Toshiba HD-A30 1080p HD DVD Player

• HD DVD Playback
• DVD/CD Playback
• Upconversion for SD
• 720p/1080i/1080p resolution
• Includes Warner Bros' 300 HD DVD and Universal's The Bourne Identity HD DVD (packaged inside)

I didn't buy this from Amazon, but since reviews of the player are scarce, I thought I'd share some thoughts.

A few short months ago I bought the Xbox add-on to try the HD-DVD waters, and have been nothing but impressed, so when my standard DVD player died (my 7th one in 8 years, I'm a very heavy DVD watcher), I decided to invest in a player that will (hopefully) last (I also purchased a 4 year warranty this time).

The player itself is beautiful, both in appearance and on screen (watching on 1080p Samsung LCD). Picture quality of HD-DVD is, as expected, superb, and DVD upscaling is the best I have ever seen (easily destroying my 1 year old Sony).

A very few negatives. Boot times are still a bit slow, it takes about 40 seconds before the HD-DVD logo appears on screen, with another 20 seconds to load the disc, it's around 60 seconds total from power on to actually start watching the disc. Discs also don't resume play, which is odd as it seems to be a feature. If you don't power off the unit and stop a disc, it will resume where you left off, but if you power off the player, it restarts from the beginning, very odd, but Toshiba could easily fix in a firmware update.

All in all I am very, very pleased, the unit feels sold, looks amazing on your shelf and features some of the best video quality I have ever seen. The few, "problems" don't really bother me, but I wanted to mention them as it could turn off some people. Thanks for reading!

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I just watched my first HD DVD, and all I can say is WOW! The picture quality of 1080p/24 is amazing. This player also does a nice job on SD DVD,the upconversion to 1080i looks great too. I have this player connected to a Samsung DLP 1080p TV and an Onkyo receiver, all interconnected via HDMI. This is the finest picture and sound combination I have ever owned. I am looking forward to more releases on HD DVD, Amazon has a great selection at great prices.

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I bought this player probably without doing my homework thoroughly; even all the literature says that it passes the new audio formats (True HD, DD+, etc), this player does not pass these formats via the HDMI cable to be decoded by the AVR. It makes its own decoding, and as the Toshiba customer service rep said, it passes "its own version" of the new formats, and only in 5.1

The ONLY player that as of today can pass the new audio formats via the HDMI cable to be decoded by a capable AVR is the HD-A35.

I am returning it and getting the HD-A35.

Other than this, the player works as designed and the picture is absolutely breathtaking.

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I have had this player for a few days now, and have the following to say.

1. It takes me 50-52 seconds to load, from on to off. then another 25 seconds to load a disc, so about 1min 15 seconds from off to Menu Screen.

Not very quick, but better then Gen 1 players.

2. My Sony upconverting DVD player seems to do a better job in my tests. Cleaner picture then this player for upconverting, but it was close.

3. HD-A30 does a nice job at 1080p at 24 frames per second output, if your TV is capable of 1080p/24 then this player will work great. Otherwise, the 1080p/60 doesn't look very good. It tends to show a lot of jaggies this way. When I flip to 1080i mode and let the TV handle the processing then the jaggies are gone. If your HDTV does a good 1080i deinterlacing you can set the HD-A30 to 1080i mode, however, this would be a waste of buying the HD-A30 as its full 1080p processor. You would be better off saving $100 and getting the HD-A3

4. For the money, its an OK HD-DVD player, slim, looks nice. No analog outputs (HD-A35 has this) so if you are going Strictly HDMI 1080p, get this player. If your TV is 1080i or 720p, don't bother, the HD-a3 is good enough.

Honestly, I don't know if the differences between the HD-A20 and HD-A30 are worth $100 price diff. Take about the same time to Load, same PQ/AQ for the most part.

I sat on the sidelines for a long while, waiting for the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray war to come to some conclusion, but I am extraordinarily happy that I've finally jumped it. With the great price that Amazon had on this player, and the bundled movies that came with it, I couldn't see waiting any longer.

I replaced an Onkyo 6 disc changer with this Toshiba. The Onkyo was connected with component cables, while the Toshiba is connected with HDMI. The picture quality is outstanding with HD-DVDs and at very good with the one normal DVD that I tried. My TV is an older 720p Samsung DLP TV, and the difference is still noticeable. I can't WAIT until I get a 1080p TV.

The only potential negatives: It takes a while to start up. It's about twice as long as my old Onkyo, but there's a lot going on in there.

I've greatly enjoyed Blade Runner, Serenity, Mission Impossible III and The Bourne Identity on HD-DVD so far, as well as Battlestar Galactica on regular DVD. The only thing better than the picture quality is the sound quality. I've paired this with an outstanding Onkyo TX-SR805 receiver, and the sound is good enough to make your jaw drop!

Highly recommended. I see no reason to buy Blu-Ray. I can suffer along with upconverted DVDs for those movies until the world becomes more sane. And Netflix rocks with their support for HD-DVD.