Who cares is it seven or twenty free movies, if they are no good? I don't see how they can be worth anything. Let see what Toshiba offered with A2:

Category A: "Aeon Flux", "Babel", "The Italian Job" -- I ordered "Babel", not interested in the flux, neither in the remake of another good movie.

Category B: "The Hulk", "Pitch Black", "The Thing" -- I ordered "Pitch Black" as the one that may be even remotely interesting. This whole category is out of interest for me.

Category C: "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", "Swordfish", "Full Metal Jacket" -- the last one was worthy ordering, but I am not the only one in the family who watch movies, so I ordered the first one. "Swordfish" is notable only for its soundtrack by Paul Oakenfold.

Category D: "Firewall", "The Frighteners", "U2: Rattle and Hum" -- I have "The frighteners" on the DVD, it is a director's edition, even more boring than theatrical release. I bought it only because of Michael J. Fox, I am a big fan of him. "Rattle and Hum" does not do full justice to U2 music, so this is no go. I ordered Firewall because I haven't watched it yet, but judging by reviews it is a so-so movie.

Category E: "Black Rain", "Darkman", "Troy" -- Computer effects and no real semblance to Greek drama? Thanks, but no, "Troy" is not for me. "Darkman" is just a B-movie, sometimes funny but ordering it in HD? "Black Rain" is poorly scripted, but at least it has no computer effects, so I decided to give it a shot and to re-watch it in HD.

All it all, only two movies worth considering: "Babel" and "Full Metal Jacket".

The Thing is worth it for me. Some of these deals include picking your own films.

heath

"Who cares is it seven or twenty free movies, if they are no good? I don't see how they can be worth anything. Let see what Toshiba offered with A2:"

What your saying is completely subjective. And obviously some care since there were alot of these units sold. Maybe not you, but you are not the only person on the planet. I don't really see your point. Honestly, the movies you stated are worth watching are probably the last I would ever select as "worthy" or entertaining(and I already have both movies you stated you selected on standard dvd, with me watching the first five minutes of babel and falling asleep twice). But then again, you and I are two different people.

Heath did you find any better deals for tomorrow?

A3 + 10 free movies
 

I just looked at the friday deals posted on BB, CC, Sears, WM and Target web-sites. No Toshiba A2s. I found A3 at CC for $199 + tax. Therefore, I purchased A3 + 10 free movies (2 in the box, 3 from selection and 5 by mail) from Amazon for $187. That seemed to be a good deal.

P.

Edit-1: Now the price at Amazon is $159 and they don't allow me to cancel my order and reorder at the new price.

Edit-2: Also you may be eligible to buy Toshiba HD-A35 for an incredible $149 if you vote:

http://promotions.amazon.com/gp/holi...EQQ218F33KN3NT

I jumped on it!
 

Was just cruzing the sales and found the good deal at Amazon. Two HD
DVD's in the box (300 and The Bourne Identity), chose 3 others and will print out the rebate for five more.

The price was even better than they advertised when it was totaled up, see below. So that's a total of 10 DVD's with the A3, and shipping for $176.42!

I don't think that's bad at all!

OK, I have officially taken sides-------GO HD DVD!


Item(s) Subtotal: $243.83
Shipping & Handling: $16.44
Promotion Applied: -$83.85
-----
Total Before Tax: $176.42
Estimated Tax: $0.00
-----
Grand Total: $176.42

Merry Christmas to me, Merry Christmas to me!

Mike :)

PS: That is basically a free HD DVD player and I totally agree with Heath, The Thing is one of my all time favorite movies! Now I can throw away my old copied off of the TV VCR copy!

M

Nice find Mike,

I am looking at the same thing and not seeing anything about the three and five other free movies you can get with the A3.

Where is this info, and what sort of choices are they?

Here's the link to the page, it's kind of hard to find. You kind of have to click around in circles to get it.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.htm...d_i=B000U62N1S

You click on the player, click and choose your three movies from that page and then add it to your cart.

You don't see the final price until you buy then it gives you the final price. It was actually cheaper than it said. Those prices I listed are copied right from my invoice and I have already received the email confirmation. So I know it is legit. It is like 4 to 5 weeks for deliver though.

