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Toshiba Toshiba HD-A2

79

Good
  • Pros
  • Well-designed on-screen menus
  • Ethernet connection for interactivity and updates
  • Cons
  • Outputs 1080i image resolution

User Reviews for Toshiba Toshiba HD-A2

  • Reviewed by: free2speak

    Duration of ownership: 2 Months

    Strengths: Excellent video and audio for a little money.

    Weaknesses: Slow startup.

    Overall Evaluation: I am very pleased with the HD-A2. I have watched around 20 movies since I purchased the player. My HDTV is 1080i so the HD-A2 is a perfect match with great image quality. The sound is sent as a very rich DTS sidnal over the optical cable. The internet connection works very well for firmware updates, and movie content. There are many unique interactive features that work well on this HD DVD player. I would definately buy again.

  • Reviewed by: klingon

    Duration of ownership: 2 Months

    Strengths: Phenominal pic quality and fantastic upscaling of standard definition DVDs!!

    Weaknesses: No 5.1 analog output! :(

    Overall Evaluation: This is a fantastic piece of equipment, anyone who says just because it does 1080i and not 1080p that it doesnt have the resolution of AX2 is sadly mistaken and needs to do some research including Mr Lincln, please read up a little before reviewing products.All HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs will encode film-sourced material in full 1920x1080 progressive scan resolution at 24 frames per second. The reason why we get interlacing artifacts in a 1080i signal is that the frame was originally captured in interlaced format, with the odd scan lines and even scan lines being recorded at two different moments in time. When you reassemble two fields that are offset in time, you get jaggies, moire patterns, barber pole effects, and line twitter. That is not true of either HD-DVD or Blu-ray film transfers since the image is scanned progressively from a film frame that represents a single moment in time. Therefore we would expect to see none of the common evidence of deinterlacing when watching HD-DVD or Blu-ray movies that are being transmitted via 1080i Now what our reviewer here is refering to as being artifacts while watching Mission imposible could be introduced by the TV which probably doesnt have a good deinterlacing chip, if he would have bothered to use a high quality progressive display device he wouldnt have complaned! Hope he'll be carefull in his future reviews! regards Khan

  • Reviewed by: Timmy2tone

    Duration of ownership: 1 Month

    Strengths: Really outstanding resolution. My Hitachi HDTV (no HDMI Connection, so 1080i is the highest resolution capable) is being replaced by Sony's KDS A2000 60" SXRD Grand WEGA because watching a HD-DVD at 1080P on the Grand WEGA is absolutely mind-blowing. I've compared the exact TV, Sony's Blu-ray player and movie side by side with the Toshiba A2 and believe the true value is found in Toshiba A2

    Weaknesses: Takes a few seconds to boot up, but then again, it's a whole different technology than the standard DVD players. Personally, I don't see any significant weaknesses.

    Overall Evaluation: Easy to hook up. Menu options are simple and sweet to use. The player is a nice looking machine. Right now, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

  • Reviewed by: fabjim74

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: The price is exelent, it works as promise, the PQ is great, and the sound is a WOW factor.

    Weaknesses: I wish it has analog 7.1 conectios, but for the price I can't complaint too much.

    Overall Evaluation: If your are like me, and can wait too much, then go for it> The way I see it is this, for $ 247 you can experienced HD movies right now and not wait another year or so for this war to end, and maybe you can help end it sooner. If Blue-Ray wins (I don't think they will) you can still play regular DVD in a exellent up-convertion unit better that most I see in stores, and save a punch of money, that you can use to buy a BR player for lower price than you pay right now and I think you still would save money. So my opinion is this enjoy your new HDTV now and not wait for another year of this stupid fight that nobody really cares about, we all just want to see HD movies, no matter if is F***** BR or HD. Good luck guys waiting and waiting.

  • Reviewed by: dbulkley

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Value, design

    Weaknesses: Slow boot, won't resume a film at a midpoint, seems to demand discs with perfect surfaces

    Overall Evaluation: This thing worked great for a handful of HD DVD films a friend loaned to me, but playing anything from Blockbuster is a crapshoot as fully 70% of the rental discs will not play. Either the machine denies that the disc is of DVD format, or it insists that there is no disc in its' mouth at all. It seems to barf on the slightest imperfection on the surface of the disc. I will take the issue up with customer support tomorrow - I'm writing this review now because it won't play my new films and so I'm bored....

  • Reviewed by: mouseissue

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Extremely high quality audio and video even with standard DVDs. It makes standard DVDs look almost as good as true HD-DVDs. Toshiba's customer service for HD-DVD players is EXCELLENT!

    Weaknesses: A bit slow during startup. Otherwise runs great!

    Overall Evaluation: When I first used this HD-DVD player is was very quirky. It would lockup during playback, freeze during DVD pause, sometimes be completely unresponsive, and be generally very slow... It was VERY frustrating! I almost returned the unit for a refund. I contacted Toshiba's customer service and got through to a real person right away. Customer service told me that Toshiba was coming out a firmware update disk that should fix the problems. I received the update disk about 2 weeks later and performed the update (it took about 15 minutes). After the update completed, I tried it out and found that it was much faster at startup (although still a bit slow) and all other problems seemed to have been fixed. The slowness during startup could be the time it takes the unit's "HDMI handshake" process to go through my home theater receiver and HDTV. I have a lot of standard DVDs and was thinking about replacing them for HD-DVD versions... I'm glad I didn't! With this unit, I can barely tell the difference! I recommend this unit to anyone looking for a high quality HD-DVD player!

  • Reviewed by: mark71mark

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Beautiful 1080i output.Upconverts regular DVD's.

    Weaknesses: No hdmi cable included.No analog 5.1 output.

    Overall Evaluation: With new technology dropping in price nearly every week, this Toshiba HD-A2 finally fell into my target range and I bought it. To sweeten the pot, there is a mail-in form for 3 free hd-dvd's with this purchase. I was dismayed that the only cable included in the box is a component video cable (other than the power cable). Fortunately, I had an hdmi cable laying around and used it to connect directly to the tv instead of the component one. Since I don't have an HDMI audio receiver, and this player doesn't have analog 5.1 output (the HD-XA2 does), I used a toslink optical cable to connect to my receiver. It was a snap to get everything connected and running. After setting the date, and tweaking a couple of minor setup options, I proceeded to play an hd-dvd. It took a little bit longer to put in the hddvd and begin playing compared to my old non-hd dvd player, but when the movie finally started it was all really worth it. I tried playing some old standard dvd's and they seem to look better than I remember them to be, probably from the player's upconversion. Apparently, there's been a recent firmware upgrade for the HD-A2, and I have the choice of sending in a little card for Toshiba to mail me an upgrade dvd, or I can simply use the player's built-in ethernet port and download it directly to the player.

  • Reviewed by: Jakeyyyyy

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Picture Quality - HD and very importantly Upconverting

    Weaknesses: Format Support - Movie Studios.

    Overall Evaluation: After researching and testing both options, I have concluded that HD-DVD has superior picture quality. Not only with HD but hands down with up-converting which is very important right now as not everyone can afford a new library of dvd's, and not all DVD's are in HD. Also this makes up for the unfortunate point of less HD-DVD support by movie studios. Blu-Ray has a harsher picture and you will notice it much more when upconverting. I see the choice being: Having more support of rich, powerful companies, or having superior picture quality. I choose picture quality!!

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