Toshiba HD-XA1 HD-DVD Player

I bought this machine in November hoping to get the best hd experience possible. The machine constantly gave me an "HDMI Error 1" message. So I Got the firmware 2.0 online. Same problem. I called Toshiba and explained so they sent me the same firmware on CD. Same problem, duh. I was told. Not to send it back but send it in to them.I did and got it back. Same thing. So buy this time I couldnt get my money back from the company I got it from on Amazon. So Toshiba being the kind souls that they are said to send it in again. Big surprise...........same problem.Long story short Toshiba told me that I'm out of luck and that its a compatability issue. Thats it ,no sorry we released a product before testing it for issues. No refund. Not even a refund on the shipping I had to pay to send it to them. Just a big "tough luck". And If anyone has only component out.......which does work,thats great.Until someone desides to activate the restraint token to down res all hd material to 480p. I guess thats what I get for showing some faith in Toshibas first gen product.Buyer Beware. Read more

My wife and I are enjoying the heck out of this player. I can't find anything that I outright don't like about it. It has not hiccuped once playing any of our movies. Movie load times are a bit long, but once they get going, it is a beautiful sight to behold. Don't forget to update the firmware. I had a bit of trouble with the network setup (my fault, I forgot to turn off the MAC address filtering on the router), but it went well once it connected and everything progressed flawlessly. In trying to figure out the problem, I called the help number on the back of the owner's manual. After one ring, and I mean just one ring, a real human answered (no surfing through endless touch tone menus) and helped me figure out what was wrong. He even sent me a copy of the update on CD. I was quite impressed with the customer support. Hooking up the player was a breeze. Plugged in the power cord, connected the audio cables and then the HDMI cable and within 5 minutes was watching an HD DVD movie! Can't get much easier than that. I just love it when things work the first time out. We have watched several movies so far and am impressed with the video and audio quality of this player. Clarity is awesome and colors jump out at you. One thing that everyone must remember is source material makes a big difference in the viewing experience. Let me give you some examples by the titles that we own so far: Batman Begins: Excellent clarity, but the movie was shot with an ever so subtle filtered effect softening the image the slightest bit, but it looks beautiful (and is extremely consistent in that it lets you know that was the film makers intention and it fits the subject and style of the film) and the sound will knock your socks off (TrueHD). Grade: A+ Ray: Razor sharp picture and clear sound. The video on this title is the best of our collection for that super clear HD experience you would expect. Would have been nice to have a TrueHD soundtrack but the DD+ is great. Grade: A+ The Mummy: A nice presentation with good resolution and colors. A newer film, it does well with a relatively clean print (not perfect though, unfortunately with white specks and some dirt here and there) with good colors and uniformity. Sound design is pretty good. Grade A Caddy Shack: Older catalog title but the print was cleaned up quite nicely. Colors jump off the screen and are sickeningly accurate when it comes to Rodney Dangerfield's outfits. The sound is design is quite dated (remember, this is a movie from 1980) but dialog is clear. Grade A National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation: Great holiday film, one of my favorites. Looks sooo much better in HD. After so many years of crappy transfers it is nice to see it cleaned up so much and in proper widescreen aspect ratio. Still, a bit more work could have been done on the print for that super fantastic home theater experience. Grade A- I can't say enough good things about this player. Great picture, great sound, great customer support. This machine does all that would expect, and does it perfectly. Negatives include the slow startup times (which has been mentioned a million times and not something that bothers me a whole lot personally) and the back-lit remote. The automatic back-lighting feature is a bit goofy. Sometimes is lights, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it stays lit for a reasonable amount of time, other times it just flickers on then is dark all too quickly. I would have preferred just a big easy to find button to turn the lighting on myself. What I do like about the back-lighting is how thorough it is. I like the fact that the button labels are lit so you can actually read the functions. Kudos to Toshiba on getting that part of it right. Why aren't more remotes like that. What good is it if the button itself it lit but not the function label? My father in law has a Samsung Blu Ray and while the picture quality is drop dead gorgeous (no doubt helped by his 57" LCD Samsung TV), I am not sure that the home theater experience is as good (not even taking into account the image freezes and signal scramble blocking that occur. The player is definitely glitchy). Sure it is razor (and I mean razor) sharp, but it is almost TOO razor sharp. I am a person who likes a film to look like a film. You lose that certain visual quality on his setup. But the clarity is amazing. It definitely has that WOW factor. Still I prefer our Hitachi 65" RPTV, which imparts a "gentle warmness" to the image without sacrificing clarity. So now that I have rambled on long enough my final thoughts are as follows: It is a great piece of technology and is well executed. No, it is not perfect, but it does what it promises to do, and does it superbly. The price was right and I see us getting many, many hours of viewing enjoyment from our investment, and it is hard to beat with the current street price under $500.00. I would highly recommend this product to other home theater enthusiasts in search of the next technology. Read more

This is the second set I bought, the first set is HD-A1SN. I have problems with both sets. When I tried to play my HD-DVD Discs, I received 'a blank' on my TV screen. My TV is a 32" Philips LCD HD-Ready set having 1366x768 pixels. But I have no problem playing other ordinary DVD Discs. I believe I need a software update. I wrote to Toshiba but so far have received no response after more than one month. I am tired of waiting. Read more

AFTER READING MANY FORUMS AND PROFESSIONAL REVIEWS AND VIEWING HD VS BLU RAY I MADE THE INFORMED AND WISE DECISION TO BUY THE HD-XA1. THE PICTURE QUALITY IS SPECTACULAR ON HD DVDS AND THE UPCONVERSION OF STANDARD DVDS ON THIS PLAYER IS IMPROVED OVER MY SONY. SOUND QUALITY IS QUITE AN IMPROVEMENT ALSO. NO ISSUES OTHER THAN MAINTAINING CLEAN DISCS IS A MUST. Read more

Unit looks very elegant, but It has a few hiccups like it will not play dual format disc the HD version,but it will play standard version.Go figure.Also rentals from netflix cross your fingers that they will play. Read more

The machine is incrediable the picture you get is lifelike. It's like your at the show with hd dvd's or regular dvd's the picture is superb. My family loves it and we would recomend it to anyone. Read more

Got it in the mail from Amazon (or sub-vendor) the other day. Terrible set-up and out-of-the-box experience. Got same cryptic error as other reviewer when I first tried to play an HD-DVD. Relatively quick and painless firmware download fixed initial problems (or get update disk from Toshiba, insert, and it fixes self). Manual barely helped - Toshiba needs to pay a few more cents per unit to hire ENGRISH SPEAKING manual writers - terrible. Followed instructions for online (connected to internet) frirmware update). MONTHS OF TRYING - NOW NOTHING SHOWS UP ON TV MONITOR OR FRONT PANEL OF HD-DVD PLAYER. NOTHING WORKS! I'M TRYING TO GET MY MONEY BACK FROM TOSLHIBA. THIS IS BY FAR THE WORST CONSUMER PRODUCT EXPERIENCE I HAVE EVER HAD. TOSHIBA, YOU ARE THE WORST! Read more