Toshiba HD-E1 HD DVD Player
Having featured the Panasonic DMP-BD10 Blu Ray Player last month, we now have the Toshiba HD-E1 HD DVD Player which has just been launched in the UK priced £450.
The Toshiba HD-E1 HD DVD Player is a fraction of a cost of the Blu Ray players we have seen so far which retail for well above £1000 and to be honest there is very little difference in either the build, picture or sound quality which makes you seriously question the asking price for the first generation blu ray players.
The Toshiba HD-E1 HD DVD Player is very easy to install and anyone familar with a standard DVD player set up will have no problem connecting up this HD DVD player as it has the choice of either s-vhs, component and HDMI (and composite - although let's be honest that's going to be a bit of a no no given the high quality output on offer). The Toshiba HD-E1 HD DVD Player also supports Digital audio output via either the toslink or HDMI link so to make the most of the new format you will need an home cinema receiver capable of deoding Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD which are new almost lossless sound formats which provide even greater dynamic range and extended channel support. If you thought DTS and Dolby Digital sounded good, the sound on offer from the Toshiba HD-E1 HD DVD Player will amaze you even further.
The most mystifying anomaly about the Toshiba HD-E1 HD DVD Player is that it does not support 1080p output via the HDMI, which to me is uncomprehensible and something I am sure Toshiba will come to regret. The best resolution the Toshiba HD-E1 HD DVD Player can manage is a paltry 1080i which I am sure is going to put a lot of people off. There is a Toshiba HD DVD player that will support 1080p but you have to fork out an extra £200 for the Toshiba HD-EX1 HD DVD Player. What makes the decision even odder is that every HD-DVD title I have seen at my local HMV clearly states that it has been encoded in 1080p.
Although the Toshiba HD-E1 HD DVD Player picture quality is very good, you know in the back of your mind that it is not doing the new format justice when outputting in 1080i. Sound quality of the Toshiba HD-E1 HD DVD Player is very impressive but whether this is enough to sway buyers is another matter.
To be honest I am very cynical about both Blu Ray and HD DVD, although the cheaper hardware prices of the HD DVD may mean it wins through. Having said that movie titles of both formats are still relatively thin on the ground and the HMV I visited only had about 20-30 tiltles but most cost in the region of £25-£30. I think the cheapest title I found was a HD DVD copy of last year's King Kong which was selling for the bargain price of £20. However given that HMV had a huge selection of DVDs on offer (3 for £20), I think it will be a while before we are all ditching our beloved DVD players especially if we have one that upscales to 1080p.
This entry was posted on Friday January 26th, 2007 at 8:06 PM and is filed under Home Cinema. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response.
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