Too little, too late. If you purchase the Toshiba at $300, with 5 free HD DVD's, that's like purchasing it for $150. The only thing that's going to keep blu ray alive for movie entertainment are the studios that won't release on HD DVD; my plan is to just get DVD's for any of those titles I want for now and let the Toshiba upconvert.

--Scott

wait til october, my supplier has dvised of chinese made bd burners for $200 AUD

I would never buy a stand alone hdv player. For us who are making movies we need an internal burner/player. Also, home cinema and multimedia are PC centered. Why would you even want a hdv player that was not integrated into your PC?

I feed my projector from a standalone DVD player. I've also fed it DVI from my computers, and that gave me a great interest in getting away from interlaced. The stand-alone player checks what the signal is (progressive or interlaced) and feeds the projector accordingly. Or am I doing something wrong? I haven't yet moved to BluRay and can see the economic advantage of having only one burner/player. At the same time, my editing suite is in another room, so again there is advantage to a separate player.

serena, it depends on how youve set up the player..
if its through composite or svideo, then its interlaced, but if its through component or DVI/VGA it should be progressive, (although interlaced is also an option).
Either way, most higher end Projectors show what the input signal is

Well, component, of course for analogue. DVI is digital all the way. Graphic cards output progressive because computer displays are progressive. So if you play interlaced material in a computer you see interlace artifacts. So feeding a projector from a computer doesn't give the projector any opportunity to think interlaced. At least that's how I see it. Happy to know how to do it otherwise.

I'm far from certain about any of this, VLC can be setup to do a variety of things, some of which seem to come very close to emulating interlaced on a LCD screen.

Just picked one of these up for playback and found that they don't seem to be compatible with discs made on DVDit. If anyone knows a workaround I'd like to hear about it, but there doesn't seem to be anything in the specs that says it will work with burned media.

Sorry guy... but there are quite a few threads kicking around on the dependability (or lack of) with blu ray players and home burned disks. It's a farce when you consider how long the burners have been out. They have had plenty of time to get it together, and they haven't. It has COMPLETELY shaken my confidence in Blu Ray as far as home video goes.

I would return it and consider waiting until August. That's when the HD DVD burners come out and you can read the reviews and see if it's any better. The HD DVD players at minimum handle red laser HD disks much better than BD.

That's what kills me. Bluray is winning the battle with 3/4 of the movie disc sales and the new Blockbuster deal, but HD DVD is WAY better for us little guys making HD content.

Our discs that don't play in Sony's 2nd Gen player play back fine in the Samsung and Panasonic 2nd Gen players. Maybe it's a setting we're missing, but Sony tech support can't seem to tell us what that setting might be.

Makes it kind of hard to produce reliable content.

Serena,
So feeding a projector from a computer doesn't give the projector any opportunity to think interlaced. At least that's how I see it. Happy to know how to do it otherwise.

To properly connect a computer to a HDTV you need a card similar to the ATI HD Certified graphics card(s). When you connect the HDTV to the component or dvi to hdmi connectors on the secondary port the HDTV then can be assigned as a secondary display. Using the advanced setup menu (ati cataylst program) you assign the video modes acceptable to your HDTV. Most of these HD accellerated video cards automatically read the HDTV's spec's and will display a table of resolutions that are available to choose from.
On my system connected to a HDTV the choices are 480i/480p/720p/1080i/1080p
Along with the hardware device (HD Certified Video Card) you need a HD Certified player that can interface with the video card (PowerDvd7_Ultra/Deluxe) using hardware accelleration.
These new HD Certified video cards can also perform hardware de-interlacing. So you have de-interlacing on/off in the software player & de-interlacing bob/weave/blend/automatic in the video cards setup program. These settings are independant for both displays, so primary can be set to de-interlace/blend & secondary can pass through interlaced video.

On my system I run the expanded desktop, primary monitor is a 19" LCD computer monitor at 1280x1024@60hz & secondary display is the dvi port connected via a dvi to hdmi adapter to a HDTV, resolution being 1080i on that HDTV (it's max).
In the ati catalyst driver video setup screen I have the primary set to de-interlace or automatic (for the LCD computer monitor) and the secondary display NO de-interlace which is set to "None". This way I pass the full 1080i signal to my HDTV on the secondary dvi connector.
The same is true when connecting the secondary HDTV via the component connectors.

The same is true using Nvidia HD Certified video cards (purevision). I heard they were having problems with de-interlacing and vista drivers, don't know if they fixed the issue, Nvidia is pretty good. My other computers with Nvidia cards that use the HD purevision accelleration work pretty much the same as the ati hd card. Hard to choose between ATI & Nvidia, pro's & con's with each card.

Anyway, everything on my computer is done by the video card, not the HDTV. The HDTV is the dumb terminal when it comes to a HD signal. Connecting via a 15 pin VGA connector may be different though and I don't use that feature.

The videos by the way, using the computer & ATI card look better than the HD consumer playback devices. One wouldn't think it could look better, but it does, at least from the ATI card.

"Makes it kind of hard to produce reliable content."

============================================

You hit the nail on the head. The battle has little to do with whether it can be done .... but rather whether it can be done reliably

The disk must work in any and all blu ray machines in order for it to be called a success, otherwise it becomes a waist of time and money

As things stand at this instant, 30 cent red laser HD DVDs made with Ulead MF Plus play back more reliably than $20 real Bluray discs made with Roxio DVDit Pro HD. When the $20 real Bluray disc does play back, the quality is identical to the 30 cent red laser HD DVD. What do you get for the extra $19? Several hours of what is usually unused full quality record time.

Another way to look at the Bluray HD DVD divide from a small time content producer point of view.

By the time you've burned 13 discs in red laser HD DVD format vs Bluray using $20 Bluray blanks, you've already saved the price of the $250 HD DVD player! That's not counting the "5 free HD DVDs" deal.

The following is an abridged e-mail from sony tech support:


"We understand that you want to know if your Sony BDP-S300 player support
BD-R and BD-RE discs or not.

We want to inform you that Sony BDP-S300 player does not support these
discs.

Regarding your second concern if this player support BDMV and BDAV files
or not. We want to inform you that these file format are not supported
by Sony BDP-S300 player."


Niiice.

Needless to say, we are returning the Sony and getting a Panasonic. What is more annoying is that we purchased a Sony Blu-Ray recorder, used Sony Blu-Ray media, even used the video burning software INCLUDED WITH THE DRIVE (separately from our work with DVDit), and it doesn't play in a SONY BLU-RAY PLAYER.

Can't really blame Madison for not including Next-Gen authoring capabilities with DVDA when it won't even play back on the latest Sony decks. Inexcusible Sony.

Yeah you can get the a Panasonic, or a Samsung, or a more expensive Sony model and play back your burned Bluray discs, but the point is moot IMHO. The fact is that your burned Bluray discs are not going to be universally Bluray compatible no matter what you do.

Toshiba HD DVD players are WAY BETTER from a small time videographer's point of view. You can burn small projects on a regular DVD+-R, medium sized projects on a dual layer DVD+-R, and large projects on a real HD DVDR. In all cases your discs will play back on all available players. It is so much better. From the point of view of an average consumer who wants to play back an HD movie on his HD home theater, it's six of one half a dozen of the other, but from a small time videographer point of view, HD DVD simply blows Bluray out of the water.

I just burn a Blu-Print file in Vegas onto a standard DVD and play it back in Hi-Def on my PS3....Toshiba does what? Oh yeah, same thing only, well, the same.