Toshiba HD-A3 720p/1080i HD DVD Player by Toshiba
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Digital camera reviews of Toshiba HD-A3 720p/1080i HD DVD Player
Digital camera Review: works great with my 720p/1080i TV
Summary: 4 Stars
excellent value, bought for sub $100 from CC. upconverts and plays HD DVD. playing regular DVD's look awesome on my 1080i screen. still waiting for sub $100 blu-ray player and then maybe i will consider getting 1080p TV Digital camera Review: Hate The Game, Not The Player...
Summary: 4 Stars
Yes, i know HDDVD lost the format war, blah blah. if you're looking for a nice 'upconverting' player though, this is a great deal. $75 with two free HDDVDs to boot. amazing images, even with standard DVDs. this machine is a steal, even if it's 'old tech.'Digital camera Review: Crippled playback, Noisy MPEG decoding
Summary: 2 Stars
I purchased the HD-A3 mainly as a replacement for my existing 480p DVD player. The unit was attached to a 34" 1080i HDTV via a high-quality component cable.
Playback of regular DVD video discs could best be described as poor. There was a large amount of MPEG macro-block noise (especially with near-black scenes) and quantization noise (especially around on-screen text).
Additionally, if a DVD video disc was marked as copy protected (CSS encrypted), the HD-A3 would bypass the built-in 480->1080i upscaler unless you utilized the HDMI digital output. Since my HDTV lacks an HDMI input, there was no way around the issue. Also, by bypassing the upscaler, the HD-A3 also disables the inverse-telecine and de-interlacing circuitry. As such, 480p component output looked horrible due to all of the "zebra stripes" during high-motion video.
HD-DVD output was a mixed bag. Some movies would downscale because of the lack of HDMI input on my television. The movies that did play in native 1080i seemed to suffer from the same noise issue as regular DVDs.
Lastly, the unit uses a new Toshiba DVD remote control standard that is incompatible with most of the universal remotes in my collection. The only option with older remotes is if they include a learn function.
I would not recommend this player even if it didn't have the HDMI-less crippled functionality.
Digital camera Review: Toshiba HD-A3
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an excellent HD DVD player as well as an upconvert for SD DVD's. Extremely cheap price and optimum results depending on your configuration. I have it hooked up to an Optoma HD70 front projector with a Monoprice HDMI cable that displays beautifully.Digital camera Review: Now that HD-DVD is "dead" ...
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this unit after the Toshiba announcement that they were abandoning HD-DVD. What, was I nuts? Well, I got the unit for just over a hundred, with two free DVDs ("Bourne Conspiracy" & "300"). Then I bought the HD-DVD version of Collectors Edition of "Blade Runner", "Planet Earth", "2001", and U2 "Rattle and Hum" all for less than half the price of the Blue Ray versions.
I was surprised how well the upscaling did on standard def DVDs. An A/B comparison with my 5 year old Sony player operating at 720p showed a remarkable improvement with the Toshiba. I'd say somewhere to the good side of half way between SD and HD. I unloaded all the visually interesting DVDs out of the Sony carousel and cheerfully load them singly for play.
No problems with the A3 so far. Loads and unloads in 15-20 seconds, plays both HD and SD discs without a hitch.
I did talk my next door neighbor into buying one too, so we can swap HD-DVDs. And, if one of our A3's do crap out, we agreed to share the remaining unit for playing HD-DVDs.
I feel I got a lot for my money, all considered. Of course, if money is of little concern to you ...