Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems BR Is the King OF HD.

Is there a way to give Mark 6 stars?!

best regards,
Jerry

Well that's a good point Daniel - Although some improvements are made in the A2 like HDMI 1.3 and a much sleeker look; For my evaluation purpose, the XA1 works best with the analogue outputs to the Meridian (no HDMI on M- yet... hmmm )

Also, I'll be feeding a Lumagen in front of the projector so the 1080p A2 out isn't a big deal -

ken
continuing Daniel's lymeric - second verse

there was once a young man named Mark-
who thought us to be in the dark-
he came christmas day-
all willing to pay-
to hear us change tune and say Hark!

Well only the XA2 has HDMI 1.3. The A2 is HDMI 1.2 like the A1 and XA1. For Virus Killer`s sake, the A2 MIGHT actually prove to be less costly to ship as it`s probably not as heavy as the XA1.

The players breakdown somewhat like this:

A1 and XA1
11 bit video DAC
Multi channel analogue output
Coaxial output
Optical output
HDMI (720p/1080i)
Component (720p/1080i)
RS232 port (XA1 only)

A2 (aka E1 in Europe)
11bit Video DAC
Optical output
HDMI (720p/1080i)
Component (720p/1080i)

XA2 (aka XE1 in Europe)
12 bit video DAC
Multi channel analogue output
Coaxial output
Optical output
HDMI 1.3 (720p/1080i/1080p)
Component (720p/1080i)
RS232 port

Performance wise the A2 is meant to be identical to the two launch models. The A2s are just starting to appear in the US this weekend. The A1 and A2 need the 2.0 firmware for 5.1 Dolby TrueHD support. The A2 and XA2 will feature this out of the box.

That`s great. It`s quite possible Mark IS Father Christmas. Maybe he should buy one for Bob Stuart since Bob feels upscaled DVD is enough.

Incidentally, my little bit was a spoof of our beloved age old Milky Bar kid adverts. Have a look at this one to get a sense of the melody.


*and no, I never expected to see a link to a Milky Bar advert on the Meridian forum, let alone be the one posting it*

thanks for clarification Daniel;

I'm afraid Mark will forever be tagged the Milky-Bar Kid... Got a feeling that one will stick..

ken

So for the advanced audio formats, with an A2 and Meridian processor, you're stuffed without HDMI?

Not that this is a huge deal at the moment. My prime interest in HD is video (as, yes, I can see the limitations of SD) and [heresy]legacy DD and DTS sound superb in my system[/heresy]. Meridian are going to have to sort out HDMI compatibility at some point.

Do most discs have "legacy" DD and/or DTS? If not then it has to be the XA1.

However, I do like the idea that the second gen players are no longer Pentium computers, even if the player doesn't look so cool or isn't built like a tank.

Morning guys.

Jerry and VK, you're still on my Milky Bar hit list, however there is now a snag... Amazon is using a third-party to ship the HD-DVD players and while Ken's went from one supplier who would, the new supplier will not ship wishlist items.

So, Jerry and Ken can I send you Paypal payments for the players and get you to order your own and Ken order one for VK? Any other way to get around this?

I'd prefer the XA-1 to be bought as I am interested in getting peoples's opinions NOW and not in February when, who knows, both formats could be sunk!

Cheers,

Mark

Morning Mark. The XA-1 will be fine!

Guess we need to wait for the States to wake up.

BTW, where do you buy your HD-DVDs from normally?

I buy all mine from Amazon.com (same as I did for all my DVDs) but the XA-1 (and probably other machines) will also play UK discs as long as it has the latest firmware (2.0).

Cheers,

Mark

Good Lord! I'm away for 24 hours, and wondered why this thread had sprouted an extra three pages!

Mark, this is unbelievable generosity, five stars for you immediately! Seriously, I don't know what line of work you are in, but I came away from reading this thread yesterday thinking that the the consortia for BR and HD-DVD really couldn't find a better, more passionately committed, spokesman than yourself. You have proved the point admirably with your gesture...you have my utmost respect!

Very Best regards

George

Indeed.

All HD DVDs have Dolby Digital Plus audio (640kbps on Warner`s titles, 1.5mbps on Paramount`s and Universal`s), which of course no pre-amp or receiver on the market can decode at the moment. To work around this, the Toshiba player will convert DD+ to PCM and then convert that to 1.5mbps DTS over SPDIF.

Dolby TrueHD can be downconverted to DTS by the players too I believe, so what with Warner only using 640kbps DD+ on a title like Batman Begins, selecting the TrueHD track will probably sound better downconverted to DTS than the 640kbps DD+ track on the same disc will sound upconverted to DTS.

Some of Paramount`s titles, and a couple of Universal`s ones, offered a DTS track beside the DD+ one, but they soon abandoned that and I can`t think of a recent HD DVD that has had DTS on the disc itself. I don`t own either HD format though so I might be mistaken, but I do have an unhealthy obsession with following the progress and releases on both HD DVD and Bluray.

I hope CES is interesting in January. Rumour has it Bluray studios will actually announce some good films.

Thanks, George. It has been mentioned before - I was one of the founders of the Internet Movie Database. I gave up my real income to pursue that dream but it worked out ok At the end of the day I am simply a man who is passionate about film.

Mark

For once, I was in the right place at the right time. Simply cannot believe my luck!