Inside a Toshiba HD-DVD player

[pretender2j]

Not sure if any of you have seen this video already? A guy pulls apart a Toshiba HD-DVD player and finds the drive to be a standard pc drive with IDE and a Molex power connector. He also finds that it is a fairly standard pc with a 2.5GHz P4 and some DDR2700 RAM.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dsiCXsDH6g

Hope you enjoy

JB

[JTK]

Originally Posted by pretender2j

Not sure if any of you have seen this video already? A guy pulls apart a Toshiba HD-DVD player and finds the drive to be a standard pc drive with IDE and a Molex power connector. He also finds that it is a fairly standard pc with a 2.5GHz P4 and some DDR2700 RAM.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dsiCXsDH6g

Hope you enjoy

JB

Laptop in a box.

Even Home Theater Magazine and some of the other "non PC" magazines had that out there, clear as day, when these players hit the streets.

Thank you for posting this irrefutable proof to what myself and many others have been saying for months about these piece of junk.

I know I had a few feathers ruffled from people that thankfully are no longer posting here.

Toshiba and MS have attempted to pull off one of THE biggest shams in the history of consumer electronics. There's some of your proof right there, folks.

[Maximus]

News is that they can't have an SoC design like BD players currently have, HDi won't support it, it needs to be running some layer of windows I imagine, so PCs in a box for a while for Toshiba until they can redo parts of HDi so they don't require a computer.

[pretender2j]

Hey JTK is it a Toshiba HDA1?

Oh and I noticed Toshiba's new HDA2 which all the fanboy's were saying would be cheaper is still $499.

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by pretender2j

Hey JTK is it a Toshiba HDA1?

Oh and I noticed Toshiba's new HDA2 which all the fanboy's were saying would be cheaper is still $499.

It is cheaper, cheaper for Toshiba, they are losing less money on it now.

[Blue]

Have a look at the back of the unit before they pull it appart HD-A1.

[Emannikcufesin]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

It is cheaper, cheaper for Toshiba, they are losing less money on it now.

Manufacturing is just like any other industry. The general focus is to produce the same product for less money. Fast production methods result in equipment that can be assembled and sold for less but in no way does it improve on the quality of the units previously produced. This is not only true for HD DVD players but also for Blu Ray players. Which is why I'm an advocate of buying first generation players, regardless of your format preference. All companies have the same goals, to reduce costs and usually that's not to the advantage of the consumer. So why isnt' lower cost to the advantage of the consumer? The lower cost is a result of the equipment being assembled in China for lower labor wages and inferior parts. The Wal-Mart mantra, but that's another topic for another thread.

So this thread is pointless. The HD-A1 is a quality piece of equipment, so is the Blu Ray.

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by Emannikcufesin

Manufacturing is just like any other industry. The general focus is to produce the same product for less money. Fast production methods result in equipment that can be assembled and sold for less but in no way does it improve on the quality of the units previously produced. This is not only true for HD DVD players but also for Blu Ray players. Which is why I'm an advocate of buying first generation players, regardless of your format preference. All companies have the same goals, to reduce costs and usually that's not to the advantage of the consumer. So why isnt' lower cost to the advantage of the consumer? The lower cost is a result of the equipment being assembled in China for lower labor wages and inferior parts. The Wal-Mart mantra, but that's another topic for another thread.

So this thread is pointless. The HD-A1 is a quality piece of equipment, so is the Blu Ray.

I completely understand capitalism thank you.

The A1 is very clunky, and the NEC drive misfires a lot, the specs of the computer part are very good, better than the laptop I am typing off infact. The implementation of the software was the exact opposite, awful.

The problem for Toshiba at the moment is moving to a SoC design, which is going to be difficult for them because the HDi spec didn't allow for it from the beginning as it was designed for a computer. For Blu-ray companies there is no trouble with the SoC design, because the manufacturers had a lot more say in how the devices should work and they knew that this method of manufacturing is going to be cheaper in the long run.

So from G3 onwards expect Blu-ray players to be cheaper than HD DVD players, unless of course Toshiba continues to sell the player at cost or makes a loss on them like the A1. The difference between the two formats is that HD DVD was designed for a quick win, which is why there were so many early gains in this war by the HD DVD camp. Blu-ray was built with a long-term plan which they have now started to execute since the PS3 was brought to the market, and that is why we now see gains being made by the BDA.

