 AVS Forum |
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Reviews
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Views
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Date of last review
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2
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2813
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Fri January 18, 2008
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Recommended By
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Average Price
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Average Rating
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50% of reviewers
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$224.50
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5.5
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supersize
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Description:
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--Features
High Definition (720p/1080i) Playback
SD Upconversion 480p/720p/1080i
Advanced Audio including Dolby® TrueHD, Dolby® Digital Plus and DTS® HD (core only), along with legacy formats including Dolby® Digital DTS®HD DVD Video
--Supported media
DVD Video
DVD VR
DVD-R (Video)
DVD-R DL (Video)
DVD-RW (Video/VR CPRM)
CD, CD-R/-RW (CD-DA)
--Input/Output
Ethernet (10/100BASE) (1)
Digital / Analog out simultaneously
Component Output
Composite Output
Analog Audio (2 ch)
Digital Optical Output
HDMI™ Output (1)
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Author
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joebob2000
Member
Registered: January 2007
Posts: 17
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Review Date: Mon November 26, 2007
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: $199.99
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Inexpensive, small chassis, firmware updates via ethernet
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Cons:
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1080i maximum output, limited audio output
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Having not owned any other HD or Blu-Ray players before, This reviewer cannot fairly compare this to other units in terms of picture quality. He can say that HD-DVD movies look superb when this player is coupled with a 1080p LCD, and no deinterlacing evidence was seen when the player was used on the reviewer's Sharp 46D64U panel. Firmware updates are very simple provided you have an ethernet connection available to the unit, and that connection also allows for downloading of online content from discs. As of this writing, there were relatively few movies supporting this in a meaningful way so it is not worthy of listing in the 'pro' area of the review.
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davidcatt
New Member
Registered: January 2004
Posts: 5
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Review Date: Fri January 18, 2008
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Would you recommend the product? No |
Price you paid?: $249.00
| Rating: 3
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Pros:
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Simple to operate (Wife could use it with out calling me at work)
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Cons:
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Did not play HD DVDs that came with it.
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I did not get a chance to use this much because it did not work out of the box. If this was a “one off” issue then it could happen to any product but after a search on Google, I found several reports of playback problems on numerous forums. Some users were suffering similar problems and others had not had any playback issues at all.
I first tried to play the HD DVD 300 which came with the player. After installation I powered on, (takes about 30 seconds to boot) I inserted the DVD and the system locked up. I powered off and then back on and this time I could get to the main menu. I watched about 15 minutes of the movie before it locked up again. Every time I tried to play the DVD it would stop, each time in slightly different place and required a power cycle to get it back to life. At this point I checked the Toshiba website for information and discovered a newer version of firmware was available which fixes certain playback issues. It did play standard definition DVDs fine but I did not look closely enough to judge up-sampling quality.
Updating the firmware was simple. I did not have Ethernet connection to the HD-A3 so downloaded the update on my PC and then dropped it on a CDR. Put the CDR into the player and it updated automatically without problem. Now it was far more stable and I played the whole of the 300 DVD with only a couple of stutters. The next day we bought a Harry Potter movie and that froze about at about 58 minutes. When working the picture quality looked great.
As I was having problems playing brand new never played before DVDs. I wondered what problems I would have with rented HD DVDs and so thought that this device or the format was not robust enough so returned it and bought a PS3 instead. The PS3 has lots of good features and worked straight out of the box. I was not able to do a side by side comparison but I have the feeling the images on the HD-A3 were slightly sharper.
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