New HD DVD player and implications

I have now upgraded every element of my home AV system to High Def. I have the DirecTV package with HD channels. I have a huge (8 feet wingspan) antenna to bring in the local HD channels. I have the Playstation 3 for games and Blu Ray movies. And now I have the Toshiba HD DVD player.

Life is good!

Only I noticed a small issue recently. When watching HD movies on the Toshiba, dialogue from low-voiced male characters was distorted. Didn't really notice it immediately. But once I did take note it became quite bothersome.

I had it hooked up via the optical audio out. So I played with the cable a bit, plugged the cable into various other inputs, etc. But nothing worked. So I bought a new cable. That didn't work either.

2 weeks ago, Toshiba sent a DVD with a firmware upgrade. My hopes were high. They weren't very clear on exactly what it was supposed to fix, but I upgraded with high hopes. No luck. Still very noticeable distortion.

Now you'll note above that I am using the optical out, not the HDMI. That's because my Sony ES receiver was built before HDMI, so it can't switch that signal. And the optical is the only digital out on the Toshiba (I guess they saved some money by not including coax digital).

And of course, since I had screwed around for so long the initial 90 day warranty was up on the Toshiba. So what to do?

Well, what any other red-blooded American would do - UPGRADE!

I had been looking for an excuse to upgrade the receiver to an HDMI-compatible version ever since I got the HDTV. But they were very expensive, and the HDMI standard was still evolving. So I put it off. With this new motivation I went looking.

The first thing I found was that the top of the line Sony ES had just been replaced. So that $1500 unit was now available for 1/2 price. I scanned the specs of old and new and decided that the old one would suit my needs just fine. I made the purchase Thursday morning and it arrived Saturday afternoon.

I had just finished a run on Saturday at 4:30, and walked expectantly past the front door. No love - the package wasn't there. So I went upstairs and took a shower. When I came down my curiosity got a hold of me and I went to the FedEx site to see when it would arrive. As I was searching I heard the kids goofing off in the garage, but I let them be for now - I had bigger fish to fry!

I was confused when the status of my order came up as delivered. That's a little odd. Then I checked the delivery time. 5:07. Then I checked current time. 5:10. Then I realized the kids weren't home! Score!! My new toy was here!

I wanted to hook it up immediately but of course it required new HDMI cables. So I ran off to Radio Shack to buy some. They came in at $70 each! Sure, they're Monster cables, but damn! I've spent less for components! Oh well.

I drove home, hooked everything up quickly (no mean feat in my system) and put in an HD DVD right off. And it worked! No distortion! I was in heaven.

It took me all of 20 minutes to revise the programming in the smart remote, and I was off. I checked everything out. All sources worked perfectly. I have 6 fewer cables running behind my TV - and only 1 cable running from the receiver to the TV! Awesome.

Now it's 3 days later, the excitement is wearing off, and I'm starting to coolly asses the situation. So basically what I did was spent nearly $1000 on a new receiver and cables to fix a $300 DVD player.

Now I'm sure that doesn't make sense to some people, but I'm still smiling!