These are the same folks who market the 20 buck car speakers that WalMart sells. So we're talking a dead format (although one cheap to collect) on a very noname brand player. I wouldn't touch this thing with a 20 foot pole.
These are the same folks who market the 20 buck car speakers that WalMart sells. So we're talking a dead format (although one cheap to collect) on a very noname brand player. I wouldn't touch this thing with a 20 foot pole. Luckily, people like me have done the research for you and discovered that this unit is a rebadged Toshiba HD-A3, identical in almost every respect (even the remote).
Second, if you wanted to buy 300 and The Bourne Identity (two awesome movies) on Blu-Ray, you would be spending $40-$50 on the movies alone. Here you can get both movies plus an HD-DVD player, which also is one of the best upconverting DVD players on the market for about the same price.
Plus, now that HD-DVD lost the format war, there are warehouses full of cheap high-def movies. I can walk into my local Fry's Electronics and find rows of $7-$10 HD-DVDs. I bought the Bourne Ultimatum for $10 on HD-DVD, and each of the five Harry Potter movies for $10 each. Fry's even had $4 HD-DVDs for Labor Day yesterday. I often find that the HD-DVD version of a movie is cheaper than the regular DVD version, and 50%-70% cheaper than the Blu-Ray version.
A disc is a disc; doesn't matter if it is Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, both are 1080p and look awesome on your HDTV.
sav
Senior Member
posted: Sep. 2, 2008 @ 8:05a
lzpoof said: Venturer brand ? really ?
These are the same folks who market the 20 buck car speakers that WalMart sells. So we're talking a dead format (although one cheap to collect) on a very noname brand player. I wouldn't touch this thing with a 20 foot pole.
If they woke up and started offering 2 different movies I could justify this as a back-up player. Problem is most HDDVD owners already have these 2 titles.
--"Only stupid people buy HD-DVD" --"Get with the program, you lost the format war!" --"Too much for a dead format!" --"Blu-Ray looks better" --"They couldn't pay me to use HD-DVD!" --"Spend a few bucks ($300) more for Blu-Ray!"
Ok, I think I've gotten them all. Can we move on now? Can we assume that everyone interested in HD-DVD has been properly chastised, and we don't need/want your smug comments on this thread? Really, Blu-Ray fanboys, why would you even click on this thread if HD-DVD is of no interest to you?
BTW, I bought one of the Toshibas right after they dropped the price, and it's one of the best purchases I've made. Best up-converting DVD player I've owned.
jspalyl
Broke Member
posted: Sep. 2, 2008 @ 9:04a
Nice find. Well worth it for the upconvert alone.
fleamarket
Tired Member
posted: Sep. 2, 2008 @ 9:10a
Does it play avi files? Could not find it in description.
I have had SEVERAL standard dvd players. Oppo, Panasonic, ALL of them were "the best upconverting player" with the faroudja chip. Well, sad to say imo they all suck compared to the Toshiba A2 that I had a while back. If this is anywhere NEAR that, which it should be the same thing, then its STELLAR. I just payed 100 for an oppo, and it looks no different than my last player. I may sell it and pick this up.
Only small prob with the Toshiba players is that there is like a 1-minute boot time on them. REALLY. 1 whole minute. Its worth the wait though.
Same question before I pull the trigger.... nquinn said: Also, to clarify.. is this the HD-A3 or HD-A30? It sounds like the A3 only supports 720p/1080i, not 1080p.
BargainActivist said: Same question before I pull the trigger.... nquinn said: Also, to clarify.. is this the HD-A3 or HD-A30? It sounds like the A3 only supports 720p/1080i, not 1080p. HD-A3, which means it outputs 1080i and your HDTV will de-interlace the signal to 1080p (if your HDTV even supports 1080p in the first place).
p0tempkin said: BargainActivist said: Same question before I pull the trigger.... nquinn said: Also, to clarify.. is this the HD-A3 or HD-A30? It sounds like the A3 only supports 720p/1080i, not 1080p. HD-A3, which means it outputs 1080i and your HDTV will de-interlace the signal to 1080p.
This is only marginally cheaper than other recent deals for the same unit. With several places offering these now, I suspect you will find a better deal in the near future. One side note about the boot times... it's not just to play a DVD, but to eject one too. That's the one that really annoys me. I no longer watch regular DVDs on my HD-DVD player for that reason. Call me lazy, but I don't want to wait a minute for my disc to eject.
