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

Agreed! I have purchased their most excellent versions of Sergio Leone spaghetti western DVDs here , here and here .

Jerry, Studio Canal`s French discs are said to be superb. All 24p VC1 encodes. Total Recall is meant to make the Lionsgate Bluray version look pathetic by comparison, and I know La Haine is also well regarded. Preview footage of their version of Terminator 2 is also said to look a great deal better than the Bluray version.

I've read on AVSForum.com that the US HD-A1 cannot cope with 50Hz titles - I've not confirmed it myself though.

David.

None of the HD DVD players can handle 25p/50hz HD content at this time, no. Whether the A1 and XA1 will be able to in future I do not know, but the A2/E1 and XA2/XE1 will be getting an update by the spring that adds support for 25p/50hz content.

Microsoft and Toshiba have together been able to persuade content providers to stick with 24p for all 24fps film based content in Europe however so 50hz encodes will only see light of day with content that is 25fps/25p at source, like a lot of BBCs HD content for example.

It's ture but if you update the FW kiss regin free good bye.

No firmware update available adds region coding at this point in time to any HD DVD device currently on the market, with no immediate plans for one to be introduced in the near future.

They've still not even implemented a region coding spec to HD DVD. Yes it is being discussed, but it simply does not exist yet, and Toshiba and Microsoft have openly gone on the record numerous times stating that existing players on the market will never have a region coding firmware update forced upon them.

I am talking about SD DVD playback.

Well no firmware update exists to add or indeed subtract SD DVD region free playback from the existing players. The A1 and XA1 are locked to NTSC R1 and can`t even decode PAL so at most they might only be able to do NTSC R2 and R3 playback with a hack. Would Toshiba then kill such an ability with a future firmware? Unlikely since it would have to be them that (unofficially) allows for such a hack to exist in the first place. This happens all the time. Manufacturers are smart enough to know ease to modify for region-free is of interest to a decent share of consumers, so they deliberately don`t make it difficult to mod but still can`t openly admit to the mod coming from themselves. The Panasonic Bluray player in th UK can have the same region free mod applied to it as one of their DVD players for it to playback SD DVDs from all regions in fact. Works a treat I am told (BD playback remains locked).

The fact manufacturers make room to allow for this, sort of thing however, again, means no manufacturer is likely to suddenly disable it. You might fight a firmware update to fix some bugs or add some features in a player resets the region code (this happens with some Denon DVD players), but you just re-apply the region hack instructions and you`re all set again…

Toshiba Europe have in fact jokingly hinted on a couple of occasions that should an ISO file that can be burnt and placed in the HD-E1 and HD-XE1 players just happen to fall into the hands of a dealer, or onto the internet allowing for multi-region SD playback in the players that it couldn`t possibly have anything to do with them. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more and so on. Now the A2 and XA2 are pretty much identical to the E1 and XE1 we have over here, they just have their primary region code playback for SD playback switched around but this time we know, unlike the A1 and XA1, that the hardware can at least deal with PAL SD signals, so whatever region free mod comes for the European players might also work on the US 2nd gen models.

I can tell you guys that the Harry Potter I got from the UK works just peachy in my Tosh XA1. The little I watched of it looked great. There are FBI warnings, etc. It seems strange to me in the world of the internet why they would release certain titles in certain countries when we will end up finding them anyway. I am left to conclude there is some kind of legal/ distribution reason and the companies making the titles know those motivated will find them and the rest will wait until the discs arrive in their territory. I really liked this HP movie- btw, I like them all. Not in the league with LOTR, but certainly well done, well made, and the John Williams music is some of his best recent work IMHO.

I watched The Hulk last night- and you want a reference image- here it is. Since its 1.85:1- it uses the entire HD frame, the bad news is: its 1.85:1 ! I actually think it filled my entire 16x9 screen so that must mean its been gently zoomed to 1.78:1.

Here are comments from the HD Digest- I agree with his comments:

IMHO there are moments in Batman that are the best I've seen in HD but as a whole The Hulk might become my reference disc- btw I still think Serenity looks fantastic and I will go back and revisit it when I have time.

best regards,
Jerry

Hulk is possibly the best disc I have seen so far too, with one caveat - there is edge enhancement in the master which I found distracting while watching the movie :-(

Mark

yes- I saw this too- its evident on the split screens- they use a black frame to split the screen and this is a great place to look for EE or ringing and it is there. This is why I would not have given it the full 5 starts, but overall, look at those scenes of Jennifer Conneley in the restaurant... fantastic. My wife noted that "shes had botox" hehehe

best regards,
Jerry

Here's a bit of good news to all HD fan/boys as they say. I hope this will warm your hearts for the new year.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=776311