Mike

Also, don't click on the info for the player, just click the box next to the picture, then click on the boxes next to the movies you want. Then add to the cart. I have bought from Amazon.com many times and you can cancel your order anytime too, so if was not right, I would have just canceled the order. Turned out if was even cheaper than advertised.

Mike

Also, I think you click on the picture above the model you want I think. I chose the first picture, the one above the A3 description.

Mike

Thanks a bunch!

He He You guys crack me up! I am sure you all will love the player! BTW, happy black friday dudes and dudettes! Lets see how the sales add up today!!

Damon

just email them and ask for the price adjustment. I did when I bought mine at $199 and then I saw the $159 price. I emailed them asking for a refund and they checked the price and it had gone back up to $179. They then gave me $20 back.

Daniel Weber

Thank you Daniel. I did the same thing and they refunded me the difference based on their current price ($179).

P.

I agree with Heath and Mike : "The Thing" is a classic film, one of the best of the horror genre, John Carpenter builds tension well and the special effects from 1982 (no CGI of course = good!) were fantastic.

Just go for a Sony Playstation 3. I have the Sony Blu-Ray player, and it's just SLOW to startup and eject. I don't have a PS3, but I'd be happier to wait that amount of time for startup.

My Sony BDP-S300 Blu Ray player takes about 45 seconds to startup, 4 seconds to eject the disc, 30 seconds to insert disk and play. Chapter advance takes a few seconds . Painful. What is it doing? Running Linux ? I'm not sure if the PS3 is fastert, but I'll ask my friend. The PS3 also offers a photo viewer and Internet browser. The DVD upscaling is of the BDP-S300 is touted to be great. Blu Ray movies look great. I didn't notice anything other than the expected softness for SD DVDs until I watched a horrible SD DVD of Ocean's Thirteen . There was major blockiness, almost as if there was no filter on the interpolation to 1080p. My TV is a Sony LCD 52" and generally delivers stunning HD quality from the BluRay disks as well as from HD content from Comcast cable.

Here’s the best way to receive a PS3:
http://www.us.playstation.com/EP/Promotions/296
Maybe one of you will try this out.

I don't own a PS3. My friends tells me that startup time is a few seconds and DVD insert/eject lag is minimal.

On my PS3, I’ve only played 1 Blu-Ray film so far but I didn’t see that much of a difference in the start-up time compared to DVDs. A lot of people won’t even notice it.

My A3 arrived from Amazon today. Having done my homework the first thing I did was plug it into my ethernet router and update to software version 1.3. Version 1.3 is reported to fix a lot of problems.

HTH

Update,

I expected to be waiting a while for my A3, but I was notified that it will be here tomorrow via UPS! Dang, I will have to wait to test it out, as I'm leaving for the weekend tomorrow afternoon.

Mike

Venturer HD DVD player $200
 

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/news/..._Wal-Mart/1217

If they intend on competing against the Toshiba A3, this thing should be around 50 dollars less.

Another Wal Mart (not so) Secret Sale
 

I really regret not buying the $100 HD DVD player.

heath

"Planet Earth" looks absolutely stunning on my plasma TV, watched from the HD-A2! The absence of a digital sound output is a downer, audio is output either via HDMI or via regular stereo analog pair. I don't have an HDMI receiver yet, so I have to make do with analog stereo. Still works for me, I don't have a 5.1 setup anyway.

What a coincidence!

I just got the series on HD-DVD from Amazon yesterday and took a look at the first two episodes on my early Christmas present, a Panasonic 1080p Plasma. [The series is also available on Blu-Ray.]

Wow! [How many times have you heard that expression before?]

The combination of viewing it on a large screen plus the detail afforded HD really allows these incredible nature images to shine.

Short of seeing it in a theater, or IMAX, this is about as close as I think I've ever "experienced" something so visually compelling at home. I know the series was shown on the Discovery Channel, but since I don't have cable, this was a real eye opener.

One of the coolest things about the show are the wide landscape shots that feature a bear/wolf/puma/impala moving about that one can still make out clearly.

