Toshiba HD-A3 720p 1080i HD DVD Player

For the money, you can't beat this player. So why is it a safe bet? I bought it knowing full well Warner Bros decision and knowing that HD DVD could go belly up. Quite frankly, so could BluRay and I'm not willing to gamble alot of hard earned money on a $400 player and $25 movies. But a $130 player is a different story. I needed an upconverting player anyways, and those typically run $60-80 with the better ones running $100. So why not just get one of those? Because all the reviews I read put the best picture and sound upconverters at around $100 and the quality was very much brand dependant. There was no consistancy across the board regarding picture and sound for upconverters as there was to this. So instead, I paid a few dollars more and got a pile of movies and, oh by the way, the added bonus of HD movies. First to the upconvert - it is very, very nice, but it sort of depends on the movies you bought in the first place. My older DVDs don't look quite as good as the newer ones. For example, Goodfellas that I bought in 2000, looks only marginally better on my A3 than it does on the old Sony I had. However, Pirates of the Caribbean (purchased in '03) looks phenomenal...sparkling and crystal clear - very close to HD quality. Even Any Given Sunday (stop laughing, I liked it) purchased in 2000 looked pretty good, considering. Basically, the bargin bin stuff at walmart doesn't seem to be cutting it (Wallstreet, purchased 2 yrs ago for $5 looked only marginally better as well). It seems to be dependant on the DVD itself, and while you can expect more than a few miracles with your standard DVD collection, it's not going to be aces across the board with your oldest ones. So on to the HD - WOW. Since I'm not interested in investing a whole bunch of money on what could be a dying format, we haven't gone nuts with buying HD DVDs yet. But we splurged and bought Transformers and it looked beautiful. As other reviewers have noted, you get 300 and the Bourne Identity in the box...they look beautiful as well. As an aside, were HD to fold, I'm guessing you can probably get these beautiful movies at a very low price, and that actually factored into my decision. One man's junk, as they say... The movies that you get for free leave a little bit to be desired in the selection department, and it will apparently take about 2 months for them to get there. So don't expect to get them quickly and they'll just be a nice "christmas in March" when they do come. Moving on to the unit it's self - I ran into ABSOLUTELY NONE of the problems that the reviewers who gave this unit a one star rating did. This isn't to say that it's not possible you won't - anybody can get a lemon. But the pixelation and freezing has been a non-issue and I didn't update the firmware or anything. I just took it out of the box and plugged it into my TV and away it went. The load times are absolutely NO different than a normal DVD player for me. When the machine powers on and you first press the "open" button, it will take the player about 15-20 seconds to get going, and the drawer has a delay there but that's been the only one. And this is when the player goes from power off to power on, not when you're just switching DVDs in there. Put a little bit more simply, it is NOT something that bothers me in the least. I have noticed the playback issues (when you stop it, it won't resume the scene) but that's hardly an issue for me. I have not noticed the fan noise once, and am not quite sure what the gripe is there. So why is this a safe bet for HiDef movies? It's because of the money. $130 gets a very nice little taste of the high def experience and in my opinion, it was totally worth it. If you own a player you like, this probably isn't for you. But if you're one of the lucky ones like me who got an HD TV for the holidays and you want to take advantage of the picture, I'd take a shot at this player. If you were looking at an upconvert player, I'd take a really close look at this one. Don't buy it thinking that HD is going to "win" because they might not. If you want your DVD collection to have consistant packaging across the board, don't buy this player because you might end up buying BluRay. In fact, I will for sure when the players hit about $150. Until then, no chance. They also keep talking about some nonsense with BluRay regarding profile issues, different versions, this, that, whatever. Personally, I really don't care to get fully acquainted with all that BS. If you are so inclined, then by all means...Hopefully you've picked up that this is not a technical review and I don't presume to be the resident AV wizard. This was just intended to be a "normal guy" write up. So if you want an HD player to tide you over while this format war nonsense is settled and you don't want to put in a significant financial investment, I think this choice is an exceptional one. Most of your Standard DVDs will look fantastic and the HD that you do decide to invest in is just stunning. All in all, a safe purchase if you look at it a certain way. Read more