All-in-all I wish HD DVD would give up this nonsense so the large majority of consumers can go into a store and pick up a BD player without worrying that they might be wasting $700-800, and then we would see some real price drops in software and hardware.

[Emannikcufesin]

The A1 is clunky? That's a matter of personal preference. The Blu Ray Players aren't any different. Unless you go the PS3 route, still if you decide to go that route with the discussion one could play devils advocate and say the XBOX 360 HD player is the most attractive of all the next gen players, considering it is the smallest next gen player on the market. Aesthetics are subjective and SHOULD NOT be a deciding factor over real issues like quality of construction - Samsung anyone?

You are correct about Toshiba selling the A1 at cost, the player could easily sell for the $1000 the Blu is going for here in the States. However as a person who understands Capitalism than I'm sure you need no introduction to marketing (note the PS3 font is identical to the Spiderman font, the 2007 blockbuster movie this summer. Coincidence? Of course not). Toshiba has in fact scored a minor victory by selling their player at cost, makes you wonder what their long term plan is. Speaking of long term plans...don't confuse Sony's early poor execution with the vision of a long term plan. Need some examples...

I'm sure you're familiar with the company Sega and their ill-fated game system the Dreamcast. The game could only take a loss on manufacturing for so long before going exclusively to the software format. Thus saving the company and making gamers of all formats happy. Toshiba IS manufacturing with no out like transistioning to software. So does the Sega example of a company willing to take a loss for it's product bode well for Sony? Not exactly...

Prior to the original Playstation, Panasonic manufactured the 3DO game system and refused to lower the cost of their $750 game system for a couple of years. Why should they? They had no immediate competion. Making this an exclusive toy for those with a higher expendable income. Then Sony and Sega entered the fray with their 32 bit game systems so Panasonic was forced to lower their costs to compete. It was too late. The Panasonic faded into obscurity and Sony became a video game giant with it's lower priced console.

So does either model of a failed vision apply to Sony or Toshiba? Only time will tell.

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by Emannikcufesin

The A1 is clunky? That's a matter of personal preference. The Blu Ray Players aren't any different. Unless you go the PS3 route, still if you decide to go that route with the discussion one could play devils advocate and say the XBOX 360 HD player is the most attractive of all the next gen players, considering it is the smallest next gen player on the market.

The A1 has too many software problems, but for $500 I wouldn't complain. The BD players are different, you have a choice, the Samsung (I own it so I can speak from experience) is not brilliant, but it does the job without complaining or freezing-up, it doesn't complain if I put a DVD in it, and it outputs 1080p. However, that is just one player, the Panasonic is an excellent player, good build quality, faster loading times (than the Samsung) 7.1 analogue-out with advanced audio decoding promised, outputs 1080p. So I would say that the BD players are different, mainly because there is more than one company making them.The Xbox 360 Add on is in no way the smallest player on the market, have you seen the size of the Xbox360, and if you aren't going to use an X360, you need a PC, again increasing the cost associated with GFX cards required for acceleration.

You are correct about Toshiba selling the A1 at cost, the player could easily sell for the $1000 the Blu is going for here in the States. However as a person who understands Capitalism than I'm sure you need no introduction to marketing (note the PS3 font is identical to the Spiderman font, the 2007 blockbuster movie this summer. Coincidence? Of course not). Toshiba has in fact scored a minor victory by selling their player at cost, makes you wonder what their long term plan is. I doubt they've fired their last shot.

A minor victory yes, but you have to look at the big-picture, with no new content available on HD DVD which is going to be a major problem for the format let-alone Toshiba. Selling their player at a loss is OK for one generation, but eventually they will need to recoup R&D/marketing costs, and bringing el cheapo Chinese manufacturers so early is not going to help Toshiba's Bottom line so well as they will now be competing with not only the BDA companies, but the Chinese volume companies as well.

I'm sure you're familiar with the company Sega and their ill-fated game system the Dreamcast. The game could only take a loss on manufacturing for so long before going exclusively to the software format. Thus saving the company and making gamers of all formats happy. Toshiba IS manufacturing with no out like transistioning to software. So does the Sega example of a company willing to take a loss for it's product bode well for Sony? Not exactly...

