cyberdentist said:Its ridiculous that people are buying HD-DVD player to use it for upconverting..

Here are 4 reasons to go with Philips:

1) Divx
2) USB
3) Very fast loading - HD-DVD players take their own sweet time to initialize and it sucks
4) Region Free !!!!!!

I have HD-A3 & Philips 5982 and trust me.. 5982 is equally good in upconverting plus all the above benefits !!!

move on ppl.. dont get tempted to buy this player and then it becomes a door stop after a year !!!

Show me a $79 deal at Costco on the Phillips, and I'm in!

HokieOkie said:cyberdentist said:Its ridiculous that people are buying HD-DVD player to use it for upconverting..

Here are 4 reasons to go with Philips:

1) Divx
2) USB
3) Very fast loading - HD-DVD players take their own sweet time to initialize and it sucks
4) Region Free !!!!!!

I have HD-A3 & Philips 5982 and trust me.. 5982 is equally good in upconverting plus all the above benefits !!!

move on ppl.. dont get tempted to buy this player and then it becomes a door stop after a year !!!

Show me a $79 deal at Costco on the Phillips, and I'm in!

For a product that you buy for $50-70, u dont need costco guarantee.. Weigh the cost-benefit ratio of the player you buy now... Most folks on here don't mind paying a little more for a player that can do much more ... Philips 5982 is for $59 on Amazon !!!!

I bought the D3 aince it was $20 less than the DKR10 and included 2 movies that I wanted and an additional 5 AR. I already have hard drive recorders, dvd recorders and media center PCs, so the DKR10 was less appealing to me than it might be to others.

cameronj said:I maintain - there's no point in spending even $10 on a DVD player that will not see new releases in the future. While there is the argument that using it to upconvert DVDs, if this thing takes as long as people say to start up, and locks up even one time in ten, then it's not worth owning. Further, anyone who plans to participate in high definition DVDs will need a Blu Ray player sometime soon as well. So you're spending $100 on something that will very quickly be turned into a paperweight.

It's just not what FW is for. People are here talking about how to spend their money wisely.

Fatwallet is about finding good deals on products you are interested in. This can be a very good deal if it fits your needs. I'll try to explain it to you more slowly... you pay $80, in return you get 7 movies and an HD player. That's $11.43 per HD movie, plus a free upconverting DVD player that also plays HD-DVDs. Let's assume worst case, and you aren't interested in ANY of the free DVDs, and/or the five rebate DVDs never come. You STILL have the option to buy and enjoy NOW HD movies that are not available on Bluray, and with the demise of HD-DVD, you will likely have the opportunity to get them at much lower prices than they will cost when (if) they come out on Blu-ray. Let's say there's 20 movies you are interested in in HD-DVD, and lets say you can get them for $10-$15 ea., compared to $15-$25 ea. on Blu-ray when they come out. Even if you only manage to get them $5 cheaper than their Blu-ray counterparts, you saved $100 in the discs. That's a net profit of $20, and you've got 22-27 HD-DVDs, and a player. Both of which you could eBay down the road to someone who was much more vested in HD-DVD. AND you got to enjoy HD movies NOW, instead of waiting for the cost of Blu-ray players to come down, and the content currently exclusive to HD-DVD to be re-released in Blu-ray. How is that not a good deal?

If you don't get it, I don't how else to help you. But trust that others do get it. Your time would be much better spent finding a deal that you ARE interested in.

Sold out in Greenville, SC. Hope they lower the website's price as well.

cameronj said:HokieOkie said:
I have well over 200 hours on my A3, and have never suffered a lockup, save a smudge on a NetFlix STANDARD DEF dvd, that was fixed with a cleaning. IOW, it performs just like any other dvd player I've ever owned. Since you've publically stated you WILL NOT BUY an HDDVD player, WTF are you doing here in this thread? Crapping?

Are you reduced to that? If someone is saying something you disagree with, you try to find a way to shut them up?

Seems to me that if you already own one of these things, your changes of being in the market for one are even less than mine. So what are you doing here?

No I'm not thread crapping, I saw the "deal" and I came here to see why people thought it was a good deal. I think I provided a valuable service. There have been some very good reasons to buy, and I also think that some people who thought this would be a good deal probably learned some reasons why it wasn't.

So stop trying to silence someone who doesn't see the world your way, kay?

Umm..I AM in the market for a second unit..this one fits my pricepoint since it's from Costco...I was holding out for around $50. If you think providing 'valuble service' means crapping a thread with FUD (lockups) on a product a) you don't even own, so how could YOU know, b) on a product you don't even want, it becomes suspect why you are even wasting your time arguing with me and others on a deal forum when you see no deal personally. You are free to click away, and excuse me for having an interest in this deal, and personal experience with this exact unit...kay?

cyberdentist said:Its ridiculous that people are buying HD-DVD player to use it for upconverting..

Here are 4 reasons to go with Philips:

1) Divx
2) USB
3) Very fast loading - HD-DVD players take their own sweet time to initialize and it sucks
4) Region Free !!!!!!

I have HD-A3 & Philips 5982 and trust me.. 5982 is equally good in upconverting plus all the above benefits !!!

move on ppl.. dont get tempted to buy this player and then it becomes a door stop after a year !!!
Philips DVD players are a great deal for all of the reasons you describe. However, their upscaler design doesn't quite match Toshiba's. For 90+% of people out there, they won't notice the difference, though. As I've stated in the past, upconverting is only half the battle. MPEG-2 decoder quality is probably the single most important factor in video quality that comes out.

Why are people hoping on this with such passion. Just wait a bit. The price will only keep going down.

Nighthawke said:bigdoof said:
The benefit of the Toshiba is that it upscales well and is comparable to the "gold standard" Oppos that could cost close to $200. The one that you linked isn't really comparable. Though depending on your setup though, it may not really matter.

That's only your opinion to being "comparable". No way you are telling me that the Toshiba upscaling is better.

That's a sort of nit picky response. Video/audio quality comparisons are inherently highly subjective. Even a clean, accurate reproduction sometimes loses out to one with certain aspects highly exaggerated, e.g. "it sounds warmer!"

With that being said, the general concensus is that this Toshiba is one of the best and is favorably compared to the Oppos. So if you're in the market for a top shelf upconverter, and Oppos go for nearly $200, some may find the Toshiba a better deal since they upscale just as well and cost only $80 during the HDDVD fire sale. The fact that the Toshiba reads HDDVD is just a freebie bonus.

The Phillips that you suggested is decent enough, without a doubt. In fact, I'm running that exact model right now on one of my TVs. But as someone that doesn't need divx nor PAL, I'd prefer better upscaling performance. Of course, that's my opinion and yours obviously differs.

Thanks OP!

I'd ordered one from CC to go pickup tomorrow but saw your post and just picked one up from Costco and cancelled my CC order!

Came with the two Bourne films.