--"Only stupid people buy HD-DVD" --"Get with the program, you lost the format war!" --"Too much for a dead format!" --"Blu-Ray looks better" --"They couldn't pay me to use HD-DVD!" --"Spend a few bucks ($300) more for Blu-Ray!"
Ok, I think I've gotten them all. Can we move on now? Can we assume that everyone interested in HD-DVD has been properly chastised, and we don't need/want your smug comments on this thread? Really, Blu-Ray fanboys, why would you even click on this thread if HD-DVD is of no interest to you?
BTW, I bought one of the Toshibas right after they dropped the price, and it's one of the best purchases I've made. Best up-converting DVD player I've owned.
I actually owned an HDDVD player and recommend them as upconverting players and for those that don't have massive collections and want only certain select movies on hd dvd cheaply. I don't believe I ever criticized the format nor lauded blu-ray in anyway, that was your own ignorant inferrence.
What I said was that I was skeptical of buying a noname brand player for a dead format. It's good if it's a rebranded Toshiba drive however my point was more that I don't know what level of support you're going to get from a budget WalMart brand company for a discontinued player. I'd imagine they save their money by skimping on support and this adds the whole other dimension of them having to hunt down parts/players if yours has a problem. There's little incentive for Toshiba to help them out at this point. Edit by Moderator: FatWallet is a Flame-free zone. Please show respect for others by not participating in this type of activity.
These are the same folks who market the 20 buck car speakers that WalMart sells. So we're talking a dead format (although one cheap to collect) on a very noname brand player. I wouldn't touch this thing with a 20 foot pole. Luckily, people like me have done the research for you and discovered that this unit is a rebadged Toshiba HD-A3, identical in almost every respect (even the remote).
Second, if you wanted to buy 300 and The Bourne Identity (two awesome movies) on Blu-Ray, you would be spending $40-$50 on the movies alone. Here you can get both movies plus an HD-DVD player, which also is one of the best upconverting DVD players on the market for about the same price.
Plus, now that HD-DVD lost the format war, there are warehouses full of cheap high-def movies. I can walk into my local Fry's Electronics and find rows of $7-$10 HD-DVDs. I bought the Bourne Ultimatum for $10 on HD-DVD, and each of the five Harry Potter movies for $10 each. Fry's even had $4 HD-DVDs for Labor Day yesterday. I often find that the HD-DVD version of a movie is cheaper than the regular DVD version, and 50%-70% cheaper than the Blu-Ray version.
A disc is a disc; doesn't matter if it is Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, both are 1080p and look awesome on your HDTV.
and again I neither criticized hddvd (as a matter of fact I believe I mentioned it's cheap to collect) nor mentioned Blu-ray. While I appreciate your research about this being a rebadged Toshiba, my point again was that your support is still Venturer. I doubt they spent much cash on customer service to start with and there's no incentive for Toshiba to bend over backwards to help out a company like that now that the war is over.
If I was going to invest in HDDVD I'd buy an actual Toshiba player (they don't go for much more than this) or grab a combo drive for your pc instead. I'f you're assuming this is a disposable deal in the case of hardware issues then go for it.
good to know this is a rebadged Toshiba. this is a good deal, in for one for mom.
as far as your arguement of long-term support/repair on this or any other discontinued unit... seriously? do people really buy/hunt down parts when their old (now cheap as dirt) players disc motor conks out (which btw has never happened to me)?
plus, at this price, how can you really go wrong? head into worst buy and you will find regular/non-hd-dvd players for this price, with 0 free movies, taxes, and one hell of a line to wait in.
if you want to crap, move on, if you want a solid upconverter, with a taste of HD picture from the two included movies, this is a great deal.
phire420 said: good to know this is a rebadged Toshiba. this is a good deal, in for one for mom.
as far as your arguement of long-term support/repair on this or any other discontinued unit... seriously? do people really buy/hunt down parts when their old (now cheap as dirt) players disc motor conks out (which btw has never happened to me)?
plus, at this price, how can you really go wrong? head into worst buy and you will find regular/non-hd-dvd players for this price, with 0 free movies, taxes, and one hell of a line to wait in.
if you want to crap, move on, if you want a solid upconverter, with a taste of HD picture from the two included movies, this is a great deal.
OK so in other words you're telling peopel this is a disposable purchase because they shouldn't care what happens if it breaks. And then they can sell their colleciton of HDDVDs on eBay or go find another player to buy. That's your reasoning ? That people should not care about support on their electronics purchases and just consider them all disposable ?