A completely irrelevant comparison, Sony are a much larger company and will subsidise the loss made on the PS3 with the PS2, movies, electronics, cell phones, and laptops. Microsoft are doing the same thing, the Xbox group as a whole has lost about $4bn, but because Office and Windows keep bringing the bacon home they have no need to worry. The same goes for Sony, 2007 looks like being their most profitable one in the last decade or so despite the PS3 losses, what does that tell you about brand strenght. Oh yeah and Sega had no such divisions within their company to subsidise the Dreamcast.

Prior to the original Playstation, Panasonic manufactured the 3DO game system and refused to lower the cost of their $750 game system for a couple of years. Why should they? They had no immediate competion. Making this an exclusive toy for those with a higher expendable income. Then Sony and Sega entered the fray with their 32 bit game systems so Panasonic was forced to lower their costs to compete. It was too late. The Panasonic faded into obscurity and Sony became a video game giant with it's lower priced console.

The 3DO is again not a valid comparison, different versions of the console existed within the market, splitting the userbase, people forget that Sanyo and Lucky Goldstar (LG) made 3DOs aswell. Also there was competition whether or not the 3DO guys wanted to recognise it or not, the mighty N with the SNES, even if it was a bit old by then, it was still incredibly popular (reminds me of the PS2). Sony gives you a very good deal for $499/599 whether people see it or not, you get a next-gen DVD player and console for that, and while some may say that they would have liked the choice of picking a format instead of it being foisted on them by Sony, they don't seem to understand that it is already being used for games. So the BD drive is an essential part of the PS3, as the DVD drive was essential for the PS2 and the CD drive for the PS. People complained when Sony included a DVD drive in the PS2 saying the CD drive was sufficient, yes it was, but not for very long. The creator of MGS has already said that for his net game he will require a BD50, and FFXIII will probably require two. Imagine if the PS2 had only included a CD drive, how limited would the system be, it would never have sold as many as it has, and eventually DVD tech got just as cheap as CD tech. This will happen for BD but for some reason people haven't got any patience this time round.

Anyway that is enough of my ranting.

[blitz6speed]

Are you here to stir the pot? If so, i'd advise you to step back and just read from now on. I was going to make a flamitory post to your jibberish, but decided to take the high road. AVS is a trashy place because of the bickering, and it will not be allowed here. Do not start it.

[pretender2j]

Originally Posted by Emannikcufesin

So this thread is pointless. The HD-A1 is a quality piece of equipment, so is the Blu Ray.

Excuse me but this thread is not pointless. if you look at what is in my original post you will see i'm not making any personal comments about the play just thought everone would like to see the insides of an HDA1.

Please no arguing. Here at the Blu-Ray forum we pride ourselves in being well mannered and discussing instead of arguing.

JB

[Emannikcufesin]

Originally Posted by blitz6speed

Are you here to stir the pot? If so, i'd advise you to step back and just read from now on. I was going to make a flamitory post to your jibberish, but decided to take the high road. AVS is a trashy place because of the bickering, and it will not be allowed here. Do not start it.

When I read the forum rules it said nothing of mandatory herd conformity. Let me check my BDP-S1 manual, nope nothing there stating that when I filled out my warranty card I was henceforth sworn to take allegiance to all things Sony, so what are you talking about?
I am a proud owner of a Blu Ray and a Toshiba A1 and they even sit side by side on my stand without bickering, it's amazing. They actually get along. So since my eggs aren't resting in any one basket I don't share any format paranoia of owning a losing platform. I guess I'll keep that in mind when talking about that other format that shall not be named in your presence.

[Nismobeach]

Originally Posted by JTK

Laptop in a box.

Even Home Theater Magazine and some of the other "non PC" magazines had that out there, clear as day, when these players hit the streets.

Thank you for posting this irrefutable proof to what myself and many others have been saying for months about these piece of junk.

I know I had a few feathers ruffled from people that thankfully are no longer posting here.

Toshiba and MS have attempted to pull off one of THE biggest shams in the history of consumer electronics. There's some of your proof right there, folks.

Wow. I never would have expected that thing to be made out of mostly plain Jane PC parts under the skin. IMO, That's kind of a rip off given that the HD-DVD drive and tv specific outputs are the only unique things in box.