Impressed, very impressed

So my room mate spilled a whole Dr Pepper on my DVD remote. I had decided earlier to wait and see how the HD VS Blu-Ray war came out. But since I needed to replace the player anyway, I made the leap to HD-DVD. Mostly because of that affordability but also based on some other feedback from others who had already made the switch.

Well sir, I must say that after about two weeks of use, I am rather impressed with the Toshiba HD-XA1 player. Although far from perfect it is an outstanding machine and had virtually no problem setting up and using this player. So let's start on the Cons. Firstly, Since my HD tv does not Support HDMI I had also purchased an HDMI to DVI conversion cable. This did not work for me and I ended up using the Component video to get the HD quality picture. (This player does support analog video if yo do not have High def but plan to upgrade later.)

Second, There was some difficulty at fiers getting to player to respond to commands issued by the remote. Out of the box, it was slow to respond period. But once I upgraded the system via the ETHERNET connection (Not to difficult, but took much time... about 30 minutes to complete.), the unit responds much better.

third and last of my big beef is the remote itself. It has some kind of motion sensing that causes the remote to light up when picked up. A nice feature but somewhat sensitive. Even If I put the remote on a solid surface like a table, it keeps lighting up when someone in the room moves or sometimes just from the light of the TV itself in a dark room.

Now for the pro's of which there are many. I was so impressed with the quality of picture and sound, even from my old DVD's as not to be believed. A regular DVD will up-convert to 480P. Outstanding for a dvd. Although the first few seconds, you might see some flickering or jumpiness while the player figures out the best sample rate. This is usually gone by the time the movie starts.

Also, I played some Audio CD's just to get a gauge on sound quality (I use optical sound through my Sony dream machine which is capable of DTS or 5.1 surround sound.) But even with just a standard audio disc the sound reproduction is the best I have ever heard. Near studio quality!

Once I purchased an HD-DVD, that is where the fun really begins. 1080I is the best my TV will do but even at 1080I, all I can say is Oh! MY GOD! My HD TV does not even look this good with an antenna picking up local HD stations. Clear and crisp (Even with My glasses off!). So far, all of the movies I bought are Warner brothers releases but I am impressed that Warner has seemed to standardized (Somewhat) how the menus work and as most Warner discs are currently, when you insert the movie (After a brief HD-DVD tutorial on how the menus work), the movie starts without you having to do anything.

In summary, let me say that Beside the high price tag $799.00 for this particular player (You can get other players for around $500.00), I am more than satisfied and recommend this player. I have had no problem viewing or purchasing any discs. (I currently have 6 movies and have not seen any quality issues or playback problems.). Congratulations to Toshiba, this is a winner!