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The Toshiba HD-A2 was my first HD-capable disc player. I have enjoyed my unit quite a bit, video quality from this Toshiba is excellent. HD-DVDs look the best, of course... but this unit also scales regular DVDs to HD resolution, with exceptional results, easily better that a regular "upscaling" DVD player. Video quality seems just as good through component and HDMI. Another plus is it seems very forgiving of scratched discs. I rent from Netflix and with my previous DVD player some movies would skip. The Toshiba HD-A2 has yet to skip on any disc, that is impressive. Now on to the main problem: this player takes forever to load and eject discs. I can make a cup of coffe waiting for a disc to eject. I have also had problems with the resume feature, it is turned on but many movies just reset if I stop watching. Perhaps there is a firmware fix, I have not checked on that. For the price Toshiba has done an excellent job, the HD-A2 is a wise choice to replace an old DVD player, even if you primarily use it to watch regular DVDs.Read full review
This HD player is my first and I so far really love it. Getting updates for it are very simple, movies look great. load times arent bad at all, on average less than 12 seconds. This particluar HD player only puts out a maximum 1080i which is great but an up-converting DVD player will do the same thing all you lose are the special HD features. I also own a Blue Ray player and they are very close in performance with the Blue Ray loading a little slower (15-18 seconds) load time. I run this player through a 52 inch Toshiba HD t.v. with a JVC home theater system for sound which I use a digital optical cable. I had this player hooked up and ready to go from box to T.V. in around 15 minutes and playing a new HD movie. I ahve read about people having issues with Toshiba but I ahve never ahd any problems with my Toshiba T.V. or the HD player and when I buy a new 120HZ LCD T.V. it wil be with the same company, I am very pleased with this product and my T.V. The only thing I might recommend is getting the 1080p version of this player if you have a true HD T.V.Read full review
The A2 really brings the picture alive, whether you're watching a Hd or regular dvd. The only problem is on older dvds it shows in 4:3 aspect. I haven't figured out a way to get around that other than changing the output setting from 1080 back to 480. It still has a sharp image, but kind of defeats the purpose of having a Hd player. The features on the hd discs are cool but kind of useless. On hd discs you can access the menu while the dvd is playing and do a p.i.p of the commentary of the movie while the movie is playing but, as I said it's kind of a useless feature. The A2 is a slow unit it seems like it takes forever for the movie to get going. After buying the player I read in the news that there are 5 major studios backing Blu-ray and are planning to not produce hd-discs. I felt a little concerned in reading this. I don't see the big advantage of Blu-ray over hd-dvd. As far as I know Blu-ray isn't making discs two-sided so that they can be played in any dvd player, and the players cost a couple of hundred more. Overall I am pleased with the player, I guess will have to see if Hd-dvd can hold up to the pressure Blu-ray is putting on them.Read full review
I purchased the A2 new from Ebay. I thought I got a good deal, until Tiger Direct announced they were selling the player plus two free movies for $129. Anyway, when the player arrived, I attempted to update the firmware via DVD-RW+, with no success. The screen kept showing an error in reading the disc. I then proceeded to try hooking the player directly to the internet. The connection was complete, but the player would not download the software. I Googled the problem and found out that you have to actually turn the player completely off then back on before it will work. Reseting the player did solve the problem, and I was finally able to download (40) software updates from Toshiba's website. I have a DVI-D television, so I had to purchase a DVI-to-HDMI cable. With the system connected, I popped a HD-DVD in and played a movie. It looks good. Much better than standard DVD, which displays at 480i. I also viewed the player in component video. However, I couldn’t really tell the difference between component 1080i vs DVI 1080i. Well except maybe the sound, which was more clear and crisp. The only problems I have with this player, is that you can’t up convert standard DVD’s when using a DVI to HDMI cable. Also the player refuses to play any of my RW+ disc, plus standard HD disc have to be extremely clean or the playback will stop periodically; especially combo disc. Overall it’s a decent player. Just be aware that the discs have to be very clean and scratch free or the playback will suffer. So keep that in mind when purchasing used HD-DVD’s online. Hopefully Toshiba will continue to offer software updates to fix the problems. However, I think the final outcome of the HD war will ultimately be the deciding if they do or not.Read full review
I bought this A2 player recently and started to watch HDDVD movies without any problems. The boot up time is about 40 sec which is not bad at all. Disc tray opens pretty fast with an insigficant lag time. There is no hick up with pictures or sounds. 1080i picture is superb. I don't think I need 1080p resolution. I called Toshiba to get the firmware update disc and received it in 5 days. The update process is painless. I don't have HDMI connection with my receiver so I only get DTS sound but it still sounds better than the DTS in my regular DVD probably due to higher bandwidth. This brings me to my only gripe with this player. Toshiba put a Dolby True HD decoder but they didn't put multichannel analog audio outputs in this player so it can be hooked up with older receivers to get Dolby True HD sounds. I know that most if not all Blu Ray players have these outputs but they lack the decoders except for the new Samsung player. Other than that, this HD player is a good value for your money.Read full review
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