UrbanT
Distinguished Member
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2002
- Messages
- 13,481
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- Age
- 57
- Location
- Aldershot, Hants
My player only arrived yesterday, so time to play has been limited. With this in mind.....
Firstly, the build quality is excellent. For £400, I can't remember seeing too many SD DVD players that offer this type of build. Rumour has it Toshiba are taking a loss on the initial units to get the players into the market, which would not be a surprise. The draw is very solid and the player has a very weighty feel. One concern was that as this is PC based, and there is a fan on the back, the unit would be noisy. I'm delighted to report that it is quiet and certainly not intrusive.
The picture quality is stunning. So incredibly smooth, and artefact free. That's what hits you really, its just hard to pick fault. The opening scene of Swordfish on DVD (which I started to watch last week on R1 DVD), has banding on the cafe wall. Here, there is none. It just looks right. I managed to load all of the discs that have arrived, and cannot criticise any of them from the brief excerpts I watched. There was one scene in Sahara where a guy is being held prisoner. When you see his face, you see every pore, every drop of sweat, every hair. In Training Day, there are expansive shots of the city, which are sharp right into the distance. And the space battle towards the end of Serenity looks fantastic. I still have a feeling there will be a large number of people who believe DVD is 'good enough', but I really hope the format lives because for sensible money, you have a real slice of picture heaven.
Next has to be the sound. There was simply no time to compare SPDIF to 5.1 DD+ output, so everything I heard was using the 5.1 outputs, so assume it was DD+?. The first scene that hit me, was the initial explosion in Swordfish. It absolutely filled the room, sounding awesome. You also have to remember there's no TMREQ in the 5.1 input on the Tag, but it didn't appear to need it. The control and steering where superb. The biggest test though was Enter the Dragon. I've heard this on several different editions of the standard DVD. No surprise that its a very 'thin' and tinny soundtrack. But this presentation has a much fuller sound, which I would rate 3/10 (on the SD version) to 7/10 on the HD-DVD version. Very satisfying.
So, in summary, for £400 you can buy a DVD player that wipes the floor with anything SD can produce, and we know how much the top of the range DVD players can cost!
So what's the downsides? Nothing is perfect, and that includes the Toshiba. In no particular order:
1) The load up time is slow. I actually find this easy to forgive on the basis that to watch a film on the HTPC, you had to wait for the PC to boot anyway. It probably takes around 50-60 seconds from inserting the disc to the film starting. However, once the menu is up and running, getting the film started is a quick process
2) Flicking between chapters on the disc is quite slow, perhaps 2-3 seconds
3) The remote, although looking quite nice in a retro way, is not backlit. The buttons are small and its impossible to read the functions without some light. 2/10 . I would recommend anyone buying this machine to get an 'All in One' (hopefully mine will arrive today)
4) There are no on-screen displays. For example, if I change the resolution from 720p to 1080i, the only place that is displayed is on the players screen. A strange omission. I haven't read the manual at this stage so I wonder if there's a setting somewhere, although I doubt it as I would imagine it would be enabled out of the box. The main setup menu's are all on screen of course.
The only other points of interest, are that 1080i looks nicer than 720p. I believe this is because the Lumagen is producing all the processing with the 1080i input.
Shame I have to work today really
Chris
Firstly, the build quality is excellent. For £400, I can't remember seeing too many SD DVD players that offer this type of build. Rumour has it Toshiba are taking a loss on the initial units to get the players into the market, which would not be a surprise. The draw is very solid and the player has a very weighty feel. One concern was that as this is PC based, and there is a fan on the back, the unit would be noisy. I'm delighted to report that it is quiet and certainly not intrusive.
The picture quality is stunning. So incredibly smooth, and artefact free. That's what hits you really, its just hard to pick fault. The opening scene of Swordfish on DVD (which I started to watch last week on R1 DVD), has banding on the cafe wall. Here, there is none. It just looks right. I managed to load all of the discs that have arrived, and cannot criticise any of them from the brief excerpts I watched. There was one scene in Sahara where a guy is being held prisoner. When you see his face, you see every pore, every drop of sweat, every hair. In Training Day, there are expansive shots of the city, which are sharp right into the distance. And the space battle towards the end of Serenity looks fantastic. I still have a feeling there will be a large number of people who believe DVD is 'good enough', but I really hope the format lives because for sensible money, you have a real slice of picture heaven.
Next has to be the sound. There was simply no time to compare SPDIF to 5.1 DD+ output, so everything I heard was using the 5.1 outputs, so assume it was DD+?. The first scene that hit me, was the initial explosion in Swordfish. It absolutely filled the room, sounding awesome. You also have to remember there's no TMREQ in the 5.1 input on the Tag, but it didn't appear to need it. The control and steering where superb. The biggest test though was Enter the Dragon. I've heard this on several different editions of the standard DVD. No surprise that its a very 'thin' and tinny soundtrack. But this presentation has a much fuller sound, which I would rate 3/10 (on the SD version) to 7/10 on the HD-DVD version. Very satisfying.
So, in summary, for £400 you can buy a DVD player that wipes the floor with anything SD can produce, and we know how much the top of the range DVD players can cost!
So what's the downsides? Nothing is perfect, and that includes the Toshiba. In no particular order:
1) The load up time is slow. I actually find this easy to forgive on the basis that to watch a film on the HTPC, you had to wait for the PC to boot anyway. It probably takes around 50-60 seconds from inserting the disc to the film starting. However, once the menu is up and running, getting the film started is a quick process
2) Flicking between chapters on the disc is quite slow, perhaps 2-3 seconds
3) The remote, although looking quite nice in a retro way, is not backlit. The buttons are small and its impossible to read the functions without some light. 2/10 . I would recommend anyone buying this machine to get an 'All in One' (hopefully mine will arrive today)
4) There are no on-screen displays. For example, if I change the resolution from 720p to 1080i, the only place that is displayed is on the players screen. A strange omission. I haven't read the manual at this stage so I wonder if there's a setting somewhere, although I doubt it as I would imagine it would be enabled out of the box. The main setup menu's are all on screen of course.
The only other points of interest, are that 1080i looks nicer than 720p. I believe this is because the Lumagen is producing all the processing with the 1080i input.
Shame I have to work today really
Chris