For want of a horse HD DVD just lost.

[GrahamC]

A customer in me.

Saw the keen price on the Toshiba HDE1 on the net so thought I'd have a punt. I needed a new SD anywho so thought if nothing else a good SD dvd player with HD DVD as a bonous. Read the reviews/opinions on here and took the plung. Arrived this morning, spent an hour in the fruitless attempt to connect to the net to see if there was an update to the firmware, couldn't but it very well may have the latest anyway so spent 35-40 min swapping out my old DVD connected to my Sanyo Z2 (mostly arranging cables). Power lead check, HDMI to DVI check; sound out ...... and the card house comes crashing down. In this day and age for the love of pete no coax sound out. Reciever on the outher side off the room and no way to run sound to it.

To say I'm a little dis-chuffed is an understatement. Don't think I've ever seen a dvd player without coax before. Thanks tosh you just lost a customer for HD DVD as I tend to take crap like this personal.

 

[Sonic67]

I have an E1 and output works fine. It arrives at the amp downmixed to DTS. What settings are you using? Oops I see the problem. Have you tried a converter?

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=530432

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=29293&doy=21m8&C=SO&U=strat15

£13.

Also I've never got the downloads over the net to work. I phone up Toshiba and they send me a firmware update disk for nothing. At present I have the 2.0 disk if you want it. It's the current one at present until the next update.

 

[MisterEz]

Can you not buy a convertor - something like this...?

http://www.tvcables.co.uk/cgi-bin/tvcables/Optical-to-Coaxial-Converter.html

 

[GrahamC]

I have searched for a converter but can't find one

Noted the above tnx.

 

[Sonic67]

I've re-edited my post. PM me with your address if you want the firmware upgrade disk.

 

[Deleted member 92943]

It took me a while for the E1 to download the firmware updates. my player was on anework via my homehub and when i tried to update i kept getting ' no sever'

Turned my PC on and it worked straight away

 

[shilv]

It took me a while to get my XE1 to download firmware - after 2 hrs of messing with router settings etc... I thought I'd change the network cable as a last resort and... Bingo, worked straight away. Bloomin typical!!!

 

[shaithis]

£14.99 here

 

[doopydug]

I love my hd-e1 and the results, even from sdvd, are amazing.

I have two points to make (in defence of Toshiba I must confess).

Firstly, coax is an ageing tech and when improvements are made, you cant expect manufacturers to just keep adding connections on the back to be able to satisfy everyone. Times change and things move on. If you wanted everything to stand still, you probably wouldnt have hddvd in the first place.

Secondly, you must have a lot more money than sense (no baddie as i am in the same boat and I dont mean I have a lot of money) if you buy a piece of equipment without checking the connections work with your existing kit first?

Congratulations on your purchase though - it really is an awesome way to get into the world of hi-def and offers (IMHO) the most cost effective way to do so.

 

[ianmacd]

Firstly, coax is an ageing tech and when improvements are made, you cant expect manufacturers to just keep adding connections on the back to be able to satisfy everyone. Times change and things move on. If you wanted everything to stand still, you probably wouldnt have hddvd in the first place.

Why is it ageing? There are many aguments to using Coax or Optical connects (even on these forums). One of the more interesting quotes I have seen was from the Arcam Owners' Forum aparently from someone in Arcam: http://www.avforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5268704&postcount=13.

 

[nwgarratt]

Just use a converter for the audio. They work well. There are a number of maufacturers that have optical only. Panasonic tend to have just optical.

If I got into HD. I would make sure I can hear the HD audio so I upgrade the audio at the same time. I have a amp with analogue 5.1 input so I just need a player with analogue out and let it do the decoding.

 

[Sonic67]

The E1 is the 'cheap' model. A fraction of the cost of a blu-ray standalone and half the cost of a PS3. I don't think you can expect it to be so without some compromises being made.

 

[jackal]

OK so I am going to be flippant here, but why didn't you check the specifications before buying?

See the Tosh website and you'll see the E1 has no coax output.

Why start a thread criticising Toshiba when it isn't really their fault.

 

[jackal]

In fact here is a link to the relevant information:

http://www.home-entertainment.toshi...hddvdplayers-hd-e1?opendocument#specification

 

[GrahamC]

The E1 is the 'cheap' model. A fraction of the cost of a blu-ray standalone and half the cost of a PS3. I don't think you can expect it to be so without some compromises being made.

