Toshiba HD-A30 1080p HD DVD Player by Toshiba
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Digital camera reviews of Toshiba HD-A30 1080p HD DVD Player
Digital camera Review: DO NOT BUY
Summary: 1 Stars
Do not buy any Toshiba HD DVD players. Press releases state that they are no longer in the HD DVD business. They have quit making them.Digital camera Review: Do Not Buy It
Summary: 1 Stars
Before buying this player, I read the reviews on this page. A number of reviews mentioned that this player is very slow to start up and very slow to play when a DVD is inserted. However, I didnt' think it's a big issue. After all, how slow can it be? So I went ahead and bought it.
Please DO NOT make the same mistake. This DVD player is horrific !!!
It takes a very, very, very, very , very, very, very very...long, long, long, long, long , long , long, long, long, long, long....time to boot up and play a disc.
You can buy any player, but not this one !
Digital camera Review: Does exactly what it says, but no more
Summary: 4 Stars
This player performs exactly as advertised. It plays HD DVDs, DVDs and CD audio discs and nothing else. Although some have complained of seeing jagged lines in 1080p mode, I don't have this problem with my HDTV, which incidentally does not support 1080p/24 mode, so I have used 1080p mode with the player. I also have no way to test whether or not this player only downconverts audio as my 3 year old receiver can't accept HDMI inputs and has no Dolby TrueHD decoding, so I have to use downconversion from the player. The documentation seems to indicate that the player may be capable of sending out unconverted audio streams via bitstream, but I have no way to test this. There must be some kind of difference between the A-35 and this model to justify the higher cost of the A-35, so perhaps the other review is right that the A-30 can't send out unconverted audio streams.
Pros:
Plays HD DVDs very well.
Upconverts DVDs very well.
Excellent quality audio, even if it is downconverted to DTS or AC3.
DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-R DL and DVD+R DL were tested by me and all work fine. I've read that CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-RW and DVD+RW all work, but I didn't test them.
Automatically sends DVD output in 4:3 or 16:9 depending on how the DVD is authored. In other words, if the DVD is 16:9, the player sends out 16:9 video and if the DVD is 4:3, it sends out 4:3 video. This is a nice feature.
Cons:
Won't play VCD, SVCD, Divx, MP3, JPG.
Will only play region 1 and region 0 (all region) DVDs.
Won't play PAL video at all.
Won't play HD DVD format on burnable DVD DL discs, even though HD DVD format explicitly allows this and earlier generation players were reported to play such discs.
Firmware updates are SLOW. It took 15+ minutes to update my firmware from 1.1 to 1.3 (1.3 is also known as 1300U).
To be fair, Toshiba makes no claims at all to play anything in my Con list above, but I just want to be clear that if someone expects this to be a "play everything" kind of player that it certainly is NOT that. Interestingly, the player did play a test DVD I have of MPEG-1 video, so the player could support VCD and SVCD too if the firmware was written to allow it.
Digital camera Review: Does what it says...BUT
Summary: 4 Stars
The Toshiba HD A30 delivers a great image onto my 60" Sony SXRD @ 1080P/24 via the HDMI.
I use the fiber optical audio outut into my Denon receiver because it doesn't do HDMI, but the audio in 5.1 is awesome through my Magneplanar fronts and Klipsch reference grade surrounds and 10D sub.
The only issue I've had is that it has locked up on two HD-DVD's that were of the "HD-on one side and normal DVD on the other" variety.
I actually had to unplug the the player and let it reboot from power off, the switch wouldn't work. After the reboot, it worked fine on both disks after that. However, I noticed that those type of disks do not seem to have ALL the typical HD-DVD features either, but that's another issue.
All in all it's been excellent and glitch free on the HD-DVD only disks.
But also note I haven't done a firmware update yet.
And FYI, I just ordered a PS3 to watch Blu-rays on and I'll be able to comapre the two. (and see Pirates and Spidey in 1080P)
Digital camera Review: Doesn't get any better than this!
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been using this unit for a week now, and all I can say is...I love it! I had been holding off on buying a high def DVD player for a long time, waiting out the Blu-Ray/HD format war. I was leary of Blu-Ray with it's high price and technical problems. Then a 10 free HD DVD offer pushed me over the edge and I took the HD plunge. Needless to say, I have NOT been disappointed. I've watched at least one movie every day for the last week and have had absolutely no problems with this machine or any of the discs. Every thing plays fine, without any firm-ware updates. NO PROBLEMS! Movies look absolutely fantastic on my Panasonic HD TV. A comparison between the Casino sd-dvd and HD DVD totally blew me away! It's not even a comparison. The HD picture is sharp and crisp. Colors are warm and vibrant. Textures of fabrics, and facial features are extremely detailed and life like. This is the look of perfect! I am having a blast watching old favorites for the "first time" in HD. This is the best puchase I've made in a long time. Even the recent news regarding Warner Bros. supporting Blu-Ray exclusively isn't enough to dampen my enthusiasm. There is a plethora of HD titles available, both new releases and classics, many of which are not (and may never be) available on Blu-Ray. If you love movies, and if your favorites are available on HD DVD, do not hesitate. Take the plunge. Snatch up this amazing machine and immerse yourself in the HD experience.