Toshiba HD-A30 1080p HD DVD Player by Toshiba
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Our Price: $399.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $79.00 (click here) Category: Home Theater See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Toshiba HD-A30 1080p HD DVD Player
Digital camera Review: Best Value....Even For A Dead Format!
Summary: 5 Stars
First off, I want to ask that people stop giving this unit 2 or 3 stars simply because HD DVD is fazing out faster than Blu-Ray will. This is a great DVD player and that's what's important.
I have a rather large HD DVD collection and bought this mainly to have no reason not to be able to enjoy my films. So I started monitoring costs of high end players after Toshiba lost to Sony's payoffs. Ups and downs were abound in cost almost every day, sadly, more ups lately. I got lucky one night when I saw the A30 on sale for $112 with the 7 free movies. So I grabbed it up, insuring my collections longevity.
Now, for the review. Wow! I have the A2 and thought it did a good job of up-converting, I was wrong. Not only does the 1080p/24f mode make HD DVD's look stunning on the A30, it truly has given me no reason to re-buy any of my rather large DVD collection. The A2 always looked good, but gave off a sort of digital haze around images, more prevalent on distant objects. The A30 does not suffer from this at all. DVD's look more like a low quality HD DVD....which is a good thing by the way...
The colors are stunning, the textures look natural. I use this on a Panasonic PT-AX100U high def projector. This is the prettiest thing to hit my 110" screen. My gripes about this unit are none. If you are unsure about spending close to $500 to get a good Blu-Ray player, wait. Don't give into the cheep ones either for they are already outdated. While the only reason the A30 is outdated is because HD DVD is fading away. Don't get me wrong, that's a big negative, but at least you're not being lied to about that. And for the price, it's one of the best up-converting players on the market. Plus, you can get a few high def movies for great prices in the process. One of the perks of supporting the losing format.
I will call out the other big complaint. Load time. Obviously, none of the ones complaining about that own a Blu-Ray player or have owned a previous HD DVD model. The load time is half what the 2nd gen players were. I'm not even going to begin with how long the 1st gen players took. For me, my projector takes the exact same amount of time to warm up as the A30, about 20 seconds. With my A2 the projector had warmed up and I was still waiting around another 15 seconds. So the load time isn't bad at all. Unless of course you are in such a hurry to watch a movie that the extra 20 seconds is going to make you late for some huge appointment in which case you probably shouldn't be watching a movie. Seriously! Watching movies is supposed to be relaxing. Since when has anyone died because they couldn't put the DVD in the moment they hit power?
My conclusion. If you are waiting for Sony to drop their pride/greed and give average Joe a chance to enjoy high def, well, you're gonna be waiting around a while. While you wait, the A30 is a great option for turning your current DVD collection into a near high def one. Keep an eye on the price though. If you can snag it for around $100, it's a real bargain.
Also, keep an eye on HD DVD software. If you see a good chunk of movies for bargain prices that you actually want, this could also be a good investment. Remember, all technology is out of date within a year anyway. Might as well enjoy it now.
Digital camera Review: Biggest POS I've Ever Bought!!!!
Summary: 1 Stars
Save your money, or spend it on a Blu-Ray player. I have yet to view a DVD on this worthless piece of junk. All I ever get is an error message which says "This disc is not DVD format. Cannot play this disc". I wasted an evening downloading the latest firmware update and burning it to DVD. When I put the DVD in the player to update the firmware, I got the same message. This thing is being returned tomorrow. I should have known that with Microsoft involved in the development and promotion of HD DVD that it would be worthless.Digital camera Review: Bit the dust after 5 months
Summary: 1 Stars
This player was problematic almost from the get-go, I only paid $130 for it last November, turns out it wasn't worth even that low price. The first issue? I would have to close the disc tray 4 or 5 times before it would stay closed. Then, after about 5 months it would no longer read discs. Very poor quality on this machine, plus HD-DVD lost the war. I dusted off my 7 year old JVC player, plugged it in, and it is in every way the Toshiba's equal plus it actually works perfectly after all these years.Digital camera Review: Bogus Posts
Summary: 5 Stars
Looks like the Blew Ray trolls are posting phony reviews here as they have been on other sites. Don't be fooled. These Toshiba players are excellent perfomers and this is why they sell like they do. I have 2 in my house and enjoy them without issues. I like the variety of choices in models to fit almost any budget and the ethernet updates are unbeatable. Go ahead and get one and spoil yourself.Digital camera Review: Clear picture but audio blows you away
Summary: 4 Stars
Update: Do not buy, HD DVD discontinued by Toshiba. Sold the unit on eBay after BluRay "won" the HD disc battle. Went with Apple TV Apple TV with 40GB Hard Drive - MA711LL/Arather than BluRay. Cheaper initial costs, plus movies can be rented/purchased for a fraction of the cost of discs.
I am usually an early adoptor but I held off on a buying a new HD player until now. Reason I went with HD DVD was the price. Sorry, you can't beat this price, plus 10 free DVDs. Even if BluRay were to come out the winner, this player makes your regular DVDs look great anyway. (The format war is the reason it didnt get 5 stars as there is some risk involved with the purchase)
Make sure you install the new firmware upgrade first. I just downloaded the upgrade from the Toshiba site onto a CD-R but you can connect via ethernet as well.
Picture quality is great. I have a Samsung 5054 and films come across very sharp and clear. The kicker for me was the audio. Sound is phenomenal. I am using a single HDMI connection thru my Onkyo 605 receiver. If you have a decent home theater set up it is worth investing in this player.
Amazon has some good deals on HD DVDs, rentals I will probably do thru Netflix.
Update: Sold the unit on eBay after BluRay "won". Went with Apple TV rather than BluRay. Cheaper initial costs, plus movies can be rented/purchased for a fraction of the cost of discs.