I also read that the remote causes problems, but all im doing is putting a disc in and pressing play. I do not touch the remote and still I get freezes.

I am happy with the PQ and really love the player but I JUST WANT IT TO WORK PROPERLY......If I cant watch an HD-DVD all the way through without glitches it kind of spoils your enjoyment of the movie

AVI I bought this player at Crutchfield so i suppose I could return it but there arent any more HD-A1's available. I might wait and see if the guys at AVS can find out anymore about this. Could be a faulty HD-DVD drive, maybe I could talk to Toshiba and get them to send me another which I will fit myself. I work in IT so shouldnt be too dificult. The player is just a PC after all (nice looking one though )

[Avi]

Originally Posted by ROBERTT

OK.......

Tried another disk, Goodfellas (great film by the way). Unfortunately this too started to freeze and stutter an hour into the film The disk was straight out of the box and looked in pristine condition

What I dont understand is regular DVD's play fine......

I suppose im the first UK owner to get a duff player. Should I hope a firmware update will fix this or do I go the long laborious route of getting an exchange?

What do you guys think? Anyone want to buy my player at a knockdown price

Cheers

M8 just a quick thought. If it's happening on every HD disk after a certain time it maybe heat related. I know you say there's no issue with ventilation but it may be a poor connection or component performance issue when the unit reaches a certain temp. This would probably happen sooner with HD-DVD due to the increase in processing = more heat. Also greater accuracy is required to read HD from disc so much smaller tolerance. IMO doesn't sound like a firmware fix would sort this.

AVI

[jon smith]

Yep, definitely try cleaning them and try again to see if the same problem occurs. Let us know how you get on.

[ROBERTT]

OK......

Done a bit more testing. I replayed Goodfellas today and I had no lockups or freezes

The only difference was that I was not listening in DD5.1 so my amplifier (Pioneer 2020) was off. This points to the player overheating in my rack. Now my kit stands on an Soundstyle 3 shelf equipment stand, the receiver on the bottom rung and the Toshiba sitting on the glass on the next shelf up. There is good ventilation OR SO I THOUGHT

There is maybe 5 inches of clearance between the amp and glass shelf but I guess whats happening is as the amp warms up, its chucking out a lot of heat which is rising and heating the glass. The player being a PC with the motherboard at the bottom probably overheats causing the stutter.

I will do more testing tonight with the amp off and see if I can sit through Million Dollar Baby without problems....if so then I might have it sussed.....

The only problem is what to do about it. I dont want to sit the player on the top shelf or buy another rack so am wondering if I can raise the player by buying the BASE A1 isolation platform. I guess if I had the AX1 with the proper isolation feet I might not have had this problem.......

Interesting to see if this is the problem but it is looking likely thankgod

[Avi]

Originally Posted by ROBERTT

OK......

Done a bit more testing. I replayed Goodfellas today and I had no lockups or freezes

The only difference was that I was not listening in DD5.1 so my amplifier (Pioneer 2020) was off. This points to the player overheating in my rack. Now my kit stands on an Soundstyle 3 shelf equipment stand, the receiver on the bottom rung and the Toshiba sitting on the glass on the next shelf up. There is good ventilation OR SO I THOUGHT

There is maybe 5 inches of clearance between the amp and glass shelf but I guess whats happening is as the amp warms up, its chucking out a lot of heat which is rising and heating the glass. The player being a PC with the motherboard at the bottom probably overheats causing the stutter.

I will do more testing tonight with the amp off and see if I can sit through Million Dollar Baby without problems....if so then I might have it sussed.....

The only problem is what to do about it. I dont want to sit the player on the top shelf or buy another rack so am wondering if I can raise the player by buying the BASE A1 isolation platform. I guess if I had the AX1 with the proper isolation feet I might not have had this problem.......

Interesting to see if this is the problem but it is looking likely thankgod

M8 I had a similar issue some time ago with my Denon amp on the bottom shelf and other items above. Logic (and shelf height) sorta dictates that the heaviest item goes at the bottom. The heat was going up and my DVD player was getting hot. My setup is also in an eclosed cabinet which makes it worse. The solution for me was to adjust the shelf height and but the Denon on the shelf above my DVD. Sine them the DVD player says reasonably cool and the Denon is no hotter than it normally gets - sorted !

AVI

[ROBERTT]

Hi Guys,

Just a quick update on my situation. Thought I had cured the stuttering by moving the player to the top of my AV rack to cut down on heat from my amp. Million dollar baby played through fine and then Goodfellas when I tried it again. Really disappointed to find that when I watched Assault on Precinct 13 it stuttered on chapter 8 really badly. Retried and it did it again at chapter 8. Might be the disk but looking at the AVS forums other people are having similar problems.

Long and short of it is I have a RMA number from Crutchfield and now have to pay to ship back and then have to use Eaziship and P2G again. As you can imagine im not a happy bunny

BUT skyHD install this Monday

That will keeep me happy till my replacement arrives.....hopefully