Toshiba BDX2000

Toshiba is late to the Blu-ray party, having waited a decent interval after the death of HD-DVD. The BDX2000 - oh, how futuristic products used to seem, just by adding the millennium to their name - is its first offering. It’s a sleek unit, with a pull-down front panel that hides the disk tray, display, controls and an SD card …

[jason 7]

I read these BD reviews and dispair...

...you still have to wait a minute+ for a movie to run even with the best players?

Plus all these other issues you mention and the whole BD/HD disk thing seems so poorly thought out and implemented.

Roll on streaming, I'm done with discs.

[Sooty]

I've found

that the wait is highly dependent on the disk, rather than the player. Some play almost instantly, and some take a minute+ to load the pointlessly flashy menus.

how/why it takes so long to load a java menu from a disk capable of streaming 50Mb/sec video is beyond me though.

[Bassey]

Not quite

> ...you still have to wait a minute+ for a movie to run

It's not quite as bad as it sounds. Most BD films I've watched don't have all the crap at the start ("You're probably a thief", etc). So, whilst it might take a while for the disc to load you are normally watching a film more quickly than with the equivalent DVD. We watched "Be Kind Rewind" on Friday night and it was auto-playing in around a minute. No daft menus. No trailers. No copyright warnings. Just as it should be (actually, it caught me out as I was still setting up the HiFi and turning the volume down to zero on the telly when the film started).

Obviously it would be nice if it was instant - but then streaming from the Media Server isn't instant either. My NAS is usually in power-save so that has to wind itself up, I have to navigate through the films, select the one I want and then there is still a good pause. In any case, if you are really THAT bothered about a 1 minute delay to start watching a 2 hour film, you need to slow down a bit :) Traa-dy-Liooar, fella.

[JeffyPooh]

One of the better/faster BlyRay players is...

...the Sony PS3. And if you get the $20 "DVD" remote control, you wouldn't even know it's not really a nice player. It is fast. It does other things too, including regular firmware updates over WiFi. Well worth the delta in price in my opinion. I need another BluRay player for the other room, and a 2nd PS3 is top of the list of possibilities.

[Greg J Preece]

Seconded!

Played with quite a few BD players, and to be honest, not one of them matches up to my existing PS3. I've never owned such an excellent device that was slated so much at launch.

[Willy the Jackass]

Which is pretty sad.

Why can't anyone else make one better, including Sony?

[Christian Berger]

No Video CD?

Seriously? They cannot spend the less than a cent to make it play Video CD, even though it's still one of the most used formats. At least in czechia most movies fome out on Video CD before they come out on DVD.

[Tom 35]

VCD?

If you are buying a Blu-ray player you must have an HDTV. Even on a smaller set like 32" VCD would look like total crap. Should they add some more rubbish formats like Real Player too?

The only place I still see VCDs is in the bootleg shops in China town.

[Morten]

Video CD?

I have only seen VCD used in the eastern European countries. In the rest of the world, DVD is more or less universal, with Bluray on the move into use. VCD is pretty poor quality, especially when you try to run it on HDMI and upscaling on a largish TV.

I'm afraid the VCD is truly on the way out now... just keep an old dvd player around to play it.

[Anonymous Coward]

2 minutes?

And then you are forced to watch the "you wouldn't steal ..." adverts.

Which is why I bought a media player rather than a bluray.

(I borrowed a bluray just over a year ago, with some original disks and some rips. The rips played immediately and none crashed. The originals took forever to load and some crashed repeatedly.)

The delay is presumably the DRM decoder loading/preparing itself.

Even 1 minute is ridiculous.

[Bassey]

Re: 2 minutes

> and then you are forced to watch the "you wouldn't steal ..." adverts.

No. Never come across a BD with that. You're thinking of DVD.

[Halifax81]

Wait time not such a problem

I don't mind the wait time while the disc loads up, on my player its around 1 minute.

Whilst it boots up im doing other things such as making a brew

[pctechxp]

@jason 7

On demand which is what you would be referring to would only really work in a 'local' network environment such as Virgin's or BT's (as they do now with film flex or BT vision) and of course the late Tiscali.

I doubt very much LINX/Lonap or any of the Tier 1 providers such as Sprint/Level 3 or Cogent would welcome a mass market HD on demand service running over their networks.

[JeffyPooh]

Data point - Sony S-350 - time to view movie

My local Sony Store had the S-350 BluRay player on sale. I asked the salesman how long it took, starting from power-on, to see the 'Play Movie' icon. He told it was reasonably quick. I said, "Show me." We timed it. About four minutes. Let me repeat that, FOUR MINUTES! Just on the off chance that any senior executives are reading this, they should know that I chose to NOT purchase the product.

[Anonymous Coward]

need another BluRay player

need another BluRay player for my den. got a PS3 down in the living room...and even now, with all of these BD players around the 100 quid mark, I'm still just going to get another PS3 for the den. no other option makes sense!

[Kimberly Burgess]

Skip to Play work on it?

On a DVD player you can usually skip most fluff (FBI, Trailers, Propaganda, etc) by using the remote. Hit Stop, Stop, and Play to go straight to the film. Does that work on Blu-Ray players such as this one?

[Citizen Kaned]

maybe...

i bought a dedicated player (pioneer bdp320) as i was sick of the ps3s constant humming noise. it also has a better picture. although tat was more than a ps3.

[Anonymous Coward]

Screen Res

How watchable is 24p anyway?? only Logey himself would care to watch it.

[Anonymous Coward]

2 minutes?

I have somehow managed to miss this. Why is this?

In my cheapo £20 Asda DVD player, i can go from closing the tray and playing the DVD in a few seconds. Two minutes? So much for the format of the future.

Saying that, my old 3mhz zx81 booted and was up and ready in less than a second, and my new Quad core Amd Stupidspeed takes nearly a minute before its up and ready, so perhaps its the way things are going.

[Anonymous Coward]

re: I read these BD reviews and dispair...

Get a PS3 then, as the time from power on to the movie playing it about 17 seconds.. Beats any standalone hands down in startup times (and pretty much every other aspect too).

[Citizen Kaned]

whaaaaat?

what shitty bdps have you been using? a £140 sony has a better picture. let alone a decent BDP

dont get me wrong, the ps3 is a great value piece of kit but not a brilliant bdp. the sound of the fan is enough to put me off. i didnt spend £2k on speakers only to hear a dull hum constantly.

[Grozbat]

Retro

Plastic discs! I remember those.

[Anonymous Coward]

Trade in on my HD-DVD player ?

No. Thought not.

Toshiba can fuck off then.