Toshiba HD-A35 1080p HD DVD Player by Toshiba
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List Price: Our Price: $239.00 You Save: $60.99 (20%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Home Theater See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Toshiba HD-A35 1080p HD DVD Player
Digital camera Review: 99% perfect
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm very happy with this player. I have it connected through an HDMI switch into the HDMI input of a 6.1 surround system, which then finally connects to the HDMI input of my 1080p hdtv. Haven't noticed any HDMI link issues whatsoever.
HD-DVD movies look great. DVDs look wonderful too - far better than I expected. Sound (from the 6.1 receiver) is incredible. Try watching the "Dodge This" scene from the Matrix - it sounds like the final bullet from the Agent goes straight through your skull!
So why only 4 stars? 1) The MSRP is very high. I got a good deal (thank you Amazon!), but especially with recent announcements it seems like BluRay may end up being the winning format war. 2) By default it outputs in 1080i; if you have a 1080p tv you have to do a 1-time settings change. Would be nice if it could automatically detect this. (I don't know if this is a limitation in the technology or the player; but as a consumer, I don't care!) 3) As others have said, this takes a while from when you first turn it on until it's ready to receive a disk. When it comes to electronics, I'm all about "instant gratification". All in all though, to wait 30 seconds for a beautiful picture is definitely worth it! 4) maybe I'm doing something wrong but sometimes when I fast-forward a movie I get a very useful on-screen time bar to display where I'm at, but sometimes I don't. I don't like having to figure out the inconsistency - I wish it were either always on when fast-forwarding, or never on. Ignorance is bliss.
Digital camera Review: A dead format
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought this back when HD-DVD and Blu-ray were still going head to head. I had a feeling Blu-ray would win out, but the price on HD-DVD was half that of Blu-ray at the time.
For the time I had this HD-DVD player, it served it's purpose. It played high def well. Once Blu-ray became the clear cut winner, I traded in this player to Best Buy and got a little over $100 of trade in dollars and bought a new Sony Blu-ray player. I'm pleased with my new Blu-ray player.
Digital camera Review: A little disappointed
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought this DVD player as my first entry into the world of HD-DVD. My expectation level was very high based on the reviews that this product has received and Toshiba's reputation as an industry leader. My experience, however, has not lived up to my expectations.
Initial setup went as expected and I immediately download the latest firmware (version 1.1). The firmware update took approximately 1/2 hour but completed normally. I tested the unit with both HD-DVDs and standard DVDs. The HD picture and sound quality were excellent and the up-convert of the standard DVD was very good. That's the good news. While watching only my second HD-DVD (brand new), the player froze for approximately 1 second about half way through the movie. It then continued to play, however, the picture and sound tracks were no longer in sync. I stopped the movie, rewound through the affected scene and re-played and it played perfectly. Later, I tried to simply power up the player and it locked up completely. The lights were on but it would not respond to controls from either the front panel or the remote. I had to force a power down by pressing and holding the power button until it powered off. My final complaint is concerning speed. This unit takes considerably longer to power up to a ready state than any DVD player that I have ever owned. It is also very slow to load DVDs and extremely slow to respond to remote commands.
I understand that this unit is in it's infancy and I sincerely hope that Toshiba is able to work out the bugs with firmware updates. With that said, however, I expected more quality from a DVD player with a $500 price tag.
01/03/08 - As an addendum to my original review - Since upgrading to firmware 1.3, my experience has improved considerably. It's still a little slow on startup, but nothing like it was and my playback issues have virtually vanished. I'm very glad that I gave it a second chance and didn't send it back. At this point, I would probably give it 4-5 stars.
Digital camera Review: A nice upgrade..
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased this player as an upgrade from my A1. I was plesantly surprised at the quality improvements over the A1. And the load times as spoiled me (I got an A1 at launch and kinda got used to the long load times of it). I SD upconversion is alson pretty nice. I wish I had an XA-2 to compare it to, but oh well. I am satisfied.Digital camera Review: A steal at today's prices
Summary: 4 Stars
Connected to the router, firmware update was a snap. Don't rush it though, it'll let you know when it's finished. Also, if you disconnect power to the A35, it'll send you to setup next time you turn it on.
I feed the A35 into an Onkyo 705 over HDMI. It bitsreams TrueHD on down as advertised and can force 1080P/24fps, which looks great on a Sammy 5084. The aerial city scenes in the Bourne Ultimatum are stunning. 300 came in the box and sounds awesome in TrueHD.
Playing CDs, I'll compare it to the PS3. The A35 allows the 705 to offer more sound choices, is simpler to use, and silent. It doesn't play SACDs though and if you have any DVD-A discs, they'll both play the DD or DTS tracks but the PS3 is much quicker. Which brings up the biggest flaw: the A35 seems slow - at everything - compared to the PS3. Initial start-up, loading a disc, changing tracks, etc.
If you have an HT system that can display 24fps & work with bitsream lossless audio and it makes sense to you to own an HD-DVD player given the state of the format, the A35 is the one - especially at what they're going for now.