Toshiba HD-A35 1080p HD DVD Player

I just got this one from Amazon today,it got here in 3 days. I ordered it monday night and I chose the free shipping too,so how cool is that for it to come so fast? I immediately did the firmware update which was easy to set up and do. Then proceded to hook it up to my receiver.I chose this model especially for the Dolby TrueHD, DTS HD, and Dolby Digital Plus audio decoding through the 5.1 analog outputs that are in the back of the player(not all HD DVD players have these). I just got a new receiver that doesn't decode those formats(the ones that do through HDMI are very expensive),so it's great that I can hear them through the analog inputs to the receiver. If you want to hear these great audio options,this is easily the least expensive way to go.Make sure your receiver is set to the 5.1 analog option for this to work. You need to do a little homework when getting into these new players and formats for home theater cause nothings worse than spending good money and not getting what you want out of it.So make sure you know how your gonna get your HD audio(by way of HDMI or 5.1 analog) for your 5.1 surround sound system,cause when you do get it hooked up and pop in your first movie,It'll knock your socks off. By the way, it's normal for the Dolby TrueHD audio option to sound not as loud as the regular Dolby Digital your used to. No worries,just turn up your system a little higher and you'll definitely hear the difference. The video is beautiful and the upconverting of regular dvd's works very well, better than my Sony upconverting player. I like the instruction manual this player comes with too. All the sections are nicely set up and easy to read and understand. It was no problem,as it takes you from the very beginning with a step by step process while explaining what all your options are depending on the set up you have. Any downsides you ask? Well,it's a little slower than a regular dvd player. It loads up when you first turn it on and when you put in a disc. It has a slight delay when you skip a chapter or pause and play,but this stuff is so minor and insignificant that you start not to notice it at all. And what's with reviewers lowering the scores on dvd players cause the remotes aren't backlit? Who cares? You memorize your buttons in no time anyway so what's the big deal. I only mention this here cause alot of people see this as a downside, but I couldn't care less about a lit remote. Anyway,this is a great HD DVD player that's got everything you'll ever want or need.It's practically future proofed for the duration of HD DVD.Like I said,it decodes ALL the HD audio formats available and has any number of ways to hook up to your system.And with the unbelievable price that Amazon is offering(it just dropped $10 lower than when I bought it 4 days ago),you can't go wrong with this one. Update:The same week I bought this player,Amazon began to offer 12 free HD DVD's (5 from Amazon's pre-selected titles,5 from the Toshiba mail in offer and The Bourne Identity and 300 packed in) with this one and a few others.I may have missed it when I bought mine or it began just after but I contacted Amazon's customer service to find out and they decided that I was qualified for their 5 free HD DVD's offer!!! They allowed me to choose them and then reduced the price to nothing.They would otherwise require me to send mine back,refund it,then re-order with the offer but they were cool enough to let me have them this way.Amazon's customer service rocks!!! They are quick to respond and are so good at really listening and trying to help you solve any problem as quickly and easily as possible.I'll never shop anywhere else online. P.S. No,I am not, nor do I know anyone who is affiliated with Amazon.I'm just giving them the credit they deserve. Read more

I bought this HD-DVD player only a few months ago... and now Toshiba retired their production, so I think there is not chance to get new titles in this format. Also, the promotion was with 10 FREE DISCS and I never received the last FIVE DISCS , and I sent the form with the ups code in the box... so I am really disappointed Maria Isabel Mantilla Read more

I've had an A3 for a short period of time (~3-4 weeks) and since I was very impressed by the overall picture quality of HD DVD movies and subsequently bought a new 24p-capable 1080p plasma I decided to step up, get all the lossless audio codec support etc. Originally I was eyeballing the XA2 for its (supposedly) superior upconversion of regular SD DVDs - due to my job I'm a big fan of Silicon Optix' Teranex/HQV technology - but after extensive research including countless visits to my local (NYC) stores I concluded that if there's any difference in scaling quality between XA2's HQV and A35's ABT chip then it must be very subtle or rather marginal because I couldn't really spot anything. Also A35's HD picture quality was reportedly a tad sharper though I could only see it in very few cases. The often touted "build quality" slogan never made any sense to me; I wanted a desktop optical disc player for home entertainment purposes, not a ruggedized military-grade mobile player - there's no sandstorm in our living room and it's a well-built brownstone so by the time a serious earthquake would knock my player to the floor half the city would be destroyed, taking US and world economy with it... long story short I could not justify the extra $150-200 the XA2's backlit remote control would cost - A35's remote lacks the backlight - so after I sold my barely used A3 for my friend I finally made the call and ordered this unit. Shipping was quick and got it just in time to have everything in place for Christmas. First I upgraded the firmware - despite the network connection I burned it to a CD, better safe than sorry - then paired with my new TV and boy, we were impressed even beyond A3's level when we started watching the new Blade Runner HD DVD! Excellent picture quality, excellent sound quality, right out of the box and despite I've never been the type of "watch all the extra including deleted scenes" guy with regular SD DVDs I think HD DVD's interactive features are really great. We also love the region-free nature of HD DVD, the fact that imported movies - from EU and Asia - all play fine over here: studios should not be able to control what, where, how or when I watch as long as I pay for it, plain and simple. Upconversion quality is really great and so far even those notoriously problematic Netflix discs played fine: I only recall one HD DVD playback problem but even then cleaning fingerprints off the disc fixed it. There isn't any straight-out negative thing I can say but I have encountered few small annoyances and one bigger: - I still think 30+ seconds for boot-up and another 10s to play is long, - I'm a bit perplexed by this 1080p24 vs regular DVDs problem (there should be an automatic switch), - I don't understand why this player cannot play movies from the network (it's wired, not a spotty wireless connection!) nor off the USB port, say VC1/264 first then Xvid/Divx later (PS3, anyone?). And here's my only major annoyance: the return playback system or rather the lack thereof. What monkey-brained executive figured it will be a good idea to replace the well.-working standard DVD 'return' feature, I don't know but surely he is so clueless about this market he should be fired immediately... Currently HD DVD doesn't offer any kind of classic DVD-style return after stopping playback - if you just hit Stop then you are screwed, period. Your movie will start from the beginning next time and there's nothing you can do about it. Instead first you have to make a bookmark by pressing button B then you can press Stop so you may return to it from the Bookmarks menu upon restart... really counter-intuitive, flies against the conventional DVD feature (which, of course, still works fine with regular DVD!) and makes no sense whatsoever: in most cases you stop a movie when someone or something unexpected interrupts you so there's very little chance you will follow this stupid procedure. I really would like to see a this return function fixed ie. stopping playback would automatically add a bookmark so at least you have a chance to return manually although wading through those non-skippable logos and intros to get to the bookmarks list would still ruin the feeling, the movie experience... 4.5 stars but there's no half star I give 5 stars because it's closer to 5 in my eyes with room to make it more perfect. Here's note for anybody who got confused or scared by the recent news about Warner's upcoming 'defection' from HD DVD's camp: how much a high quality upconverting DVD player would cost today? Right, around $200-300 or more (ie upcoming king of the hill Oppo 983HD). How much this unit cost right now with added HD DVD playback etc? That's right, $269 as of today... and we're talking about the highly unlikely worst case scenario here, if Toshiba would drop HD DVD tomorrow - with over 1M unit sold it won't happen anytime soon, I think. Best value out there as of today (mid-January 2008), period. Read more