i8myyoung's Full Review: Toshiba HD-A3 Player HD-DVD Player
I am writing this review to give the player a fair review and not someones opinion on Bluray an HD DVD.
OPERATION: Now I will agree with previous reviews about the horrid start time. It does not matter what type of movie you plan on playing with this. Once you turn the power on the machine is like a computer booting up. I am not sure if all players work this way but it takes around 1.5 minutes to turn on. Another fault is the way it plays HD DVD's. Again I am not sure if this is in all players but if you hit stop during the play of an HD DVD the player goes back to start (yikes). It is better to just use pause. It does not do this with a standard DVD. It will go right back to the point you stopped. Now people need to understand about the black sidebars. One, they do go away if you zoom the picture. HD DVD's are so perfect that you will not even notice the picture grain like a normal DVD. Another thing is, just because you got an HD DVD player, it does not mean that hollywood is going to make every movie in 16:9 ratio (HD Screen). Most movies are still made in letterbox so that is the way they come out on DVD unless adjustments are made by the DVD company.
THE LOOK: Now I do not know what people are talking about with no difference in look. Now I admit some movies are not as good as others but I got the movie "The War" with Kevin Costner and played it against my standard DVD version and it was a blowout. The HD version was vivid and clear. You could even see the leaves in the background blowing. It was like a blur in the DVD version. Now my player is hooked up to an HDMI cable so I may update this review to see how it looks when I hook it up to component (RGB) cables. Now this player is only a 1080i. My Sony TV is only a 1080i so it was pointless to pay much more for a 1080p player.
PRICE AND OFFERS: Now this is why I could not pass on this player. Although I am not sure what format (Blu-ray or HD DVD) will win the format war, and I tend to think it might be Blu-ray if only one survives, nobody had a deal like Toshiba. Not only did I only pay $200 for the unit, I got 2 movies (300 and Bourne Identity) in the box. I also got 3 free selections (my choice) from the Best Buy store when I purchased. To top it all off, I got a form to get 5 more movies by mail. That is 10 top notch movies and a player for $200. Blu-ray has nothing to match that.
SOUND QUALITY: This player only has the Optical out, but the sound is Dolby-Tru Digital and it rocks. Toshiba always had great sound processing but this is the best I have heard to date.
BLU-RAY vs. HD-DVD: The only difference in a blu-ray disc and an HD disc is storage capacity. Blu-ray can hold quite a bit more than HD. This means nothing for picture quality though. They both have identical 1080P display. I have heard rumor that the Blu-ray disc is much more sensitive to scratches. Now as far as the format war goes. Blu-ray has just taken a major hit backwards. Paramount Pictures has just recently announced that they will stop making blu-ray movies and work exclusively with HD DVD. This along with Universal only making HD DVD's is not good for Blu-ray. Blu-ray did strike back with signing Blockbuster to only having Blu-ray in the stores, but they will still have HD DVD online. Sony (the largest backer of Blu-ray) had better lower the price soon or they will find them selves in another situation like Betamax. Yeah it was Sony that had the much better Betamax and still loss to VHS (home video tapes)because they did not lower prices and started losing movie manufactures.
BOTTOM LINE: Honestly I was not ready to buy either until I was sure what format would win, but this was just a great deal. The player has its quirks but the important thing is that it looks fantastic. I honestly do not know who will win the format war. At this point it looks like they both have a big audience. The HD DVD players have been selling like crazy due to the recent super sales. As a man that knows what good video is, I can tell you that there is a difference.
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