John Kotches said:
This is not a formal release. My guess is that it is a leaked beta version.
Regards,
Throwing all my usual caution into the wind, I downloaded & updated with the file on rapidshare.de. Of course it can't be the "official release", or it wouldn't be posted on a German file-sharing site. But, as I have the 1.4 firmware from Tosh on disk, I had something to roll back to (hopefully
) if something went wrong.
My XA1 does say FW version 2.0/1.0A/2.0S. And I do now have TrueHD 5.1. I tried Constantine & Phantom of the Opera. Before, when I would select TrueHD 5.1 on the disc menu, I would get a warning that I didn't have the right hardware, but then it would play it, but only in 2 ch. stereo. Now there's no warning when you select TrueHD 5.1, and it does play all the speakers on my 5.1 surround sound system. Constantine sounded pretty sweet. I played the night scene where he's coming out of a convenience store & is attacked by a swarm of locusts. Much richer sound, more use of the rear speakers. You do have to turn up the volume on the receiver - higher than DD+, much higher than using the digital audio connection. (I'm using 5.1 analog cables for HD DVD & Digital Optical for standard DVD's). The TrueHD sounded a little better than DD+ on Phantom, but I only played the scene where the girl sings her first solo on the stage.
I tried changing the resolution down to 720p. It looked a little better, but I've only used 720p briefly before to test it; I have a 1080i display.
No other differences noticed, but I've never had any issues with my XA1. Good to see Toshiba is hard at work supporting their players and improving the format. :up