OK so I am going to be flippant here, but why didn't you check the specifications before buying?

See the Tosh website and you'll see the E1 has no coax output.

Why start a thread criticising Toshiba when it isn't really their fault.

Oh I know i should have scoured the whole of the internet for anomalys to what I consider is the normal connection set. That is part of the frustration and when your embroiled in a format war that's what I would do frustrate the buyer.

Anywho after pointers from the good folk on here I have ordered the converter to see if I can find a satisfactory solution before I send it back. As to the 'cheap player' post, sorry utter nonsence, the cheepest players from asda have a coax output.

Here's hoping anyway.

 

[ianmacd]

I have noticed that most "lower end" equipment tends to favor Optical out rather than Coax. This will most certainly be for price reasons possibly due to not needing to worry too much about sheilding and quality of connectors with Optical.

I have made the same kind of snap purchase in the past only to be caught out the same way and always end up kicking myself for it (well who else can I reallt blame?).

I have used the optical to Coax converters before and they seem to work fairly well (Sterio PCM & Bitstream, albeit only DD and DTS) and its doubtful that you will notice much (if any) difference depending on your Amp/Decoder/DAC's.

After reading this thread and some checking, I do not think I would get either the E1 or the EP10 as neither seem to have 5.1 Analog out and my current amp will not process the new HD Audio formats.

Also worth noting that the PS3 seems only to have optical out too.

 

[mrm3]

Oh I know i should have scoured the whole of the internet for anomalys to what I consider is the normal connection set.

Use google to narrow the search down.

 

[google]

As to the 'cheap player' post, sorry utter nonsence, the cheepest players from asda have a coax output.

I think the poster was making reference to a HD-DVD player, not any old player.

 

[Sonic67]

As to the 'cheap player' post, sorry utter nonsence, the cheepest players from asda have a coax output.

Here's hoping anyway.

It's the cheapest High Definition player on the market. The 360 add on is cheaper but you need a 360 as well.

Incidentally there might be a reason as to why it has optical output over digital coaxial. Another name for the optical connection is TOSLINK. TOSLINK is a registered trademark of Toshiba Corporation and hence the origin of the name: TOShiba-LINK. Toshiba came up with it and then others copied it. Now it's on lots of products.

Aah the optical/coaxial socket format war....

 

[GrahamC]

I think we can end the postings on this now because it's pointless. It's my fault I didn't pick up on the fact that there was no coax out for sound and this missing connection has made my first HD DVD experiance a bit of a bind. As a buyer I'm going to blame Toshiba for this simple as that. Toshiba are trying to win hearts for their standard in a war with Sony and they have just made one first time purchaser a bit miffed towards them. I feel short changing on a machine that is supposed to lead the charge at the time it was released and had a retail price around £350 so no not a cheep player by any mark or comparison.

Now onto the good news. My converter arrived and I'll set it up later when the light fades, hopefully the Tosh can make me feel a little better by wining me over by nothing more than sheer performance. I have still got an open mind and a sence of fair play so will give Tosh its chance. I'm just going to run a few SD DVDs (actually the more important at this time) by it and pick up a couple of HD DVDs later.

 

[Scott_Mac]

I had the same issue, fortunately i hadn't ordered already, but as someone said above i'd get the XE1 with it's 5.1 outputs as my amp doesn't have HDMI in etc so i wouldn't get the joyful HD sound.

As an aside, can you let me know how it looks on the TV as i have the same and although it looks great with HD content from my EVA8000 i'm not sure if i should get the new TV first that is actually HD or trust the internal scaler to do as it should... i mean technically it should be a very simple algorithm as it's natively 540 horizontal lines so only needs to double for 1080!

 

[ianmacd]

Well let us all know how it goes and if it redeem's itself.

 

[lsparkes]

I also had troubles getting my E1 to update via the internet.
This is how I got it to work:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5239507#post5239507

 

[Sonic67]

We'd love to hear a happy ending. Let us know what films you get and what you think. Can I recommend you get a few of the stand out films as your first purchase.

 

[GrahamC]

We'd love to hear a happy ending. Let us know what films you get and what you think. Can I recommend you get a few of the stand out films as your first purchase.

Happy to come back and post my impressions. So ok then list me 2 stand out titles and I'll pick them up tomorrow. Sorry Scott no longer have the Sharp TV so edited my sig.