Toshiba HD-XA2 1080p HD-DVD Player

First let me say that I have or have had an A1, A2, XA2, 360 HD Drive, and PS3. This is by far the best HD-DVD player out, as well as the best SD player. The Reon's NR is awesome on SD discs, and the edge enhancement agorithm is so refined I have yet to find a reason not to leave it on level ALL the time, even on HD material. I have had experience repairing one of these and can shed some light on a couple of issues.

1 - Does your XA2 power down randomly when playing HD discs? If so it is caused by a bug that only affects some players. If the unit is turned on while its' input is selected (on the receiver or TV) a bug occurs during handshake that causes the shutdown at random. I speculate it is to do with setting the overheat threshold uncommonly low. The unit will only have this problem with HD media, when set to 1080p. Set it to 1080i and it's fine. Play SD discs at 1080p and it's fine.
-The workaround is to select any input other than the XA2's when...Read more

"Blew me away" is a phrase seen too often in HDTV and A/V equipment reviews, but that is the reaction I had to the Toshiba HD-XA2. And I am talking about DVD upconversion. I have about 1200 DVD's in my collection, and was concerned about obsolescence again. I rememeber giving away or selling my VHS collection, and was not looking forward to repeating the experience with DVD's. With the new Toshiba player, my fears were put to rest. I have a 1080p HDTV (Samsung HL-S5688W) and I set the player's output to 1080p using HDMI. One of my reference discs is the "Vertical Limit" superbit edition. There is a scene where I look at the detail in a glove worn by one of the climbers. I was always amazed to see the threads in the "Marmot" logo. With the new Toshiba player, I can see another level of detail beyond that. DVD's 480p resolution had produced more detail than I thought possible. I put in my "Charade" DVD, which was filmed in 1962. Again, I was amazed at what I had never before...Read more

This is the best upconverting DVD player out there. I've compared it directly to the Oppo 981HD and SD DVDs played on the XA2 look even better. In fact, ones that are mastered well look almost HD quality. Of course HD-DVDs will always look better and have more visual 'pop' but this player does a great job on SD ones too. In fact, sometimes I forget that I'm even viewing a SD DVD.

Compared to other HD-DVD and Blu-ray players, this one beats them all. HD-DVDs look and sound amazingly stunning and the picture quality exceeds Blu-ray players costing twice as much.

Another benefit of the HD-XA2 is that is has 5.1 direct audio outputs. If you don't have a receiver that can do HDMI, this is the only way you will be able to get the HD audio (either Dolby Digital Plus or TrueHD). Hooking any HD-DVD player via the optical audio only downconverts the audio to either DTS or Dolby Digital. But using the 5.1 direct audio (6 RCA cables) means that the player decodes the...Read more