EEVblog #1011 - Retro Teardown - World's First HD DVD Player

[EEVblog]

What's inside the world's first HD DVD player?
The Toshiba HD-XA1
It was the 2006 version of the BETA vs VHS war.
Includes a detailed look inside the triple wavelength blue laser optical drive mechanism.

[Stefan Payne]

I wonder why they did that with the heatsink and did not use the system fan but put another fan in it...


As for the SB it's actually the ICH4M - from 2002...
ICH7 would be something like 82801G (and some other letters).

And well, the i855GM/852GM was also rather ancient in 2006...

We are talking about an AGP/PCI based system here (with it being 852 probably no AGP).
In 2006 you should/would expect something with 915GL or something like that. Maybe even the i945 (wich was used pretty much until the end of LGA775 in some low cost boards)...

So they probably could have gotten a good price and thus did NOT sell it for less than component cost ?

I myself have a notebook with an i855GM and an ATi Radeon mobility 9700 - that should give you an idea of the age of those components. As a CPU a Pentium M (with 1,73GHz) is used...

[Lightages]

What is the reason for the blackout and weird transitions around 11 minutes?

Also, too bad Dave didn't try the drive in a PC before destroying it.

[bjcuizon]

Maybe the fuse was blown cause someone has plugged that puppy to a 240V outlet while not reading the 120V sticker label at the back..Hmm...
I've tried this before too. Some family relative of mine from America went back to our country and brought home that type of DVD player. I thought it was 220V (in the Philippines), so I just plugged it in casually not knowing the poor fuse has sacrificed itself. I then said to my mom that it didn't work anymore and so I got the parts inside! Yay!

[free_electron]

that m-systems module is nothing else but a USB stick ...
bet you 5 $ if you hook it up it has a fat filesystem and you will find a windows CE install on it.

This player is essentially a PC hooked up to an IDE HD-DVD rom drive , using PCI hardware accelerator ( the broadcom card with the shark dsp's )

Pc's back in that day wer enot fast enough to do this kind of decoding. the FPGa's combine the graphics form the PC side ( intel graphics chip) and the broadcom videostream.
that way they can display the UI and overlays.

The custom silicon must not have been ready so they cobbled this together.

[NivagSwerdna]

http://www.techradar.com/news/blu-ray/video/hd-dvd/home-cinema/high-definition/digital-home/home-networking/microsoft-why-hd-dvd-can-beat-blu-ray-174614

I note the date.... but it is 2nd not 1st

 

[Brumby]

What is the reason for the blackout and weird transitions around 11 minutes?

Looked to me like he had some image fade and overlay effects left in his video editing that he forgot to take out before he went to the production step.

[multithought.com]

Hey Dave,

Nice Teardown as always.. 

I'm in the Home Automation and AV industry so of course back in the day I installed a few of these.  Of course a flood of competing models I can't begin to remember replaced it nearly instantly.  We for a long time settled on an LG model that played everything, Blury HDDVD and CD/DVD/Burned Both etc.  Interestingly a lot of early Bluray players couldn't play Burned CDs or DVDs.. Can't remember if the HDDVDs had similar issues..  But might be why so many lasers..  Anyway. 

I was posting to tell about that "OLD SCHOOL CONTROL RS-232".  Although RS-232 is old school.. (my school certainly as I'm old) It's not old in the AV industry.  It's still common to find it on high end anything AV because it is preferred as a control method by integrators.  Many devices these days that have a serial control protocol do not have a port but instead support a usb dongle, or some have a 3.5mm stereo jack that is RS-232 (sometimes unlabeled because of shame).  For a long time (around 2008, if memory serves) many manufactures (samsung and LG especially) Would have a Serial port, but label it for service only.  Which was a lie, they would respond fine to established control protocols for other similar tvs with one exception..  Power On.  This is because in the cheaper TVs they couldn't meet energy star while having the main processor running and would have IR implemented on a low power uController, but Serial on the main.  THIS SUCKED in our industry, so after years of screaming at them on mass at every CediaEXPO they relented and often now have a option in the service menu to 'listen to serial when off'... which means don't turn all the way off actually..  These days about a third of the products I integrate still have to be controlled IR (the worst), a third SERIAL (always best) and a third IP (might work great might suck) .  You'd think IP would be nice..  but it isn't. Many problems.. stupid drivers..  broke ass shit mostly, some exceptions.  SERIAL for the win.   

To explain how prevalent Serial control still is.. Not including Automation gear but just AV equipment (TV's Recvs Projectors, Sources)  controlled by automation gear, the House (yes house) I'm currently finishing has 11 IR controlled devices, 10 TCP/IP Controlled Devices, and 16 Serially controlled devices.  There's many things controlled by relays, and steam power too. Including a horn and a search light.  but those don't count..  The whole lighting system is controlled by IP or DMX (through serial) .. all 234 Lighting loads (68 RGB color changing) . Thats Loads not fixtures..  Load is like what you would, in a normal house, control with a light switch some of the loads in this house are 1000watts.  Also about 40 Zigbee devices..

So.. Just saying. Was not 'old school' on AV gear in 2006.. still isn't..   Soon might be..  If IP becomes better implemented on more things. 

-Matt

[Ertew]

HD-DVD player is garbage now, but HD-DVD recorder is a great score. Why? Because of power of the UV laser diode.
And as Dave listed on first image, Microsoft play with HD-DVD in one of X-BOX consoles (can't remember which one).

And some more info about that funny LCD: https://n.ethz.ch/~kluszcz/index.php?page=lasers/405&lang=1 (last two paragraphs and few photos at the bottom).
- That's a phase shifter - can correct problems with lenses and not the same length of the path of light.