HD-DVD Player Purchased

Previously had the HD-A1 1st generation HD-DVD player. Decided to upgrade the the HD-A30 3rd generation player. Additional features of the A30 are:

1. 1080p/24 support. This is a relatively new feature just recently being supported display manufacturers. The reason why this is a big improvement is that Blu-Ray & HD-DVD discs are encoded in this format. So, no video processing has to occur at all. The video can be sent directly to the display without introducing any processing artifacts.


2. Upconversion to 1080p vs 1080i with HD-A1. The A30 is supposedly better at upconversion than the HD-A1, though I thought the HD-A1 was pretty awesome at upconverting, so this is of little additional value to me.


3. CE-Link -> allows the player to communicate with and control other HDMI-CEC compliant devices.


4. Slimmer design. The HD-A1 is rather large.


5. Supposedly faster and more responsive (HD-DVD players are computers and need to "boot" up. They are not instant on devices)

The most important feature to me is #1 above.

Best deal was: http://www.valueelectronics.com/AVSTC.HTM

$50 less than most retailers with free shipping and 7 free HD-DVDs (including 300, and Bourne Identity)

Specs from vendor:

http://www.tacp.com/tacpassets-images/models/hd-a30/docs/hd-a30_spec.pdf