Very cool.

For anyone that hasn’t checked yet, Amazon has lowered the price of the Samsung BD-P1400 to $297.95 and the Toshiba HD-A30 to $249.98.

From IMDb:

"Even On Biggest Day, Hi-Def Players Can't Beat Ordinary DVD Players
Putting those reports of huge sales of high-definition video players on Black Friday in perspective, Video Business magazine said on its website Friday that while 57,000 HD DVD and Blu-ray players were indeed sold the day after Thanksgiving, 600,000 standard definition DVD players were sold on the same day. The trade magazine, citing research by market analyst DisplaySearch, also observed that while 62 percent of the high-definition players sold on that day were in the HD DVD format (largely as a result of a $99 one-day only deal initiated by Wal Mart), Blu-ray players, because of their higher costs, accounted for 52 percent of the total revenue."

Guess that explains everything!

heath

What would be interesting is how many HDTVs are sold compared to HD disc players. I suspect people aren't buying HD players in anything remotely close to HDTVs.

I suspect many people who spend $1000-$3000 on an HDTV won't spend $200-$400 on a player.

I'm a guy who has owned an HDTV for 3.5 years, and I don't own either player (though I wish I'd bought the $99 HD DVD player, as I've said a thousand times already, lol).

heath

Update:
The current Amazon price for the BD-P1400 is now $269.98 and the HD-A30 is now $239.98.

Still not quite close to $98 :-))

You’re basically comparing a discontinued non 1080p player to a brand new 1080 24p capable player.

That’s like saying you got a better deal on a 40” XBR2 than someone else did on a 46” XBR4.

As it was discussed previously, 1080i vs. 1080p makes no difference in regards to telecined movies. My TV locks onto cadence in less than a second, I checked it with HQV test disk. So, after a split-second of initial titles, I enjoy true 1080p picture.

As to 24p output, I don't have a 24p-capable TV. Most budget LCD/plasma 2006/2007 TVs don't have this feature. I can live with slight judder as long as the picture is properly deinterlaced.

Out of all models offered by Toshiba, only the XA2 stands out, everything else is pretty much the same deal. I wanted the XA2, but I am surprised by how well the A2 fares.

I understand that a 1080p TV must be 24p capable to fully enjoy the benefits of a 1080p player but I just think its wrong comparing the price.

It’s like comparing 2 cars of the same manufacturer where one of them can reach a speed of 120mph and the one with more horse power is taped to 155mph. It may be illegal to reach those speeds but you’re obviously expected to pay a lot more for the faster model.


I wouldn’t be surprised if Toshiba were to show off a successor to the XA2 at CES because its way overdue.

I don't think that the XA2 needs replacement. What should they add? HDMI 1.3? It is there already. The player has full Dolby TrueHD decoding, as well as amazing Silicon Optix chip and 1080p output. Really, I don't see any serious improvements this player needs. Just drop the price to $300 and it will fly off the shelves.

IMHO, Toshiba must focus on firmware updates, on bug fixing, and on AVCHD playback across all the models instead of spending money on a new shiny (or matte) box with differently shaped buttons. I hope that AVCHD playback can be added to current models via firmware update. These models already support H.264, so they must have the needed computing power available.

Here in Canada we're getting the HD-D3 (basically an A3 + hdmi cable) with bourne 1 + 300 for 99$ on boxing day @ futureshop.ca.

I'm sold!!

Heath would you like me to get you one? LOL!! =)

Ha ha ha. Great deal, but I have to save my money. If I could buy anything tech, it would be a Nikon/Nikkor 55-200mm VR lens for my D40x.

Heath

5 Free Movies by Mail
 

Has anyone received the 5 free movies by mail yet?

Yes, I recieved mine, but it took almost 3 months.. I know someone else that purchased a unit and it took a while to recieve theirs also...

$79.99 at Costco
 

Toshiba HD DVD Player is $79.99 at Costco. Free HDMI cable and two HD DVD Movies (Bourne Identity and Supremacy) are included.

The end of the format war now helping the consumers.

P.