Plays on a LG 42PC3D 1080i plasma via Monster HDMI cable. I have had my A3 for roughly two weeks now, as I got mine as part of the Amazon promotion offering the player for $199 with 300 and Bourne in the box, 3 movies from Amazon and 5 from Toshiba. Since I had been dragging my feet on a HD player, and since all the Blu-Rays were more expensive and more problematic according to the user reviews, I couldn't pass this deal up. And boy am I glad I didn't. I had been leaning towards HD-DVD for a few months now, since I had seen that some of the exclusivity deals from certain studios with Sony were going by the wayside. And remembering the VHS/Beta wars, I have come to the conclusion that the better price point and slowly increasing title base of the HD DVD is going to erode the Blu Ray's small tech lead. Imo this lead will be pretty much moot once the higher capacity HD DVD's come on market anyway. At this point it looks like Sony might be taking the back seat, and really dropped the opportunity to own this market. Well, onto the meat of the review - Pros - Picture (the biggie) - Since my plasma only supports 1080i, the lack of 1080p support has been a non-issue for me. The picture looks fantastic in 1080i. Planet Earth from BBC and other titles look amazing from the A3, sharp, clear and vivid colors. The option to enhance the black range is appreciated and is a nice option. Its hard to tell if the upscale is really as great as they pump it, but my standard DVD's due all tend to look better. Peter Jackson's LOTR's all look great. Design - Great compact design, although uninspired, fits easily into my cabinet. Menus - Easy to setup and configure - always a bonus. Updates - Suprisingly easy to do. Options for ethernet or easy instructions on Toshibas site to create a cd from an iso file. Cons - Load times - Really a change from standard DVD's, but not a huge issue. Definitely better than Blu-Ray from people I've talked to however. What is more bothersome is the inability to eject the disc tray until the initial start up of the player is done. Remote - Feels cheap and chintzy. I'm a little concerned how this will hold up after a couple of years, but my other Toshiba players remotes all hold up well so we'll see. Player display - The one thing that really bugs me. It looks like they took the display from the front of a 1988 VCR. Minor issue at best, but a little irritating. Overall - A great buy and I'm very happy with it. If you need to have True HD sound, look at the A35. But if your receiver for your surround sound is still std DTS, this is a great deal. Again I think Sony may have really dropped the ball this holiday season by not getting their BR players down to comparible price levels. As a movie watcher who really enjoys a good picture on a good player, but doesn't want to spend premium $$$, this is a huge selling point. I'm solidly in HD DVD country now after this purchase. Read more

This is a great bargain considering I paid $211.99, which included 10 HD DVDs, AN HDMI Cable, and Free shipping (7 days delivery!) . I have only used it three times since I received it (one HD movie and two regular DVDs) The picture quality is outstanding. The most impressive part is the upconverting of regular DVDs. This is the biggest draw since I have a lot of old DVDs and these are probably the ones that I will buy the most. I am not sure I will be buying HD format DVDs until they come down in price or they become much more affordable. If an HD DVD is $25 to $30 and a regular DVD is $9.99 and the picture quality is PRETTY CLOSE guess which one I will be buying? I have been to the stores many many times and even when I compared my Television purchase a year ago, 1080P or 720P? , it all comes down to the source. I had a very hard time seeing the differences between 1080P and 720P at least not enough to justify spending the extra $400 to $500 for a set (as of last year). The same can be said about HD and regular DVDs. I am not seeing a huge difference between to two formats or at least not enough to pay the $29.99 (HD) vs $9.99 (DVD). BUT at this price and cosidering all the goodies being included, WHY BUY A REGULAR UPCONVERTING PLAYER? I bought one of these a year ago (a nice SONY), but in all honesty, it does not come close to this. A DECENT player cost anywhere between $80 to $120. So for $200, you get a much better player , 10 free HD movies............. A COMPLETE NO BRAINER!! SLOW START UP SO WHAT? TURN IT ON...GO TO THE FRIDGE....COME BACK... and you are ready. OH BY THE WAY THE PLAYER PLAYS right out of the box. I did not even updated the firmware.. Read more