Toshiba HD-XA2 price and reviews

For me the XA2 has it all-or nearly all: the HDMI 1.3a connection, with the $599 price tag, 5 free HD movies, the ability to upgrade (hopefully soon) to 1080p/24 resolution (BIG difference on my PS3), ethernet, and decoding lossless HD audio (coming in A/V receivers Onkyo, Pioneer). Until 1080p/24 arrives on this unit from Toshiba, I would not give it a 10... an 11 when it does.

I love this machine! I don't have any HD-DVDs yet, so my opinion is solely based on its picture production qualities when upconverting regular DVDs and its use with a Panasonic TH-50PZ750U tv. The picture is clear and text is awesome. Everyone who has been to my house has commented on the picture quality.
I was a little leary of the wait time that has been mentioned by others--the time for the DVD to be loaded and the XA2 to do its magic. However, the time is literally 7 seconds and only occurs during the initial loading of the DVD--it does not happen each time you ask the DVD player to do something with the disc (i.e. select different scenes, pause then resume play, etc).
Ok, now for the down side. Some people have had their XA2 freeze up and then just keep freezing up so that they can't watch a DVD. This is not the case with my XA2, but I live in fear of it. When it's frozen, it's frozen. The first time it happened, nothing worked--stop, pause, play, select, and eject all resulted in nothing. I simply unplugged the machine, plugged it back in, let the disc reload, and then watched the rest of the DVD. After the 1st time, it didn't happen again immediately. About 5 days later the 2nd incident occurred--just like the first. I then lived problem-free for about 3 months until it happened again last week. I consider this problem to be a lurking evil--it's just an infrequent inconvenience right now but it does signal that all is not happy in The Land Of The XA2. My fear is that it will freeze, I will fix it, it will freeze immediately, I will fix it, it will freeze immediately, and thus will end the short era of Awesome DVD Watching at my house. However, in its defense, I watch a lot of DVDs (about 2 DVDs each weekday and about 3 each weekend day). For all it's use, the XA2 has only been a problem 3 times. I'm toying with sending it back and getting a replacement but the prices have just jumped, so I'll have to pay an additional $200-$300 to get a new one. I will update this post to let interested parties know how the freezing issue turns out.

I'm not a noob when it comes to HDM. I have been into it for about a year. I've owned the A2, the A35 and the XA2. I got rid of the 35 because it cannot fully resolve 1080p/60. When I got the XA2, the first thing I did was run HD Digital Video Essentials on it. It passed with flying colors.

The upconversion ability of this device is nothing short of astounding. I will be going format neutral in about a month, so my wife and I are compiling a list of titles that we own in SD format (500+ of them) that look so well, we will not be buying the HDM version. Certain titles can easily be confused for high definition...I'm not joking or exagerating.

I bought the XA2 after the Warner announcement. This player has taken some of the sting out of the fact that HD DVD may not make it. But I still have faith, we have a mini HT in our bedroom and the A2 looks fantastic on a 37" LCD.

I'll just have to take extreme care of my players and HD DVDs (73, at last count)

If you can find an XA2, run, do not walk to pick one up. Also, make sure you have an HDMI display. HDCP won't allow you to upconvert SD DVDs to 1080i/p with component cables.

This is probably the coolest HT component I have ever purchased. It has my highest recommendation!

I decided before buying I would like the best upconverting quality DVD player available for my new Toshiba 65" TV. Since the HD DVD format was already available in newer computers they could be capable of duplicating movies, so I guessed the chances were that all the big movie makers would favour Blu Ray to protect their product prices. But why would anyone buy an HD DVD movie, when the Toshiba A2 was producing a great picture from a standard DVD movie, at much less cost from a far greater library base. The major reason for my HD DVD player was the National Geographic and BBC special Documentaries like 'Planet Earth', and it would seem these two major players favor HD DVD and will continue to support HD DVDs as a very lucrative market. So I happily paid about 340us for my HD DVD A2 a few months before they were discontinued and now I'm buying lots of HD and DVD disk set at half price, due to the Blue Ray shift. Boy am I lucky, although I've spent over 500us on my HD documentary and moviesets library...
I would happily do the same thing again...
Do the math on what you feel your needs are folks. In ten years there will be totally new products to tempt you all anyway. Puzzling - the lack of reviews and silence about legitamate downloading HD DVD movies and movie rentals on your HD DVD based computer right now and burning them or direct playing them to your HD TV? The wheels of big buisiness protecting themselves are in motion and you can submit or decide what YOUR OWN needs are.

Like the color that it's black to match most component out in the market . So far it seems to read the disc much better than previous model and have not gotten an error (Only time will tell). I see why they got rid of the door due to malfunction but it made it look tricked out ... too bad it never worked right though . One thing I don't get is that I have just purchased the unit and already there's a firmware upgrade . It looks as it's still in a experimental stage .

While some might consider this player pricy considering that this is cutting edge technology with 1080p and that it plays most discs other than BlueRay...the price seems in line. I am more than pleased with the purchase. Most surprising is the playback of Standard Definition DVD's. I expected HD-DVD's to be good, but was amazed how my dvd's looked...darker, more crisp with better sound! I paid $899 for the player and got 2 free HD-DVD's over above the 3 HD-DVD Toshiba offers through mail-in rebate. The HDMI 1.3 communicates with my HDMI 1.2 connections both in my receiver and tv. In light of the benefits of this player I could careless about BlueRay. Nothing against BR...just not important anymore.

I got mine for $600, no S&H. I really can't tell the difference between SD-DVD and HD-DVD, it's that good.

As I understand it from the avsforums, the DD+ and TrueHD audio is not available except on the analog outs. Some sort of problem that Toshiba is working on. Not a big deal to me because I am happy with standard DD5.1.

Well...I am writing this after having used this site to read other reviews which greatly helped in making my purchase decision.

I purchased online for about $399 and it arrived just fine.

I wanted a great quality HD DVD player at a reasonable price and this model is everything I could have asked for.

The most impressive feature to me is the up-conversion feature to 1080P for standard DVD's you may already have in your library.

This means that every DVD you may already have in your collection will DEFINITELY look almost High Def.

We re-watched our old Pearl Harbor DVD and the difference is amazing. The video quality was amazing and was awesome on our Sharp Aquos 52" LCD HD TV.

I have also viewed the new HD DVD's on this model with equally impressive results.

Probably one of the best new video products I have ever purchased. Be sure to use the HDMI input/output cable for best quality.

I was one of the first people to own one these, and if you own a 1080P TV, do hesitate to spend money on this if PQ/SQ are your thing.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=782887
Thee quality of this player is amazing

The HD-XA2 is the finest SD/HD DVD player that Toshiba has ever made,everything about this player is top notch.SD upconversion is spectacular and the picture controls allow you to customize the picture for any TV and disc.The noise reduction settings really help on poor quality transfers.