There's a large difference between a 'crap' and a legitimate concern. Learn the difference. And I'd avoid telling people that they shouldn't care if their electronics break.
phire420 said: good to know this is a rebadged Toshiba. this is a good deal, in for one for mom.
as far as your arguement of long-term support/repair on this or any other discontinued unit... seriously? do people really buy/hunt down parts when their old (now cheap as dirt) players disc motor conks out (which btw has never happened to me)?
plus, at this price, how can you really go wrong? head into worst buy and you will find regular/non-hd-dvd players for this price, with 0 free movies, taxes, and one hell of a line to wait in.
if you want to crap, move on, if you want a solid upconverter, with a taste of HD picture from the two included movies, this is a great deal.
You can also buy $150 Monster HDMI cables and $50 "expert" installation of your new DVD layer at Best Buy but you won't see me buying those either. Seriously though the two big problems with this deal have nothing to do with the HD DVD format. Buy.com and Venture are the problems here. Both have a long history of absolutely horrible customer service with no after-sales support. In addition those who already received the rebranded Toshiba A3 Venture are stating it is firmware locked to original release v1.03 firmware and the generic Toshiba firmware updates which fix MANY of the issues with the HD DVD format will NOT load on this Venture rebrand. Those who tried ended up with a door stop. If you want HD DVD then that is fine but as another member noted above at least spend the extra $10 or so and get a real Toshiba A3.
jimihendrix said: For the not so tech savvy, can HD-DVD players like this one be used to play non-HD DVDs on non-HD TVs?
As long as you got the wires to hook up the right inputs.. which you should. Might have to hook an HDDVD/Bluray up via composite first to make sure the component input is set to allow a 480i output (assuming you wanted component) but it probably defaults that way anyway.
In other words, 'yes', you are better off buying this than a regular DVD player in the long run if you ever plan on getting an HDTV for upscaling.
However many newer HDTV's upscale very well anyway which might negate the regular DVD benefits of this. Also HDDVD units in general start up pretty slowly so make sure that won't annoy you. So no real downside, but you might not see any benefit out of the player over a regular DVD player without a HDTV.
JeffODW
Member
posted: Sep. 2, 2008 @ 10:36a
Thanks, this is a nice $55 treat. No USB/DIVX but otherwise everything you could want without high blue-ray prices... thanks
lzpoof said: jimihendrix said: For the not so tech savvy, can HD-DVD players like this one be used to play non-HD DVDs on non-HD TVs?
As long as you got the wires to hook up the right inputs.. which you should. Might have to hook an HDDVD/Bluray up via composite first to make sure the component input is set to allow a 480i output (assuming you wanted component) but it probably defaults that way anyway.
In other words, 'yes', you are better off buying this than a regular DVD player in the long run if you ever plan on getting an HDTV for upscaling.
However many newer HDTV's upscale very well anyway which might negate the regular DVD benefits of this. Also HDDVD units in general start up pretty slowly so make sure that won't annoy you. So no real downside, but you might not see any benefit out of the player over a regular DVD player without a HDTV.
unholy said: they would have won if they had sold the player at this price originally...
what were they thinking?!
They sold it for <100. Isn't that close enough ? IT had more to do with marketing, a 'cooler' sounding name, and Sony backing the sales with the PS3 as a player.
cnIsfg said: In addition those who already received the rebranded Toshiba A3 Venture are stating it is firmware locked to original release v1.03 firmware and the generic Toshiba firmware updates which fix MANY of the issues with the HD DVD format will NOT load on this Venture rebrand. Those who tried ended up with a door stop. If you want HD DVD then that is fine but as another member noted above at least spend the extra $10 or so and get a real Toshiba A3.
Not sure where you got this info, or if maybe the people performing the updates were having some *technical* issues, others all over the web seem to be updating over ethernet and cd/dvd just fine.
others who have updated with no issues and downloads:
p0tempkin said: BargainActivist said: Same question before I pull the trigger.... nquinn said: Also, to clarify.. is this the HD-A3 or HD-A30? It sounds like the A3 only supports 720p/1080i, not 1080p. HD-A3, which means it outputs 1080i and your HDTV will de-interlace the signal to 1080p (if your HDTV even supports 1080p in the first place).
I can't re-emphasize this enough & thanks for pointing it out. The reason ppl pay so much for their HDTV - several hundreds to thousands more than their HDP or BR - is that the chip that process the content to 1080p is not free.
& all discs are 1080p - so that is the source. Outputing the source @ 1080i really has no perceptible effect on the resultant 1080p when viewed on a 1080p TV. Also, as you said, if you have a 768p monitor, that's all you are going to get even with a 1080p source.
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